PEEFACE. 



A GLANCE at almost any page of this work will denote 

 its object. It is to show the close connection between 

 Nature and human inventions, and that there is scarcely an 

 invention of man that has not its prototype in Nature. And 

 it is worthy of notice that the greatest results have been 

 obtained from means apparently the most insignificant. 



There are two inventions, for example, which have changed 

 the face of the earth, and which yet sprang from sources that 

 were despised by men, and thought only fit for the passing 

 sport of childhood. I allude, of course, to Steam and Elec- 

 tricity, both of which had been child's toys for centuries before 

 the one gave us the fixed engine, the locomotive, and the 

 steamboat, and the other supplied us with the compass and 

 the electric telegraph. 



In the course of this work I have placed side by side a 

 great number of parallels of Nature and Art, making the 

 descriptions as terse and simple as possible, and illustrating 

 them with more than seven hundred and fifty figures. The 

 corollary which I hope will be drawn from the work is evident 

 enough. It is, that as existing human inventions have been 

 anticipated by Nature, so it will surely be found that in 

 Nature lie the prototypes of inventions not yet revealed to 

 man. The great discoverers of the future will, therefore, be those 



