POWER OF MACHINES. 21 
Perhaps, Gentlemen, I should not have insisted at 
such length on this painful episode in Carnot’s life, if I 
had not had opportunity of perceiving how far removed 
are such times from ours; if I had not seen, when ac- 
companying our most illustrious officers of engineers in 
the inspection of some fortified towns, in the discussion 
of the amelioration they might be susceptible of, the 
simple sous-lieutenant freely oppose his ideas, reflections, 
and systems, with full liberty, to the opinions of the gen- 
erals ; surrender only after having been victoriously 
refuted ; and come forth from the animated contest, not, 
as formerly, to go to the Bastille, but with fresh chances 
of advancement. 
Those on whom the duty devolves of incessantly 
referring to the ameliorations of which our social state 
is susceptible, would become discouraged, Gentlemen, if, 
when occasion presents itself, we did not show the public 
that their endeavours have been sometimes crowned with 
success. 
- 
ESSAY ON MACHINES.—NEW THEOREM ON THE LOSS 
OF POWER. 
The first—nay, more, the principal—scientific produc- 
tion of Carnot, bears the date of the year 1783; it is 
entitled Hssay on Machines in general. 
They who would seek in the essay of our member the 
technical description or special study of any one of the 
machines in particular, simple or composite, from which 
man has been able to derive so many advantages, would 
labour to no purpose. Such was not, indeed, the end 
which the author had in view. 
A machine, considered generally, is the assemblage of 
a more or less considerable number of fixed or movable 
