No. 200.] g^l 



filled the lanJ with proofs of their inventive genius. From the valua- 

 ble report of Mr. Ellsworlh, we learn that there have been in the Uni- 

 ted Stales, prior to January, 1845, fourteen thousand and twenty-four 

 patents issued, five hundred and two of which were granted during the 

 present year. In 1844, one thousand and forty-five applications for 

 patents were made at Washington. Of the five hundred and forty- 

 three applicants who were refused, probably the far greater number 

 were ignorant that the principle of their inventions had been earlier as- 

 certained. They were their inventions, none the less, truly ; and if 

 to these it were possible to add the many improvements in machine- 

 ry, of more or less value, the use of which has not been secured to 

 the inventor by patent, the aggregate of inventive skill among us for 

 the last twelve months would betoken an energy of thought which no 

 nation upon earth has rivalled. 



It would be a hard task to enumerate the uses to which the few el- 

 ementary mechanical powers have been applied since the commence- 

 ment of the present century. Machinery has supplanted human la- 

 bor everywhere. All things which necessity demands or luxury 

 solicits, the machine makes. It wards off from man the heat of sum- 

 mer, and protects him from the cold. It supplies him with food and 

 raiment. It ministers to his intellectual wants — laying open before 

 him all the ways of knowledge. If he would lie down, it makes and 

 furnishes his couch. If he would move, it lifts him up — bearing him 

 with the speed of thought where he would be borne. The powers of 

 nature are constrained to serve freely and without price when roan by 

 machinery invokes ihcm. The waters are made to work. The wind 

 cannot blow where it listeth. The quick lightning has been compelled 

 \o come and to go. and to do errands for its unrelenting master. How 

 extensively electricity may be available upon the farm, we cannot yet 

 foresee. The idea of this use of it belongs to a lady, who poured 

 electric fluid from her conservatory into her terrace through a wire, 

 and the grass, to her amazement, grew green in winter, and the snow 

 wa» melted from the surface, while all surrounding vegetation was 

 atiffand white. Upon this hint, after some few years, a thoughtful 

 agriculturist acted, and by a simple process conducting electricity 

 from the air to the roots of plants, demonstrated that this invisible 

 power might be successfully applied to the uses of the farm. 



And now, as I am speaking, our newspapers, which have this ad- 

 vantage over electricity, that nothing is so isolated that they cannot 



