424 JAMES WATT. 
‘ 
in short, would. be, from sheer inconsiderateness, going 
back to the age of ignorance, to barbarity, and to misery. 
It is time to quit this subject, although I am far from 
having exhausted it. I shall not assuredly have triumphed 
over a crowd of inveterate and systematic prejudices : but 
I may hope, at least, that my pleading will obtain the 
coneurrence of those thousands of idlers in the capital, 
whose life is passed in proportioning a taste for pleasures 
with their bad health. In a few years, thanks to Watt’s 
discoveries, all these Sybarites, incessantly impelled by 
steam along railways, can rapidly visit the various regions 
of the kingdom. They can go the same day to see the 
fleet get under weigh at Toulon; breakfast at Marseilles 
on the succulent roach of the Mediterranean; at noon 
plunge their enervated limbs in the mineral waters of 
Bagnéres ; and return at night, by way of Bordeaux, 
to the ball or the opera! Do you doubt this? I shall 
say that my itinerary only supposes a rate of twenty-six 
leagues per hour; that several trials of steam carriages 
have realized a velocity of fifteen leagues ; that Mr. Ste- 
phenson, in short, the celebrated engineer of Newcastle, 
offers to construct steam-engines two and a half times 
more rapid: engines that will accomplish forty leagues 
per hour! 
PRESS FOR COPYING LETTERS.—HEATING BY STEAM.— 
COMPOSITION OF WATER.—BLEACHING BY THE AID 
OF CHLORINE.—ESSAY ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EF- 
FECTS THAT MAY RESULT FROM BREATHING VARI- 
OUS GASES. 
When Watt went to reside at Soho, Birmingham 
counted Priestley among the inhabitants of its vicinity,— 
Priestley, and his name alone says all; Darwin the au- 
