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discoveries which render it so important an auxiliary 

 to kindred sciences, and to the useful arts, were 

 made towards the close of the last century, since 

 which period its advancement has been wonderfully 

 rapid. It is intimately connected with geology and 

 mineralogy, and without its aid those sciences would 

 be incomplete. We owe to it some of the most useful 

 and beneficial applications of science to the arts, and 

 it may be considered as the foundation of technology. 

 With a view to promote the principal object of its 

 creation, the Institution has devoted one section to 

 the application of science to the useful arts. Tech- 

 nology, the name given to the science which teaches 

 this application, is not found in the encyclopedias 

 and works of a similar character published fifty years 

 ago, and until that period the application of the prin- 

 ciples and discoveries of science to the useful arts 

 was not pursued in such a manner as to render it a 

 constituent part of the operations of the manufac- 

 turer. The foundation of this science has, however, 

 since then been solidly laid, and in the rapid pro- 

 gress of discovery within that period we have the 

 promise of a noble superstructure. We are indebted 

 to France for the first impulse given to this pursuit, 

 and it appears, from the late able report of Professor 

 Bache, that Prussia and other Germanic States have 

 established institutions for teaching technology. The 

 only college in the United States in which courses of 

 lectures on this branch are given, is, I believe, that 

 of Cambridge, in Massachusetts. These have been 

 continued nearly twenty years under a bequest of 

 the late Count Rumford. In the Franklin Institute, 



