530 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



in which we live, that an effect produced on any one point is instantly trans- 

 mitted to the most remote and apparently unconnected parts of the system. 



The two advantages of increased cheapness and speed, besides extending 

 the amount of existing traffic, call into existence new objects of commercial 

 intercourse. For the same reason that the reduced cost of transport, as we 

 have shown, calls new soils into cultivation, it also calls into existence new 

 markets for manufactured and agricultural produce. The great speed of 

 transit which has been proved to be practicable, must open a commerce be- 

 tween distant points in various articles, the nature of which does not permit 

 them to be preserved so as to be fit for use beyond a certain time. Such are, 

 for example, many species of vegetable and animal food, which at present are 

 confined to markets at a very limited distance from the grower or feeder. The 

 truth of this observation is manifested by the effects which have followed the 

 intercourse by steam on the Irish channel. The western towns of England 

 have become markets for a prodigious quantity of Irish produce, which it had 

 been previously impossible to export. If animal food be transported alive 

 from the grower to the consumer, the distance of the market is limited by the 

 power of the animal to travel, and the cost of its support on the road. It is 

 only particular species of cattle which bear to be carried to market on common 

 roads and by horse-carriages. But of the peculiar nature of a railway, the 

 magnitude and weight of the loads which may be transported on it, and the 

 prodigious speed which may be attained, render the transport of cattle, of every 

 species, to almost any distance, both easy and cheap. In process of time, 

 when the railway system becomes extended, the metropolis and populous towns 

 will therefore become markets, not as at present to districts within limited dis- 

 tances of them, but to the whole country. 



The moral and political consequences of so great a change in the powers 

 of transition of persons and intelligence from place to place are not easily cal- 

 culated. The concentration of mind and exertion which a great metropolis 

 always exhibits, will be extended in a considerable degree to the whole realm. 

 The same effect will be produced as if all distances were lessened in the pro- 

 portion in which the speed and cheapness of transit are increased. Towns 

 at present removed some stages from the metropolis, will become its suburbs ; 

 others, now at a day's journey, will be removed to its immediate vicinity ; busi- 

 ness will be carried on with as much ease between them and the metropolis, 

 as it is now between distant points of the metropolis itself. Let those who 

 discard speculations like these as wild and improbable, recur to the state of 

 public opinion, at no very remote period, on the subject of steam navigation. 

 Within the memory of persons who have not yet passed the meridian of life, 

 the possibility of traversing by the steam-engine the channels and seas that 

 surround and intersect these islands, was regarded as the dream of enthusiasts. 

 Nautical men and men of science rejected such speculations with equal in- 

 credulity, and with little less than scorn for the understanding of those who could 

 for a moment entertain them. Yet we have witnessed steam-engines traversing, 

 not these channels and seas alone, but sweeping the face of the waters round 

 every coast in Europe. The seas which interpose between the Asiatic do- 

 minions and Egypt, and those which separate the British shores from America, 

 have offered an equally ineffectual barrier to its powers. If steam be not used 

 as the only means of connecting the most distant points of our planet, it is not 

 because it is inadequate to the accomplishment of that end, but because the 

 supply of the material, from which at the present moment it derives its powers, 

 is restricted by local and accidental circumstances. 



I propose at present to lay before you some account of the means whereby 

 the effects above referred to have been produced ; of the manner and degree 



