UTILITY OF MACHINES. 411 
stone being very dear, it is not used ;* brick is the gen- 
eral substitute. 
Millions of workmen are now executing, both on the 
surface of the earth and in its bowels, immense works 
which could not possibly be undertaken, if certain ma- 
chines were proscribed. ‘Two or three examples will 
suffice to render this truth palpable. 
The carrying off the water that rises daily in the gal- 
leries of the Cornish mines alone, requires the power of 
50,000 horses, or of 300,000 men. I ask you whether 
the pay of 300,000 workmen would not absorb all the 
benefit of the undertaking ? 
Does the question of the expense and the benefit 
appear to be too delicate? Other considerations will 
lead to the same result. 
The working of one Cornish mine alone, comprised 
under the name of the Consolidated Mines, requires a 
steam-engine equal to upwards of three hundred horses 
constantly in harness, and each twenty-four hours it 
realizes the work of one thousand horses. Need I fear 
any contradiction if I assert that there are no means of 
making upwards of three hundred horses, or two thou- 
sand or three thousand men, labour simultaneously and 
to good purpose around the confined mouth of the shaft 
ofamine? To proscribe the steam-engine of the Con- 
solidated Mines would be to reduce to inaction the great 
number of workmen that the engine renders it possible 
to employ there ; it would be the same as declaring that 
the copper and tin of Cornwall shall remain buried there 
for ever, under a mass of earth, of rock, and of water 
several hundred meters in thickness. The thesis brought 
* This is a very incorrect expression, and might mislead a Parisian 
badaud.— Translator. 
