15 
through mountains, span rivers on viaducts, cross arms of the sea on 
piles, and transport passengers and freight, in almost every direction, with 
speed exceeding the winds. Indeed we have so advanced in this, as 
already to be able to furnish both engineers and locomotives for some 
portions of Europe. 
But time forbids me to enlarge on it, or on the valuable contributions 
of science here, by means of bridges — these last, yearly taking place, 
more and more, of the dangerous ford and tardy ferry, and yearly im- 
proving in both cheapness and durability. Or the efficient aid of science 
in lighting our cities by gas, and imparting to our coasts greater commer- 
cial safety — giving us, instead of the rude faggots, kindled nightly on 
some promontory, or of some costly colossus, as at Rhodes, to hold burn- 
ing coals in his hand, to guide the mariner — all the improvements in 
glass to contain oil, or furnish shelter to the flame, or reflect it; and all 
the improvements in color and revolvings, no less than in oils themselves, 
.so as to save many more lives, and millions of wealth, at an expense 
comparatively trifling. Or its vital assistance, more and more yearly, in 
the greatest practical blessing of all — the security of health ; and this, 
not merely by new applications of chemistry, botany, and surgery — the 
use of inoculation and the kine pox, but the more scientific attention to 
hospitals, cemeteries, and measures for cleansing cities — their ventilation 
and water — clothing and diet, and especially the improving abstinence 
from fermented liquors, with numerous other matters, so common now 
as seldom to be traced to their true scientific origin, though gene- 
rally the offspring of that beneficent parent, and aiding to prolong the 
chances of life in this country near one-fuurth within a few generations. 
I must pass by, also, the details as to most of our progress in mechanical 
science, and more especially in practical machinery — computed by some 
to have been greater in the last fifty, than the previous hundred years — 
or in the last hundred, than the previous thousand. Indeed, after all 
the advances, here and elsewhere, in spinning and weaving, further im- 
provements are almost yearly made in them, and pushed even into knit- 
ting and sewing by machinery, as well as thrashing and winnowing 
grain, raking hay, hulling rice, pin making, card making, the humble 
manufacture of boots and shoes, and common weighing, by means of 
the balance or bar of Dearborn, and the horizontal scales of Fairbanks. 
Were it necessary to adduce more illustrations of the applications here 
of scientific principles, I might roam through half the contents of our 
national Patent Office, and much which has never entered its capacious 
