182 [Assembly 



present day have more than realised the conceptions of the poets of 

 olden date, with the advantage of having given form and substance 

 to the airy imaginings of the latter. 



The horse of Epeus, the forms that " moved and breathed in ani- 

 mated goldj" to support the halting steps of Homer's Vulcan, nay, 

 even the self moving chariot of Milton, although he conceived it to 

 demand the workmanship of Almighty power, but faintly shadow 

 forth the substantial forms of the locomotives of Rogers, Dunham and 

 Norris. Nautical legends tell that in the stormiest seas which ever 

 beat upon the southern cape of Africa, a phantom ship is seen, urged 

 by preternatural power in the very teeth of the tempest, and pursu- 

 ing a steady course in opposition to the most violent winds, or the 

 most Impetuous swellings of the ocean. 



Who has seen a steamboat contending successfully with the sudden 

 fury of the summer gust, or the more lasting rage of the autumnal 

 hurricane, or urging its way through the most rapid tide, but has re- 

 cognized more than this wild and mysterious legend ] 



May we venture to go a step further into the regions of imagina- 

 tion 1 



Oriental fancy has pictured to itself an air borne car, the fortunate 

 possessor of which, was enabled to assume the revered character of 

 the prophet of the Mahommedan faith j and the great epic poet of 

 England, desired " to call up him who left half told," the story of 

 " tue wondrous horse of brass on which the Tartar king did ride," 

 It will be said indeed that neither our present form of steam engine^ 

 or any which has yet been imagined, is capable of such exploits, but 

 who shall venture to say, when we have seen a bushel of coal made 

 to do 'thirty times as much as it did in the times of our fathers, when 

 we live in hopes to receive replies from Europe to our letters in the 

 course of a fortnight, and talk of travelling to Oregon in four or five 

 days, that steam may not, in fulfilment of the prediction of the poet, 

 not only 



Drag the slow barge and whirl the rapid cars 

 But, on wide waving wings expanded bear 

 The flying chariot through the field of air^ 



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