334 THE COMING OF MAN 



velous than steam or electricity, because it is able to 

 discover all the forces and the materials upon the 

 world, how to use them, and what laws govern:them. 

 The searchers after truth who discovered great laws 

 of the universe, or who found the way to harness 

 steam and electricity to do our daily work for us, are 

 not the only ones whose torches have burned so 

 brightly that they have kindled others. For Uttle 

 things count in this wonder world in which we live, 

 and many a one has seen or done an apparently 

 simple thing that has carried the world of men on to 

 better ways of living. 



The steam rising from the kettle of boiling water 

 was of no significance to many people, but it meant 

 vsomething to young Watt, who saw that it could be 

 successfully harnessed to do great work. The fine 

 white grains of quartz sand upon the sea beach 

 seem to most of us only a diiTerent form of the ground 

 we walk upon ; but some one found out how to make 

 glass of them, and others learned to shape the glass 

 into lenses for the telescopes, by means of which 

 undreamed-of truths about other suns and worlds 

 than ours have been found and proved. 



There is a man living to-day who spends all his 

 time trying to make our flowers and fruits and vege- 

 tables larger and of better quality. When Luther 

 Burbank produces a new fruit, combining the deli- 

 cious flavor of one with the larger size of another, is 

 not this a benefit to mankind? He says that everyone 

 can make the flowers more beautiful if they will 

 watch the bees and work as they do. He himself is 

 showing us how. When he discovers a way to make 



