IMPROVED MACHINERY. 463 



to an intensity most painful and injurious, could scarcely accom 

 plish. The wheel, and the lever, and the pulley, and the in 

 definite multiplication and curious combination of powers which 

 art invents, execute works of a magnitude, before which the 

 armies of an ancient or a modern Alexander might sit down in 

 despair. Instead, according to the fashion of ancient monarchs, 

 of throwing golden fetters into the torrent, to stem its force, 

 modern science puts an iron bit into its mouth, and rides tri 

 umphantly upon its crested waves. The victories which human 

 art has achieved over the elements of nature, once deemed un 

 tamable, adorn with matchless splendor the annals of our times; 

 and yet, like the crepuscular light, like the first darting up of the 

 morning rays upon the eastern horizon, they only presage the 

 full light of day. Fire, water, air, in various forms, stand ready 

 to do man s bidding j and, as the miracle of modern art, the 

 winged lightning presents itself to his service, and becomes the 

 instantaneous bearer of intelligence between places the most dis 

 tant between places whose distance, be it what it may, will 

 make no perceptible difference in time or certainty, where once 

 the means of an uninterrupted continuity of communication shall 

 have been discovered. These are great achievements, and their 

 effects are felt in every department of labor. In agricultural 

 operations, if the mechanic arts have not yet done as much as 

 in many other branches of industry, yet they have rendered no 

 small contributions ; and it is not to be forgotten, that the agri 

 cultural interest, if not specifically served, shares as largely as 

 any other class in the general benefits which the improvements 

 of the mechanic arts confer upon society. The plough is an 

 immense advance upon the spade ; the cultivator, upon the hoe ; 

 the horse-rake and hay-tedder, upon the hand-rake and the 

 common fork. The steam-engine performs the work of many 

 men and many horses in the threshing of grain, and the pump 

 ing of water, and various other operations to which it is applied. 

 In the fens of Lincolnshire, two immense steam-engines, one of 

 eighty, and one of sixty horse power, under the care of one or 

 two individuals, completely drain an extent of surface of many 

 thousands of acres. They bring these hitherto waste tracts of 

 country under the dominion of productive cultivation, and, by 

 its magical influence, bid these unsightly and barren sands adorn 

 themselves with the glittering tresses of a golden harvest. These 



