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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the progressive steps by which the gigantic power of steam has been made 
subservient to human needs, until at length its applications have become 
so general that we have ceased to marvel at what are really the most won- 
derful triumphs of mechanical skill. From the time when Watt virtually 
completed his improvements of the steam engine, about the year 1780, down 
to 1850, constitutes what Professor Thurston calls the “ second period of 
application,” during which the strength of the tamed giant was being utilised 
in the most various ways ; and the history of this development of the appli- 
cation of steam to useful purposes, and especially in locomotion, both by land 
and water, is given in considerable detail. Then follows what is denominated 
11 the period of refinement,” extending from 1850 to the present day — a period 
during which constant modifications and mechanical improvements have 
been introduced into the steam engine to fit it for special purposes. The 
author concludes with two chapters on the philosophy of the steam engine, 
embracing the physical principles involved in its construction and working, 
which will be foimd of great interest and importance. The work is admir- 
ably illustrated throughout with woodcuts, and is undoubtedly the best 
general popular treatise on the subject that we possess. 
Professor Thurston naturally devotes a considerable share of attention to 
the development of the railway system, which must be regarded as the most 
potent agent in that revolution that has taken place in the social condition 
of civilized nations. Thackeray considered that in this country, at any rate, 
society passed out of its old into its new development during the reign of 
George III. ; but it has always seemed to us that the old-world conditions 
prevailed continuously, under gradual modification, of course, until a later 
date, and that the great revolution in all our habits and modes of thought 
may be held to date its origin from the introduction of the railway system 
and of ocean steamers, say with the inauguration of the Manchester and 
Liverpool line in 1830, less than fifty years ago. We know what has taken 
place since then, within the lifetime of a middle-aged man — how completely 
all the habits of people have changed — how enormously all the capitals of 
Europe and the great centres of industry have increased — how the electric 
telegraph, springing out of the needs of the railway system, has entirely 
changed the nature of all business transactions, and brought nearly the 
whole world close together — and how great a progress has been induced in 
a thousand other directions, which may be referred, indirectly perhaps, to the 
same influence. 
Mr. Parsloe, while going to some extent over the same ground as Prof. 
Thurston in his account of the first steps in this gigantic innovation, may 
virtually be regarded as taking up the story where the Professor leaves it, in 
his little volume (just published) on “ Our Railways.” * After some inter- 
esting sketches illustrating the old and new systems of travelling, and the 
difficulties and opposition which the introduction of the latter met with, he 
proceeds to give a history of the development of the railway system in this 
country, the construction of railways, the mode in which the existing iron 
* “Our Railways: Sketches Historical and Descriptive, with Practical 
Information as to Fares and Rates, &c., and a Chapter on Railway Reform.” 
By Joseph Parsloe. Sm. 8vo. London : C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. 
