Dr. Playfair’s Lecture on the Great Exhibition of 1851. 23 
fewer but more perfect methods as civilization ascends, Argus, 
with his hundred eyes, was not nearly such a practical man as 
a Cyclops with one eye; the hundred eyes of Argus were found 
napping when work had to be performed, but with the one eye 
of the Cyclops the trident was forged which assured to Neptune 
the empire of the sea. The industrial position of England has 
been gained by her perception of this truth, and by her constant 
endeavors to replace complex processes of manufacture by means 
more simple and perfect. 
The third division, into which I have divided chemical appli- 
clippings of the travelling tinker are mixed with the parings of 
orses’ hoofs from the smithy, or the cast-off woolen garments 
of the poorest inhabitants of a sister isle, and soon afterwards, in 
the form of dyes of brightest blue, grace the dress of courtly 
dames. The main ingredient of the ink with which I now 
Write was possibly once part of the broken hoop of an old beer- 
barrel. The bones of dead animals yield the chief constituent 
of lucifer matches. 'The dregs of port-wine, carefully rejected 
y the port-wine drinker in decanting his favorite beverage, are 
taken by him in the morning in the form of Seidlitz powders, to 
remove the effects of his debauch. The offal of the streets and 
The manuf a themselves; 4. The fine art employed to 
adorn rng would that I had time to take even a general 
