210 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



process. Instead of pulling the carriage it drove the 

 wheel, and in driving the wheel it tore up the stones 

 of a granite road. 



Let us put on our Agricultural spectacles, and 

 apply this parable. When Steam-power is brought 

 into the field (audiat qui aures habet !), it will * play 

 out this play ' over again. Its faculty and virtue 

 consist not in pulling vehicles or implements, but 

 in driving wheels : and when steam-driven wheels 

 will tear up granite road into shingle and gravel, 

 and move the Carriage too (for so it did, only not 

 fast enough for modern travellers), what forbids the 

 hint being taken by the t audax Japeti genus,' that 

 have happily applied so many accidental hints before, 

 and the same refractory giant being set to rasp up 

 cleverly and methodically with sharpened Mole-like 

 claws the tender soil, when he has shown his ability 

 to tear so tough a one with the mere palm of his 

 hand? And what forbids, either, that he should 

 spare off a little of his redundant steam in moving 

 his own carcass along, meanwhile, at a pace under 

 half a mile an hour ? * What you lose in speed you 

 gain in power ; ' and an instrument which completes 

 the whole work of tillage, as it moves along, will 



