34S [ASSEBIBLT 



greater exertion. It was in this manner that they found themselves 

 proceeding, step by step, in the way of important and the most valua- 

 ble discoveries. Their inventive f^icullies were called into exercise j 

 and wherever there was a work to be performed, it became a matter 

 of study and severe thought, in what manner, and by what means, 

 what power should be employed, and what instrument or machine 

 should be used to effect it most readily, and with the greatest economy 

 and jierfection. 



Nature had provided man with limbs and muscles, as well as mind. 

 These were, in the first place, to be used to the best possible advan- 

 tage, and to produce the greatest effect. She had also placed here 

 and there, through various sections of the country, valuable water 

 falls, and these afforded a power the importance of which he could, 

 in a manner, estimate and appropriate. But there were other ele- 

 ments in the great store house of nature, which he now began to 

 think of turning to account, and converting to some practical and use- 

 ful purpose. Heat, applied to water, formed a power which he con- 

 ceived himself able to govern and control, and the result of this idea 

 was the invention of the steam engine, and its application more uni- 

 versally, and for a greater variety of objects, than any other which 

 had been employed. Heat also is a power, separate from its effect 

 upon water, which is made to subserve greatly the progress of the 

 useful arts. And allied to it, the very subtle element known by 

 various names, as magnetism, electricity, the magnetic and electric 

 fluid, which, in the great and wonderful economy of nature, are pro- 

 bably the same as both light and heat, is now evolved from the bodies 

 which contain it in the greatest abundance ; and being no longer suf- 

 fered to remain in its inert and latent state, is employed as an active 

 agent, and is sent forward to accomplish the most important results. 

 Man is no longer content to manage what is already made to his hand, 

 and created evidently for his use, but he pries into the hidden recesses 

 of nature, and brings forth her mysterious powers into light and ex- 

 • ercise. He is not confined to the simple control of the dull matters 

 of earth, but he travels through the regions of space, and takes hold 

 of "Jove's dread thunderbolts," and directs and wields the artillery 

 of Heaven. Truly may it be said, for it is proved by undeniable fact, 



