Mr. Butler's Discourse. 



The benefits rendered by science in the invention of ma- 

 chinery, are at once permanent and expansive. When you 

 have invented a new and successful machine, you have not 

 only the power of constructing an indefinite number of copies ; 

 but each copy is generally less expensive and more perfect 

 than its model ; and what is still more important, the scien- 

 tific mechanist will be continually discovering new uses, to 

 which the machine itself, or some of its parts, or the principle 

 on which it is founded, may be applied. Among the members 

 of this association, there are several, whose talents have been 

 frequently applied to the illustration of mechanics and the con- 

 struction of machinery. The Institute looks to them for a con- 

 tinuance of their labors : there are none which promise to be 

 more useful to the state ; for notwithstanding the perfection to 

 which machinery has been brought, there is nothing in the 

 past history of the human mind to require, or to countenance, 

 the belief, that the wonders of inventive art have reached their 

 limit. On the contrary, every portion of that history, is cal- 

 culated to convince us, that the worlds of mind and of matter, 

 are incapable of exhaustion. 



The improvements in the steam engine, and the various 

 uses to which it is applied, are trite topics of remark ; but as 

 they furnish the readiest and perhaps the most striking illus- 

 tration of the principles I have stated, you will permit me to 

 refer to them. The first successful application of the steam 

 engine to any useful purpose of which we have any certain 

 knowledge, was the raising of water from mines, about the 

 close of the 17th century. I do not mean to trace its subse- 

 quent history, but look at its present manifold and useful ope- 

 rations. It grinds bread corn ; it spins; it weaves; it makes 

 shoes; it makes paper; it prints ; it propels carriages and 

 vessels ; it is used to promote the growth of vegetables ; to 

 cook them and other articles of food ; to heat houses and apart- 

 ments ; to boil the coppers in breweries and dye-houses ; to 

 cure various diseases in warm and vapor baths ; to bleach 

 cloths, and to cleanse and wash the garments into which they 

 are made ; and according to a late article of intelligence 

 which I have somewhere seen, to destroy vermin in vessels. (4) 



