212 HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN, AND 



"electricity leaving her thunderbolts" in the sky, and descend- 

 ing to the office of news-carrier, as a simple and very conve- 

 nient scientific fact. Instead of being treated as wizards or 

 magicians, the inventor of the magnetic telegraph and his com- 

 peers will be esteemed as the conquerors of the most subtle and 

 terrific agent of nature, and as the benefactors of their species. 

 It has been " through much tribulation " that science and 

 the arts have at length gained the mastery over physical nature, 

 and subdued the faith and reason of man to a cordial accept- 

 ance of the fruits of their conquest. So much indeed have 

 the popular sentiments and, views changed from what they 

 were a hundred years ago, that perhaps we are in danger of 

 running into an opposite extreme. Not only is all that is mar- 

 vellous and strange in physical phenomena, treated with a fa- 

 miliarity which would have shocked our ancestors, as an im- 

 pious trifling with the occult agencies of the spirit-world, but 

 even the highest and eldest of sciences must now furnish some 

 proof of its productive qualities, before it can claim much of 

 the attention of tliis utilitarian age. The discovery of a new 

 planet will not meet with half the favor as the discovery of a 

 new gas. Natural philosophy will hardly maintain her posi- 

 tion in the esteem and respect of our traveling public, unless 

 she hits upon some new propelling power, by which the At- 

 lantic can be crossed in much shorter space than is now occu- 

 pied by our ocean steamers. This will probably be accom- 

 plished when the mechanic has successfully applied the some- 

 what fanciful theory of " fishtails as motors," so elaborately 

 described by gentlemen at the head of the patent office. 

 Chemistry, as a useful branch of human knowledge, would have 

 " walked the plank " of popular contempt, long since, had she 

 not introduced the virtues of guano to the consideration of our 

 farmers, and chloroform to the practice of our surgeon dentists. 

 Not " what it is," but " what it is good for," is the question 

 now eagerly piit by the public to each discovery and invention. 

 Will it feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, more cheaply than 

 is done by present means ? Will it make food and light less 

 expensive ? Can you harness it any way to a locomotive, or 

 make it subservient to turn a mill-wheel with more commetid- 



