96 



THE ANIMAL AS A MACHINE. 



" ' Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar 

 Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car, 

 Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 

 The flying chariot through the fields of air ' " 



And even this la-test of the mechanic's triumphs, al- 

 ready known to present far less difficulty than was 

 formerly supposed, will attain highest success only 

 when nature's methods of energy-transformation are 

 discovered and adopted. 



Should the day ever come when transformations of 

 energy shall be made in nature's order, and when 

 thermo-electric changes shall be a primary step toward 

 electrodynamic application to purposes now universally 

 attained only by the unsatisfactory processes of thermo- 

 dynamics as illustrated in our wasteful heat-engines, 

 the engineer, following in his work the practice of 

 nature, which has been so successful throughout the 

 Hfe of the animal kingdom, will find it easy to drive 

 his ship across the ocean in three days ; will readily 

 concentrate in the space now occupied by the engines 

 of the Majestic " a quarter of a milHon horse-power; 

 will transfer the 3,000,000 horse-power of Niagara to 

 New York, Boston, Philadelphia, to be distributed to 

 the mills, shops, houses, for every possible use, furnish- 

 ing heat, light, and power wherever needed ; and may 

 possibly do quite as much for the benefit of mankind 

 by breaking up the modern factory system and distrib- 

 uting labor in comfortable quarters as by this reduc- 

 tion of costs of products to the consumer. One of the 

 many difficulties in the way of successful navigation of 

 the air is known to be that of securing some propeUing 

 instrument that shall not weigh more than about ten 

 pounds to the horse-power. Could we evade Carnot's 



