APPLICATION OF STEAM. 91 



to the plough and the team, and man to superintend 

 and to observe, and thence to learn and to do, more 

 and more for his own enjoyment, and the improve- 

 ment of his country and his kind. The people who 

 lived two centuries ago, and who were as wise and 

 observant in their generation as we are, would have 

 thought the teller mad if they had been told, that in- 

 dependently of their downward motion to the sea, 

 which turns the mill and carries the barge as they 

 glide, there slumbers in the streams an active power 

 a source of motion, not only greater than that of 

 all the men and all the horses and other animals in 

 England, but greater than the expertest penman in 

 the world could set down by arithmetical contri- 

 vance, though he sat ciphering his whole life. And 

 the beauty of the matter is, that this mighty power, 

 which is in the possession of everybody that has a 

 pitcher of water, is, with proper machinery and 

 skilful management, not only more governable than 

 the highest bred horse, but more gentle than any 

 lamb that ever sported in the meadow. At the same 

 time, it could, if need were, bring the power of ten 

 millions of horses to bear on a single point ; and were 

 it to answer any purpose, if man could find the ma- 

 chinery, this simple property of water would give 

 the power of cleaving the earth in twain. But, not- 

 withstanding it can spin a thread finer than gossa- 

 mer, and weave it into gauze which will float in the 

 air like a vapour ; it will grind at the mill, toil in 

 the manufactory, and it will print a book ; and the 

 people of England enjoy now ten times the com- 

 forts enjoyed by their fathers, and disperse a portion 

 of those comforts to all the nations of the world, 

 and receive the produce of all climates in return, 

 just because a skilful observer of nature discovered 

 that water resists being heated above two hundred and 

 twelve degrees. One would think that only a trifling 

 discovery ; and if the little fact were told without 

 any of the consequences, nobody would give a far- 



