66 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



that of the rest of the world combined, and that the independence 

 of America dates only from the latter half of the last century. 



Here, where railways were so much needed the average expense 

 of their formation has been about $27,000 per mile. In Europe, 

 the excess of expenditure has been 280 per cent, or on an average 

 at the rate of $96,000 per mile. 



Aided by the power of steam and water, what a picture does 

 modern commerce present of the boundless desires of man, and of 

 the advancement he is perpetually making in intellect, knowledge 

 and the permanent elevation of his race. It is only because things 

 familiar to us cease to attract our surprise, otherwise we should 

 be struck with the fact that the breakfast table of the poorest 

 person is supplied from countries lying in the remotest parts of 

 the world of which Greece and Rome, in the plentitude of their 

 power and knowledge, were totally ignorant. But the benefits 

 which mankind derive from commerce are not confined to the 

 acquisition of a greater share and variety of the comforts, luxu- 

 ries, or even of the necessaries of life. Commerce has repaid the 

 benefits it has received from geographical science; it has opened 

 new sources of industry; it has contributed to the maintenance of 

 health, wealth and comfort, and is the surest pledge of the peace 

 of the world. It effects this mainly by removing national pre- 

 judices, and by effecting, directly as well as indirectly, the inevi- 

 table diff'usion of all practical and useful knowledge. The world 

 (spite of itself ) becomes gradually wiser through the operation of 

 the agencies even of commercial speculation. And it would seem 

 that though some purely poetic and ideal minds have repudiated 

 the wholesome homely thought, the multiplication of commercial 

 relations between distant countries is destined not merely to en- 

 large the boundaries of civilization, but to carry to its utmost 

 limit of development the facilities for the promotion of the "greatest 

 happiness to the greatest number" of mankind. 



There is only another gem in the coronal of Science, which is 

 more priceless : the application of Electricity to the instantaneous 

 interchange of thought across the intervening sweep of Avaters 

 that, for thousands of miles, separate the old continent from the 

 new. It was reserved for your own Maury to point to the possi- 



