PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 769 



hundred years ago last November, the first practically perfect low 

 pressure steam engine was completed, and although we may fairly 

 assert that for the first fifty years after its introduction it was 

 scarcely more than an experiment, and that all the wondrous revo- 

 lutions due to it must be credited to the last fifty years; for Avhen 

 fifty years ago Napoleon laid plans for the use of steam as a propel- 

 ling power to ships, the most learned men of Paris considered its 

 uSe an impracticable idea. Yet in this short time, steam has so 

 changed all things, .and has withal become so important that if, 

 by some sudden force, men should be entirel}' deprived of its 

 use, the greater portion of this globe would be plunged back into 

 darkness, want and misery. So silent and steady have been the 

 changes it has wrought that we in our daily walks scarcely per- 

 ceive its importance ; yet, compare the Hindoo blacksmith, 

 crouched on his haunches beating his iron with a stone hammer, 

 with the ponderous steam hammer which forged the propeller 

 shaft of the Great Eastern! Steam is not only the most obedient 

 but the most powerful slave of man. 



"The pen is mightier than the sword," said Bulwer, and he was 

 right in the sense he used it, but certainly not in the sense every 

 scribbler is using it to-day. To literary men we are indebted for 

 much, aye, very much; yet if it were not for the advancement in 

 the mechanic arts, their efforts would be futile; not that I would 

 deprive them of the respect, gratitude and veneration which they 

 so loudly demand and so bountifully receive, nor would I do 

 without this hand-maiden of applied science, but demand equal 

 rank and equal consideration. When we cast our mind's eye back 

 over the history of the ancients, we are not surprised at the results 

 which followed the ignoring of the useful arts. 



The human race has passed through various epochs; but the 

 last is the most important. Let us call it the practical era. Men 

 will yet look to the steam engine with its iron sinews, and by 

 its aid accomplish such feats as we, even, Avho have watched its 

 gigantic strides, did not anticipate. That, in all this progress, 

 the boiler must play an important part, is evident; and that it will 

 and must be perfected, and, above all, made safe, is certain. That 

 it can be made as safe as a water-power or wind-mill, can only be 

 doubted by those that have never studied nature's forces and 

 admired the perfection and harmony of her laws. That the boiler 



[Am. Inst.] WW 



