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of his life, in the construction of an arithmetical engine of far supe- 

 rior capabilities to any previously invented by himself or others ; 

 such as may not only be a lasting monument of profound mathe- 

 matical knowledge, of inventive genius, and of that perseverance 

 amid difficulties which is one of the highest attributes of genius ; 

 but may be of great use to mankind hereafter, by solving with un- 

 erring certainty problems which practically are in any other way 

 beyond the reach of the human intellect. 



It is merely because it happened that they first occurred to me, 

 that I have adduced these instances of investigations which are now 

 going on, but of which the principal results remain to be worked out 

 hereafter. I need not tell you that analogous instances might be 

 furnished from almost every department of knowledge. If we add 

 to these the number of investigations of a more limited kind, each 

 complete within itself, which every year produces, also bearing in 

 mind how great an influence the cultivation of the physical sciences 

 during the last century has exercised on our social system, and how 

 much it has contributed to give to modern civilization its peculiar cha- 

 racter, we may well ask, what may not be the effect of a continuance 

 of the same spirit of inquiry during the century which is to come ? 

 In considering such a question, it must be remembered that, whenever 

 any addition has been made to the general stock of knowledge, the 

 practical application of it to the ordinary purposes of life, for the 

 most part, is made not immediately, nor until a long time afterwards. 

 In the year 1739, the Rev. Dr. Clayton, at that time Dean of Kildare, 

 communicated to the Royal Society his experiments on the distilla- 

 tion of coal, and his discovery of what he called " the spirit of coal." 

 This spirit he confined in bladders, and occasionally diverted his 

 friends by puncturing one of them near a candle, thus exhibiting a 

 bright flame which issued from the puncture, until the whole of the 

 spirit in the bladder was exhausted. Now the application of this 

 discovery seems, as we see it now, to have been sufficiently obvious, 

 yet nearly sixty years elapsed before Mr. Murdoch was led to avail 

 himself of it for the purpose of lighting a factory in Manchester. 

 In the year 1800, Volta, following up the researches of Galvani, 

 discovered the effect which the multiplication of metallic plates has 

 of increasing the electric force. About five years afterwards Davy 

 began that grand series of experiments, in which he succeeded in 



