PREFACE. xiii 



remarked that: &quot;The chief cause which made the 

 fusion of the different elements of society (in the 17th cen 

 tury) so imperfect, was the extreme difficulty which our 

 ancestors found in passing from place to place. Of all 

 inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone 

 excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have 

 done most for the civilization of our species/ He then 

 adds, speaking of steam, that it has &quot;in our day, 

 produced an unprecedented revolution in human affairs, 

 which has enabled navies to advance in the face of 

 wind and tide, and battalions, attended by all their 

 baggage and artillery, to traverse kingdoms at a pace 

 equal to that of the fleetest race-horse.&quot; 



The general reader will be very likely to overlook 

 one important fact, a golden hinge on which more rests 

 than at first appears in the following narrative ; and, 

 therefore, a word of remark may not be altogether 

 thrown away, in calling attention to the circumstance. 

 There are very many persons, most intelligent and well 

 informed on other matters, who have yet to learn that 

 all invention is progressive in a regular series. There 

 may be a long series of elementary principles developed 

 without the occurrence of a single practical result, 

 practical as regards any useful application to supply 

 man s wants. Then may arise a series combining these 

 elements, so to speak, and for the first time producing 

 a new instrument, machine, or engine. When a new 

 machine is produced, we do not say, Why it only con 

 sists of a number of wheels and cylinders, therefore, 

 surely there is nothing new in it ! All the parts may 

 be old, and yet the combination be quite new. To 

 analyse an invention into its several parts, would be equi 

 valent to finding that a poem was only composed of 

 the letters of the alphabet, or the words in a dictionary. 

 But there is another point of view not lightly to be passed 



