PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 371 



ever can occur in those climates, unless carried there, as I now 

 propose to consider as the second branch of the subject, by " the 

 reaction of invention on non-inventive climates." 



I suppose it will be admitted by all that for the last century, 

 inventions have been obviously and manifestly limited to the 

 temperate climates of America and Europe. That these inven- 

 tions have not been wanted by tne nations of the tropics is obvi- 

 ous from a great number of facts. The aversion of tropical races 

 to machinery has been illustrated, not only in Africa, but in Cen- 

 tral and South America. The introduction of anything but the 

 crotch of a tree to plow with, in Chili and Peru, has been a mat- 

 ter of extreme difliculty ; and the engineer of the first railway 

 there, told me that it was weeks before they could induce any 

 native to get into a car. The aversion was simply that they 

 were satisfied without those things. 



We are told that powerful and effective machines have been 

 found in the tropics, as in Egypt, and that wonderful engineering 

 has been done there. So there are powerful and wonderful ma- 

 chines now to be found in Brazil. Men with those machines 

 have gone there from colder climates. And when a railway is 

 wanted now in India or Egypt, the cars and the locomotives come 

 from Massachusetts. But would the finding of these machines or 

 these locomotives in after j-ears, justify the opinion that there 

 had been an Egyptian race capable of inventing or of construct- 

 ing such works ? History shows us that whenever machines 

 have gone into tropical climates, they remained there no longer 

 than until the disappearance of the men from colder climates 

 ■who carried them there. They are no longer in use in those 

 countries. 



As to the extent of the machinery carried in ancient times into 

 tropical India and Africa, I allege that those machines were few 

 and small. We find there great buildings and some sculpture. 

 Egyptian art has suggested nothing which could at all subserve 

 our modern civilization. In the Egyptian Museum you find noth- 

 ing suggestive in the slightest degree of anything valuable or 

 useful. I would not give the sewing machine for all the arts they 

 ever had. And if in modern or ancient times machines have been 

 found in tropical climates, it has been from reaction from cooler 

 climates. Within little more than two years, England, France 

 and the United States, have sent machinery to Brazil, Avorth more 

 than $20,000,000. 



