THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 221 



be accomplished, and the mechanical means ne- 

 cessary to accomplish it ; but (like the scribe who 

 ventured a treatise on Chinese Metaphysics, by 

 searching for " China " and " Metaphysics " in the 

 Cyclopaedia !) taking a plough and a steam-engine 

 or a spade and a steam-engine as the inevitable 

 sire and dam of the fore-determined " cross," plunged 

 headlong into the labyrinth of complex and solitary 

 contrivance how to join things which Nature had 

 put asunder.' 



' velut aegri Somniu, vanse 



Fingentur species j ut nee pes, nee caput uni 

 Reddatur fonnse. * * 



Infelix operis Sumrna, quia ponere totum 

 Nesciat ! ' 



Such, we may anticipate, will be the storm of 

 keen reflection showered over our graves by some 

 writer of the end of this, or beginning of next cen- 

 tury, who looks back upon the origin of steam- 

 agriculture from just such a point as we do now on 

 that of steam-navigation ; who will be as familiar 

 with the sight of soil pulverized a foot deep, in one 

 act, by surface abrasion from a steam-driven cylinder 

 [armed with the Talpaian claw that * works i' the 

 earth so fast,' and solves in the dark, beneath our 



