MAN AND NATURE. 291 



countries traversed and cities passed through. In many 

 persons, it must be added, a habit of restless hurry and 

 love of change is thus engendered, injurious in other 

 ways to the well-being of life. These, however, we 

 admit to be exceptional evils, and name them only as 

 such. We are bound to be thankful for inventions of 

 human genius which can carry us in a short day from 

 metropolitan streets and offices to mountains, lakes, 

 and waterfalls ; which bring Mont Blanc and Borne 

 within a month's holiday; and enable the scientific 

 traveller to reach the scene of his labours with less 

 exhaustion of the various appliances of research. 



The electric telegraph, that close associate and 

 guardian of the railway, has not made such marked 

 changes on the outer face of the earth, but may, never- 

 theless, be mentioned here, as the most marvellous 

 example of the dominion Man has gained over one of 

 the great elements of nature an element, moreover, 

 scarcely known as such one hundred and fifty years 

 ago. The power we exercise over heat and light, over 

 chemical and mechanical forces, is limited in space. 

 The electric current or what, in default of better 

 knowledge, we denominate such is made to career, 

 with speed hardly translatable into numbers, over 

 continents and underneath seas, performing the behests 

 of man in social life, in commerce, in peace, and in 

 war. It is the very element of lightning the vis 

 flammea cceli converted into a messenger, or even, by 

 more recent inventions, into a disciplined writer of 

 human thought and language. We might bring in 

 some qualifications here also as to the utility of this 



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