62 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



Holland what might be accomplished by the con- 

 stant agency of the desultory but unwearied powers 

 of wind. But the Dutch engineer measures his 

 surface, calculates the number of his pumps, and, 

 trusting to time and his experience of the operation 

 of the winds for the success of his undertaking, 

 boldly forms his plans to lay dry the bed of an in- 

 land sea, of which those who stand on one shore 

 cannot see the other.* 



(56.) To gunpowder, as a source of mechanical 

 power, it seems hardly necessary to call attention ; 

 yet it is only when we endeavour to confine it, that 

 we get a full conception of the immense energy of 

 that astonishing agent. In count Rumford's expe- 

 riments, twenty-eight grains of powder confined in 

 a cylindrical space, which it just fitted, tore asunder 

 a piece of iron which would have resisted a strain of 

 400,000 Ibs.f, applied at no greater mechanical dis- 

 advantage. 



(57.) But chemistry furnishes us with means of 

 calling into sudden action forces of a character in- 

 finitely more tremendous than that of gunpowder. 

 The terrific violence of the different fulminating 

 compositions is such, that they can only be com- 

 pared to those untameable animals, whose ferocious 



* No one doubts the practicability of the undertaking. 

 Eight or nine thousand chaldrons of coals duly burnt would 

 evacuate the whole contents. But many doubt %vhether it would 

 be profitable, and some, considering that a few hundreds of 

 fishermen -who gain their livelihood on its waters would be 

 dispossessed, deny that it would be desirable. 



t " Experiments to determine the Force of fired Gunpow- 

 der." Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxxvii. p. 254. etseq. 



