22 REPORT — 1888. 



or destroyed in one night ; but again commence, and then go on and go on 

 until at last you conquer ; your works rise above ordinary tide-level ; then 

 upon these sure foundations, obtained it may be after years of toil, erect 

 a fair shaft, graceful as a palm and sturdy as an oak ; surmount it with 

 a light, itself the produce of the highest application of science ; direct 

 that light by the built-up lens, again involving the highest application 

 of science ; apply mechanism, so arranged that the lighthouse shall from 

 minute to minute reveal to the anxious mariner its exact name and its 

 position on the coast. When you have done all this, will you not be entitled 

 to say to yourself, ' It is I who have for ever rendered innocuous this rock 

 which has been hitherto a dread source of peril ' ? Is there no feeling, do 

 you think, of a poetical nature excited in the breast of the engineer who 

 has successfully grappled with a problem such as this ? 



Another instance : the mouth of a broad river, or, more properly 

 speaking, the inlet of the sea, has to be crossed at such a level as not to 

 impede tbe passage of the largest ships. Except in one or two places the 

 depth is profound, so that multiple foundations for supporting a bridge 

 become commercially impossible, and the solution of the problem must 

 be found by making, high in the air, a flight of span previously deemed 

 unattainable. Is there no poetry here ? Again, although the results do 

 not strike the eye in the same manner, is there nothing of poetry in the 

 work, that has to be thought out and achieved, when a wide river or an ocean 

 channel has to be crossed by a subterranean passage ? Works of great 

 magnitude of this character have been performed with success, and to the 

 benefit of those for whose use they were intended. One of the greatest and 

 most noble of such works, encouraged, in years gone by, by the Govern- 

 ments of our own country and of France, has lately fallen into disfavour 

 with an unreasoning public, who have not taken the pains to ascertain 

 the true state of the case. 



Surely it will be agreed that the promotion of ready intercourse and 

 communication between nations constitutes the very best and most satis- 

 factory guarantees for the preservation of peace ; when the peoples of two 

 countries come to know each other intimately, and when they, therefore, 

 enter into closer business relations, they are less liable to be led away by 

 panic or by anger, and they hesitate to go to war the one with the other. 

 It is in the interests of both that questions of difference which may 

 arise between them should be amicably settled, and having an intimate 

 knowledge of each other, they are less liable to misunderstand, and the 

 mode of determination of their diSei'ences is more readily arranged. 

 Remember, the means of ready intercourse and of communication, and the 

 means of easy travel, are all due to the application of science by the engi- 

 neer. Is not therefore his profession a beneficent one ? 



Further, do you not think poetical feeling will be excited in the breast 

 of that engineer who will in the near future solve the problem (and it 

 certainly will be solved when a sufficiently light motor is obtained) of travel- 



