WATER POWER PROCEEDS FROM EVAPORATION". 



ancient times and among rude nations. In a word, what is called 

 WATER-POWEB is, in reality, in all cases, the indirect power 

 of steam, being due to the descent of that mass of liquid which 

 had been previously elevated on so vast a scale by natural 

 evaporation. 



2. Nevertheless, these phenomena failed to suggest the artificial 

 application of the same power. It was not until the commence- 

 ment of the last century that any serious progress had been made 

 towards the solution of that problem. About that time, engines 

 were constructed, in which the elastic force of steam, as well as the 

 force resulting from its -re -conversion into water, was applied, as 

 a mechanical power. The engines first constructed were defective,, 

 their performance unsatisfactory, and the cost of their main- 

 tenance greater than that of the power, which they aspired to 

 supersede. At length, however, towards the middle of the last 

 century, the genius of "Watt was fortunately turned to this problem, 

 and those great inventions were made, and improvements effected, 

 the final result of which has been the creation of a power which 

 has exercised a greater influence upon the condition of the human 

 race, material, social, and intellectual, than was ever before 

 recorded in the history of its progress. 



3. To enumerate the benefits which the application of steam 

 has conferred upon mankind,' would be to count every comfort 

 and every luxury we enjoy, whether physical or intellec- 

 tual, many of which it has created, and all of which it has 

 augmented in an immense proportion. It has penetrated the 

 crust of the earth, and drawn from beneath it boundless trea- 

 sures of mineral wealth, which, without its aid, would have 

 remained inaccessible ; it has drawn up, in measureless quantity 

 the fuel on which its own life and activity depend ; it has re- 

 lieved men from many of their most slavish toils, and reduced 

 their labour in a great degree to light and easy superintendence. 

 It has increased the sum of human happiness, not only by calling 

 new pleasures into existence, but by so cheapening former 

 enjoyments as to render them attainable by those who before 

 could never have hoped to share them : the surface of the land 

 and the face of the waters are traversed with equal facility by its 

 power ; and by thus stimulating and facilitating the intercourse 

 of nation with nation, and the commerce of people with people, it 

 has knit together remote countries by bonds of amity not likely 

 to be broken. Streams of knowledge and information are kept 

 flowing between distant centres of population; those more 

 advanced diffusing civilisation and improvement among those 

 that are more backward. The press itself, to which mankind 

 owes in so large a degree the rapidity of their improvement in 



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