HHffifflHHB
 
 THE 
 
 WORLD A WORKSHOP; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 PHYSICAL RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO THE EAIiTII. 
 
 BY THOMAS EWBANK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "HYDRAULICS AND MECHANICS, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 IX APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 346 AND 348 BROADWAY. 
 1855.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, 
 BY THOMAS EWBANK, 
 
 lu the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York.
 
 *^. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 WORKING MEN, 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 f titimims uf 
 
 DIGNITY AND OMNIPOTENCE 
 
 ENLIGHTENED LABOR.

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I AM not aware of a single sentiment in the following pages to 
 which the most devout mind can justly except, nor of a thought 
 that is not in harmony with the deepest tone of admiration for the 
 works of God, and with the purest feelings of love and reverence 
 for Him; yet so it is, that kindred subjects are seldom brought 
 forward without awakening opposition in persons who imagine the 
 Ark of Truth endangered by the enunciation of speculations and 
 deductions in science not included in their creeds, and who, on 
 such occasions, eagerly put forth their hands to uphold it as if it 
 could be shaken or overthrown by error. 
 
 Truth, or rather the knowledge of it, is progressive. In nature 
 there can be no end to its disclosures, for nothing is concealed. 
 Upon every object, from an insect to a world, is written the pur- 
 pose for which it is made. We may not always read aright, and 
 no wonder, since we live in the infancy of systematic inquiry, and 
 therefore cannot anticipate the results of its maturity; but our 
 errors will be corrected by our successors, and theirs by those who 
 succeed them. 
 
 That this mundane habitation was designed and literally fitted 
 up for the cultivation and application of chemical and mechanical 
 science as the basis of human development, will, I think, appear 
 evident even from the imperfect examination here given it ; and 
 that it is essentially the same with other worlds, according to the 
 condition of matter in them, and the physical constitution of their 
 inhabitants, is all but an inevitable conclusion. To those who deny 
 them to be centres of reasoning and active populations it is useless 
 to reply till they can show for what other purposes they were made, 
 and how this little earth, a mere atom among them, became so
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 strauge an exception. If we had had no knowledge of the existence 
 of other orbs, it would have been unphilosophical to insist there were 
 none besides our own ; but now that we know they crowd every 
 region of space, it would be positive folly to contend that all are 
 barren of life and intelligence, of science and arts, except the one 
 given to us. 
 
 It is preposterous to suppose the Divine Builder erects tenements 
 for the purpose of keeping them empty. If they are not occupied, 
 it is because they are not yet prepared to be so. It may be assumed 
 that as soon as an orb is fitted for tenants they are put in possession 
 of it; and then it is that another marvel is disclosed. Material 
 natures require something to do as well as to reflect on ; this is indis- 
 pensable to their being the purpose of it. Employment is, therefore, 
 an element of existence, and hence, The industrial activities of the 
 denizens of the universe ; involving, as they must, infinities of modes 
 and processes, and multiplied infinities of applications and results. 
 The means by which this diversity is brought out might, on a first 
 thought, be deemed inscrutable and incomprehensible, yet, like the 
 effects of gravitation or of any universal law, it is very simply 
 evolved. It depends on the diverse conditions of matter and the 
 circumstances under which it exists, and as these cannot possibly be 
 the same in any two worlds, much less in any two systems, neither 
 can the occupations of those employed on it. These are, therefore 
 endless in numbers, because endless are the truths of which matter 
 is the vehicle, and the applications of which it is capable. 
 
 Let those who do not sympathize with the idea that occupants of 
 worlds around us act on matter as we do in this one (which, it 
 should be remembered, is an integral member and sample of them), 
 look abroad, and see how the same general laws to which it is sub- 
 ject govern others ; how some in its vicinity resemble it in vo!ume, 
 density, duration of days and nights, <fec. ; how the red soil, green 
 leas, and northern snows and ice of Mars approximate to it in these 
 particulars ; how larger, more distant, and more resplendent ones, 
 belonging to the same group, are illuminated every night, each 
 with several moons ; and how in aerolites we have metals and metal- 
 lic alloys belonging to celestial regions and then ask themselves if 
 there is anything unreasonable or unlikely, or if it is not in the
 
 PREFACE. Vii 
 
 highest degree probable and presumable, that people there add to 
 their enjoyments and multiply their conveniences, by employing 
 the materials and agencies placed at their disposal in other words, 
 that occupations akin to some of ours are followed in the other 
 spheres. 
 
 Creation is not a medley of mingled purposes and disconnected 
 things. The unity of design manifested in it is the theme of every 
 philosopher, and not less observable and admirable is the fine chain 
 of relationship that binds all the diverse forms and conditions of 
 matter in one coherent whole. There are no violent transitions 
 from series to series, but by almost imperceptible degrees differences 
 opep into species, species into genera, and genera into wider classes. 
 And as with the contents of worlds so with worlds themselves ; for 
 they are merely larger divisions, and not the largest, since they 
 merge into groups or systems, and systems, in all probability, into 
 still more and more comprehensive departments. They are as inti- 
 mately related to one another as are minerals, animals, or plants ; 
 and though we are not permitted to observe the alliance in their 
 internal details, it is proclaimed externally to the utmost bounds of 
 the heavens. There are no abrupt chasms in their outlines, dimen- 
 sions, illumination, or movements, and by the strongest of analogies 
 there can be none in their internal administrations. 
 
 In the latter respect the chain can be no more ruptured than in 
 the former. The absence of the smallest link would break the con- 
 tinuity of the whole, and introduce disorder. On a matter so 
 momentous, so overpowering in magnitude, as the interior economy 
 of worlds, it would seem impossible that our orb should be the only 
 one on which practical science is cultivated. There cannot be so 
 wide a gap. There must be others more or less closely allied to it 
 in this as in other respects ; some in which the arts are prosecuted 
 with higher and some with lower results. No truth is more patent 
 than the unity of creation. There is nothing sui generis in it ; 
 nothing that stands solitary or alone nothing that is not connected 
 with and dependent on something else not a boulder, a planet, or 
 a sun, not an animal or the habits of one not an order of intelli- 
 gences or an occupation of intelligence. 
 
 Besides the varied and ever varying phases of matter, there is
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 another law which still further affects occupations. It is that which 
 is manifested in the diversity of mental organizations in the genius, 
 tastes, subtlety, and power of the elaborators. No two minds of 
 like construction and calibre are found on earth ; nor, from a common 
 principle pervading creation, can be found anywhere. A general 
 resemblance or type may prevail in single orbs, and even extend 
 with modifications over a group, but the probabilities are that the 
 differences as respects worlds and systems are quite as marked as 
 we find them in individuals and races. "On a planet more magni- 
 ficent than ours, may there not be a type of reason of which the 
 intellect of Newton is the lowest degree ? May there not be a 
 telescope more penetrating and a microscope more powerful than 
 ours; processes of induction more subtle and of analysis more 
 searching and of combination more profound ? May not the pro- 
 blem of three bodies be solved there the enigma of the luminiferous 
 ether unriddled and the transcendentalisms of mind embalmed in 
 the definitions, and axioms, and theorems of geometry? Chemistry 
 may there have new elements, new gases, new acids, new alkalies, 
 new earths, and new metals ; geology new rocks, new classes of 
 cataclysms, new periods of change; and zoology, mineralogy, and 
 botany new orders and species, new forms of life, and new types of 
 organization, all demanding higher powers of reason, and leading to 
 a warmer appreciation, and a higher knowledge of the ways and 
 works of God. But whatever be the intellectual occupations of the 
 inhabitants of the planets, who can doubt that their object is to 
 study and develope the material laws which are in operation around 
 them, above them, beneath them, and beyond them in the skies !"* 
 But it is objected that physical industry and ingenuity are of too 
 low and ephemeral a nature to enter into the sublime and everlasting 
 plans of the Author of the Universe ; that cultivation of mind must 
 be the object of calling it into existence. True ; but as matter is the 
 agent on which God has printed his thoughts, may it not be the 
 book which all minds are to read and to learn from ? We know 
 that he has made the elevation of human nature to depend on the 
 study and application of principles impressed upon matter, and 
 
 North British Review, May, 1854.
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 therefore it is consistent with his purposes and with his greatness to 
 educate intelligences by means of it. And if one class why not two, 
 or ten, or all ? We know not that any are, or can be trained up 
 without it ; and as, wherever intelligences are, they are surrounded 
 by it, and by displays of Divine wisdom shining forth in it, is it not 
 reasonable to infer that it is a universal medium of mental and 
 moral tuition f for which purpose, instead of being collected into 
 one inhabitable body, it has been gathered into an infinite number, 
 every one different, and a theatre of different phenomena. 
 
 There must be something wrong in the general dislike to material 
 labor, and to the association of it with other orbs. Few persons, 
 lay or religious, feel comfortable about it, because they are not 
 impressed with the cardinal truth that matter is the agent by which 
 God everywhere proclaims himself; and that in it are sources of 
 knowledge sufficient to exercise all orders of intelligences for ever. 
 
 If " pride brought on the Fall," its effects are awfully felt in the 
 low esteem in which the elaboration of matter is held, and in the 
 presumption that it is derogatory to spiritual exaltation. Thus the 
 original law, " Replenish the earth and subdue it," is regarded by 
 most persons as a coarse, unpleasant, and un intellectual task, be- 
 cause its full meaning, and its bearings on our present and future 
 destiny, are not perceived. Dwellers on the rest of the planets, we 
 may almost be sure, received an equivalent injunction, and their 
 happiness is made to depend on yielding obedience to it. 
 
 But it is to our own star that these pages are devoted. From 
 careering among other worlds let us alight upon it, and scan from a 
 stand-point that has seldom been occupied, the ceaseless labors of its 
 living swarms. All are workers in and modifiers of matter. To 
 man in common with the rest a task is given which, if fully under- 
 stood, would place in a new and a better light this much abused orb 
 of ours. It is the opinion of many that decay has seized its vitals, 
 that its resources are approaching exhaustion, and the arts their 
 climax ; whereas in reality it is a spring of physical truths which 
 man can never run dry. To suppose their current manifestations 
 final is wrong, for before half of them can be found out and made 
 use of new developments will have opened new tributaries. Che- 
 mistry and Physics, as the exponents of inorganic bodies, and Botany 
 1*
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 and Zoology of the organic, will pour, and continue to pour forth 
 new elements, combinations, forms, forces, and motions. We have 
 had pleasing illustrations of this in our day which, so far from in- 
 ducing fear of the font failing, are prophetic of its fulness. 
 
 WASHINGTON, August, 1854.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Terrestrial phenomena, and the mental and physical constitution 
 of man Vague ideas of the relationship between man and the earth, 
 and their consequent evils The diversified operations of men off- 
 shoots of a primordial one The character and uses of the planet 
 deduced from its materials and their adaptation to human pur- 
 poses Agriculture, or the raising of food, a secondary employment 
 Other proiessional aspects of the planet For what classes chiefly 
 its materials were created Division of the subject. 19 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Plan and process of the earth's erection Advent of man delayed 
 till its factory appurtenances were completed Its materials made 
 amenable to man Many yet undiscovered The whole mineral 
 world awaiting man's action upon it The partial elaboration of 
 minerals by nature Nature's labor ceases where man's is to begin 
 The earth a press of varying powers Device for raising subterrene 
 materials to the surface a fine example of Divine engineering Its 
 beneficent results 26 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Arrangement of the earth's materials in strata The loose and 
 friable deposited between platens of rock Mechanical advantages
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 of the plan as regards the pressing of the materials, and keeping 
 them from mingling with foreign matters during their elevation to 
 the surface Admirable order of the strata Granite, the lowest 
 and hardest, serves as a piston for pushing up the rest All matter 
 under the influence of two opposing forces, one (gravity) pressing 
 it towards the centre, the other urging it towards the surface 
 Beneficial results of these forces, and the beautifully simple mode 
 by which subterrene matter is raised All matter destined to pass 
 through human hands 82 
 
 CHAPTER IH. 
 
 The shell theory of the earth unmechanical No large portion of 
 it hollow The central fires due to compression Every planet has 
 a permanent source of heat in its materials The sun the great ex- 
 ternal heater No terrestrial heat dissipated in space Practical 
 phenomena relating to heat Ideas belonging to the ages of horo- 
 scopes and omens The earthquaking power eminently conservative 
 though locally calamitous, like the explosions of boilers Use of 
 kindred forces The earth's materials moving towards one or the 
 other of two great laboratories 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Fire indispensable to the factory, and to man as a cosmopolite 
 Withheld from lower tribes, though some use lights in the night 
 The Baya How fire was first obtained-^-The inventor of the pro- 
 cess unknown Its description by Homer Supposed origin and 
 universality of the process The arts arose from the domestic 
 hearth Sources of artificial light Nice provisions by which the 
 use of fire is confined to man, and conflagrations from natural 
 abrasions prevented Sparks from stones Flint and steel Friction 
 match Fire and fuel obtained, bellows devised, and the chief of 
 metals reduced. 47 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The three store-houses of matter for manufacturers : MINERALS : 
 Conditions in which they are furnished Had metals been in moun- 
 tain masses, like granite, they would have been useless to man 
 Why iron is not provided in the metallic form Pure masses in New 
 Mexico Iron found with materials for reducing it Why a "master 
 metal," like steel, is not prepared by nature Consumptiou of iron
 
 CONTEXTS. Xlll 
 
 and other metals New metals discovered in the present century 
 Aluminum and alloys Ceramic materials : Glass Bricks Great 
 consumption of plastic substances Varieties of rocks and stones 
 employed in public and private structures Coal: Primitive forests 
 specially designed for coal Why coal was not prepared at once, or 
 during one epoch Process of its pressure between platens of rock 
 Anthracite the oldest coal Incalculable duration of coal periods 
 Coal statistics Coal exhaustless Is probably now forming 
 Salt 58 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The factory would have been a failure if its operations had been 
 confined to mineral stock, hence the VEGETABLE store-house Eco- 
 nomy of space in the elaboration of timber Form of boles 
 Woods most wanted are most abundant Timber furnished in 
 manageable masses Table of dimensions Average dimensions 
 The largest timber light, and easily worked Examples Ancient 
 trees generally hollow Security against the want of timber, <fec. 
 Colors and other ornamental features of wood Dyes and varnishes 
 from wood Timber evidently provided for human arts Unlike 
 minerals, its great consumption is met by rapid production. 
 Fibrous substances Ropes Wicker work, basket and straw- 
 plaited wares Thread of cotton, flax, hemp, <fec. Annual product 
 of thread incalculable in its lineal extent Vegetable food Statis- 
 tics Labor of man on vegetables His surprising power over them 
 Political economists on exportation of food Multitudes of plants 
 unknown... ,..76 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANIMAL DEPARTMENT of supplies : Furnishes matter of different 
 forms and properties to those drawn from vegetable and mineral 
 stores Universal diffusion of living beings Animals natural appa- 
 ratus to elaborate materials for human fabrics Man's power over 
 them -Animals and animal products in the U. States and England 
 Analogies between land and water The ocean Fisheries 
 Birds, and their contributions Varieties of birds not known 
 Insects : as miraculous in their construction and movements as the 
 universe itself Practical lessons in chemistry and mechanics to be 
 derived for ever from animated nature Silk- worms and silk 
 Reflections on them Bees-wax and honey Insects that yield dyes 
 Invisible animalcula contribute to human arts The existing pe- 
 riod is that of the full development of animals most useful to man 
 What is to be learned from the organic world 97
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Animate and inanimate motors The factory incomplete without 
 them Sources of power Animal power Working-animals in the 
 U. States Water and wind power Waves Power from trees agi- 
 tated by wind Heat, the great source of power Popular fallacy 
 of power repeating itself Coal, the great source of artificial 
 power Facilities for exchanging the results of labor The earth a 
 perfect factory Its duration Objections anticipated 112 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Man's form and structure indicate the artificer First opens his 
 eyes on a world crowded with work A true factory child In no 
 other capacity could he work his mission out A factory, involving 
 a multiplicity of operations, requires diversity of talents Besides 
 variety of capacities and tastes in individuals, men are divided 
 into races Man of Africa Furtherance of the work promoted by 
 the institution of races Gradation of intellect in species Intelli- 
 gence diminishes from the Creator to the minutest recipient 
 Absence of uniformity neither prevents nor limits improvement in 
 races Knowledge is to cover the earth, but not equally at the 
 same time Workmen for every zone Races not of the same 
 date. ..121 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 
 
 Order of man's appearance on the earth's great sections Races, 
 and their bread plants Independent development of the arts in 
 America exemplified in the absence of the distaff, potter's wheel, 
 quern, and probably the lamp Australia The arts not debris of 
 primeval refinement Original location of men Not on the equator, 
 and why The tropics, the base lines of civilization The northern 
 hemisphere first inhabited Tendency of civilization from the 
 equator Inca civilization 1 29
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 Elaborators and their work No stoppage for lack of material 
 Every generation to work for itself Seasons for labor Average 
 duration of life favorable to progress No factory carried on suc- 
 cessfully with superannuated laborers Work, not years, the true 
 standard of life Employees kept ignorant of the periods of their 
 discharge Succession of life a beneficent provision Man's instinct 
 to invent The world fast putting on a manufacturing and commer- 
 cial character What is meant by subduing the earth Things to 
 be made out of inanimate matter Horses, whose food is fire and 
 breath smoke Destined to supersede living beasts of draught and 
 burden Drawing out of the ground indefinite numbers of these 
 laboring Cyclops the greatest achievement of the present century 
 None other more teeming with good 139 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mechanical forces Their development, variety, and abundance 
 The " Mechanical Powers," so called a sine qua non to man as an 
 artificer Substitutes for a multiplicity of motors Interchange 
 between force and motion effected by them Also, one kind of mo- 
 tion converted into other kinds Force from liquids Analogy 
 between mechanical forces and chemical solutions. . . . .146 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Hints to man in natural mechanisms Forms Prototypes of 
 architectural ornaments Beauty of form Exemplified in nature 
 Wonderful variety Three books of patterns Impossible for manu- 
 facturers of fancy goods to exhaust them A fourth book God's 
 love of the beautiful further exemplified in colors More purposes 
 served by colors than to please the eye Another source of pleasure 
 and of mechanical invention in sounds 152 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Professions, apparently foreign, are allied to the elaboration of 
 matter Physical sciences embrace all material phenomena 
 Astronomers, chemists, and naturalists are elucidators of natural 
 mechanics Work assigned to man He is not conscious of its 
 greatness He can make the earth what he pleases. 158
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Supposed objections to the theory of man's earthly business being 
 that of an enlightened elaborator of matter, from the diversities of 
 communities and languages, considered 164 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Two classes that retard material, and consequently moral pro- 
 gress In the lease given to man of the earth, materials were to be 
 furnished him, but he was to find labor People without sympathy 
 for material things have no business here Man is to be no spectral 
 recluse Monasticism Dreams of spiritualists An angel's shriek 
 required to awaken them The study of matter adorns every 
 Christian virtue South America blighted by superstition Eman- 
 cipation inseparably connected with progress in science and art 
 Other enemies of progress Agriculture anciently excepted from 
 the odium attached to manipulating labor " Respectable families" 
 scandalized, a probable subject of surprise to higher orders of intel- 
 ligences Cause of the decay of nations 171 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Divine character and attributes displayed in natural 
 mechanisms Duty of man to imitate them As high an order of 
 thought employed in the arts as in the professions Fine arts 
 Exaltation of matter does not tend to materialism No matter 
 without mind The power of thought, the real prime mover The 
 amount and character of man's labors recorded in matter Matter, 
 the universal teacher and preacher Sermons in trades Popular 
 absurdity that labor was imposed as a punishment Enjoyments 
 and wrongs of labor Supposed visit of two strangers to our planet 
 Influence of present occupations on a future life New teachings. 
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Phenomenon of man reasoning on his own organization, on the 
 origin of the universe ac-j the attributes of the Creator Infinite
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 and eternal diffusion of enjoyment the object of creation Why all 
 matter ia not collected into one orb Advantages of breaking it up 
 into many The asteroids not debris of a ruptured planet Vo- 
 lumes of worlds proportioned to their occupants Pitcairn islanders 
 in the heavens Diversity in the form of worlds Rings of Saturn 
 Science possibly further advanced in the outer planets than with 
 us All worlds of one original substance, and moved by one and 
 the same force Iron, copper, tin, and cobalt in other worlds Phy- 
 sical intelligences to make fresh discoveries in matter for ever 
 The Creator for ever impressing Himself upon it 187
 
 THE WOKLD A WORKSHOP. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 THERE is a series of initial and very remarkable facts 
 in the present condition and disposition of the matter of 
 our globe that have, I think, been little regarded. They 
 have not, that I am aware, been considered in the light 
 in which they are here presented to the reader, although 
 singularly illustrative of the character here given to man 
 a character with which all terrestrial phenomena accord ; 
 the volume of the Earth, the quantity, varieties, and 
 qualities of its materials ; the difference between its inter- 
 nal and external products, its central fires and internal 
 movements, its atmospheric envelope, the alternate illu- 
 minating and darkening of its surface ; the physical and 
 mental constitution of man ; his necessities, enjoyments, 
 aspirations, and morals ; the duration of his life, and his 
 education for a more enlarged sphere of existence. 
 
 The title has been selected for the purpose of arresting 
 some fugitive thoughts, in the hope that scientific writers 
 will add to their number, amplify and arrange them into 
 a regular treatise on a subject fertile as the earth itself; 
 and under the impression that they will serve to explode
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 those vague impressions that so generally prevail respect- 
 ing the real relationship between us and the globe we 
 inhabit. Instead of universal confidence arising from 
 settled conviction, uncertainty is almost everywhere felt 
 as regards the extent to which we should give up our- 
 selves to the earth. On the one hand it is viewed as a 
 mere caravanserai, a temporary convenience for passing 
 travellers, and therefore unworthy of more than passing 
 regard : on the other are men active in exploring its 
 resources, drawing from it elements of progressive civili- 
 zation, and reflecting streams of light on the attributes of 
 the Creator, and on his intentions towards us. 
 
 Let any one whose mind the subject never entered 
 think within himself : For what was this spherical mass 
 of materials made 1 To what special, or partial, or gene- 
 ral uses was man to put them 1 Or was he to do any- 
 thing with them ] The questions involve the character 
 and designs of the Creator, and the very basis of human 
 welfare ; for how are we to work out our destiny if we 
 know not what it is ? 
 
 It does seem strange that men should never have defi- 
 nitely determined the predominating characteristics of a 
 world they have so long occupied ; that they should have 
 fluttered and fumed and busied themselves, like insects, 
 on little isolated hillocks, instead of taking a view of the 
 entire establishment and blocking out a working plan of 
 the whole. 
 
 A glance at the countless occupations of men ; at the 
 divisions and subdivisions of material and speculative 
 labor ; at the bustle of trades, schemings of the ambitious, 
 and struggles and competitions of all ; would almost lead
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 21 
 
 one to conclude we had been thrown at random on the 
 earth, and left to scramble by chance for a living upon it. 
 Reflection, however, points to a rule or law pervading the 
 hubbub, and shows the diversities of pursuits to be off- 
 shoots of a primordial one which arises out of the consti- 
 tution of the globe and our own organization. 
 
 It is conceded that the earth is in every respect fitted 
 for man and he for it ; and it might d priori be inferred 
 that amid the multitudinous adaptations, there would be 
 some ruling one to which the rest were to be collateral, or 
 in which they centred. It was not probable that his 
 abode was to consist of a mass of miscellaneous accom- 
 modations without character as a whole, or that his facul- 
 ties were to be a heterogeneous compound without refer- 
 ence to some predominating task on which they were to 
 be employed. What then was it that was so conspicu- 
 ously to mark his connexion with the earth, and more 
 than anything else proclaim him lord or lessee of it 1 It 
 was the character he was to assume as a MANIPULA- 
 TOR OF MATTER. The earth was to be a manufac- 
 tory and he a manufacturer. It was to furnish him with 
 unwrought material, while the sounds of his implements 
 acting upon it were to swell till their reverberations rolled 
 over the whole. His connexion with it, then, arises from 
 the work assigned him, the materials for it, and the uses 
 to which he is to put them. 
 
 It is, of course, from the materials of the earth and 
 their attributes that its character is to be deduced. If 
 they are adapted to man's wants, and to be operated on 
 by him ; if they are indispensable to him and yet useless 
 till manipulated ; it must needs follow that it was designed
 
 22 INTRODUCTtfRY CHAPTER. 
 
 for a Factory. If it were wholly vegetable, it would be 
 a Farm; if its products were objects ready for use, a 
 Bazaar. But almost the whole is mineral inert, un- 
 shapen, and unwrought, while even vegetable and animal 
 substances require elaboration. 
 
 If, as some say, the materials were collected and ar- 
 ranged as we find them, to afford a platform for living 
 creatures and a surface vegetation to sustain them, the 
 vast subterrene minerals would be superfluous an idea 
 utterly irreconcilable with the wisdom of their Author. 
 The hypothesis, also, that the chief employment of man 
 was to till the soil and raise cattle, is an unworthy one, 
 since it puts us much on a par with the lower tribes, in 
 making the procuring and consuming of food the princi- 
 pal object of our being. If we were made to live like 
 cattle merely to eat and sleep it would be true, and 
 the earth might then be considered a mere victualling insti- 
 tution. But with us, and all intelligences, food is, like the 
 traveller's staff, an adjunct of life, a mere aid in accomplish- 
 ing the purposes of existence. Hence, though agricultui-e 
 must always be a marked and honored department of 
 labor, it is not the only one, nor the chief one. The por- 
 tion of the earth's materials taken up by it is moreover 
 comparatively small, and therefore the bulk of mundane 
 matter was designed for something to which the raising 
 of food was to be subservient. 
 
 While most persons think not, and care not, what the 
 prominent character of the planet is, many view it in as- 
 pects congenial to themselves : a theatre for politicians, a 
 battle-field for warriors, a court for lawyers, a lounging- 
 place for people of fashion and leisure, &c. Morbid
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 23 
 
 minds make it a crowded hospital and charnel-house, 
 while the Indian believes it was made for nothing else 
 than hunting game in. With these, and all surface 
 dreamers, its vast underground treasures are not thought 
 of. The inorganic world, its forces, principles, and pro- 
 cesses, are to them as if they were not. It is only as a 
 Factory, a GENERAL FACTORY, that the whole materials 
 and influences of the earth are to be brought into play ; 
 and with this professional character of our globe every 
 feature in creation will be found to harmonize. 
 
 For what classes then chiefly was the world of inorganic 
 matter provided ? Observe that dwelling ; it belongs to 
 a family neither rich nor poor ; neat, commodious, and 
 attractive in itself; it has a garden in front, an orchard 
 and corn-field behind. Mark the social enjoyments, in- 
 telligence, and contentment of its inmates ; the abun 
 dance of necessaries, of comforts and conveniences ; the 
 ornaments and elegances in dress and furniture, with con- 
 tributions from almost every productive and decorative 
 art. But, hark ! a train of cars is approaching. It stops 
 one moment and starts the next with a shriek for the 
 city, whirling us along level and undulating lands, 
 through tunnelled mountains, over rivers on bridges of 
 granite, and others of iron. In the quick-moving pano- 
 rama arise before us, and in a moment pass by, brick and 
 lime kilns ; potteries ; tanneries ; grist, saw, paper, and 
 cotton mills ; foundries ; machine shops ; chair, cloth, and 
 carpet factories. We come in sight of a bay, on which 
 ships laden with foreign merchandise are floating in with 
 the tide, and others with home manufactures passing 
 out. Crossing over in a steamer we find an extensive
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 border of leafless forest resolved into masts of vessels 
 crowded into continuous docks, and on landing, feel the 
 air rent and agitated, like rippled water, with the noise of 
 stevedores and draymen. We have business to transact 
 for a friend, and pick our way along the side-walks, 
 among packing-cases of dry-goods, casks of hardware, 
 bundles of sheet and hoop iron, and loads of other goods. 
 Next we stop at a telegraph office, and in five minutes 
 our friend, though two hundred miles distant, receives 
 and answers our note. On leaving the street of mer- 
 chants for others occupied by watchmakers, jewellers, 
 opticians, philosophical and musical instrument makers, 
 engravers and printers, we call at a newspaper office to 
 insert an advertisement and order the daily sheet for a 
 neighbor. Need we proceed 1 It was for men who 
 bring such things out of inert matter that this world of 
 matter was made. 
 
 The proposition is sustained by a consideration 
 
 I. Of the earth : its general features, materials, mecha- 
 
 nisms, and forces. 
 
 II. Of man : his structure, instincts, and achievements. 
 To which are added 
 
 III. Observations on prevailing mistaken views of mat- 
 ter, and of man as an operative, with thoughts on the 
 universe of matter and of mechanism 
 
 A glimpse at a few outlines, or rather dots of outlines, 
 on the gorgeous map which these inquiries open, can of 
 course only be taken. Volumes piled on volumes would 
 be required to fill them up, and the design is not to illus-
 
 INTRODUCI )RY CHAPTER. 25 
 
 trate the subject so much as to call attention to it, assured 
 as I am that no one can fervently enter into it without 
 finding thoughts springing up within him, and prospects 
 opening before him such as inspired and uninspired 
 poets would be glad to meet with.
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE EARTH : ITS GENERAL FEATURES, MATERIALS, 
 MECHANISMS, AND FORCES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PLAN AND PROCESS OF THE EARTH'S ERECTION. 
 
 IF a wide, uninhabited district abounding in metals 
 were discovered, and upon it an extensive antediluvian 
 structure fitted up with all the paraphernalia of a complete 
 machine-shop, no one could doubt the object of the ancient 
 owner. Equally clear and palpable is the purpose of the 
 Builder of this earth, as made manifest in its construction 
 and factory appurtenances. It is such a shop. Examine 
 the plan and process of its formation ; its granitic founda- 
 tions, superincumbent courses, and the precision and deli- 
 beration, so indicative of stability and durability, with 
 which they have been laid ; note the rich variety with 
 the stowage and arrangement of materials for manufac- 
 turing purposes ; how the earth is full of them, and how 
 those most wanted are most abundant and accessible. 
 
 And observe, moreover, that when the edifice was 
 finished, working-stock secured in its vaults, with ma-
 
 THE EARTH MADE AMENABLE TO MAN. 27 
 
 chineiy to raise it, and everything else prepared for the 
 reception of workmen, then, and not till then (since there 
 would have been nothing for him to do), was man called 
 in to take possession and go to work. In the early ages 
 of its erection, when all was chaos and commotion from 
 the general displacement or rather want of arrangement 
 of its materials, what could he have done ? And in the 
 calmer periods that succeeded as it approached completion 
 he could only have been in the way. God employs no 
 idlers creates none. 
 
 While the first clays, sand, metals, and coals were being 
 digested and put in their places, the condition of the 
 atmosphere was such that he could not have inhaled it 
 and lived. Neither food, climate, nor suitable arenas for 
 his exertions were then provided. Like one of his own 
 structures, the factory required to be warmed, ventilated, 
 and furnished, before its intended occupants could enter 
 with safety. 
 
 The character of a factory, as stamped on our globe, is 
 also evinced in its materials being made amenable to 
 human power. This is apparent to every one, but not 
 perhaps equally so that it results from a law which has 
 determined the inertia of matter with reference to human 
 strength. This law lies at the foundation of physical 
 science and arts. Had the earth's substances been too 
 heavy or too light, or had they in other qualities, as hard- 
 ness, softness, brittleness, toughness, &c., defied us, we 
 could have made little use of them. But they are in all 
 respects made subject to man, while their properties are 
 specially and indeed wonderfully adapted to the exer- 
 cise of his faculties. Many are doubtless yet to be dis-
 
 28 PARTIAL ELABORATION BY NATURE. 
 
 covered, but none can eventually elude or resist him. 
 Already, he arrests the most evanescent and subdues the 
 most stubborn ; invisible and intangible airs he manages 
 with the same certitude as liquids and solids ; lightning 
 he evolves at will ; as his messenger it is kept flying to 
 and fro over the face of the earth ; besides which he is 
 daily finding new employment for it in the workshop. It 
 can henceforth know no rest. 
 
 Nearly all matter is inorganic. The great mass of the 
 earth the whole of it except its skin-like surface, is such ! 
 What does this mean ] Why all this immature matter, 
 unless it be for man to work up ? How otherwise are its 
 quantity and condition to be accounted for ] The rest of 
 creation God himself has elaborated into organisms that 
 breathe and move, grow and live, throw off their pro- 
 ducts at stated periods, and perpetuate their kind ; while 
 the entire mineral kingdom lies passive at man's feet await- 
 ing his action upon it : for in it are agents indispensable 
 to his elevation, the very substances his necessities call 
 for; and here is no one else appointed to use them no 
 one else that can use them. Could spoken language be 
 more explicit 1 
 
 Then what is more expressive than nature's limited 
 elaboration of this matter, coinciding so perfectly as it 
 does with the design of making man a workman in it ] 
 She only brings it up to certain points, and then stops, be- 
 cause at those points his efforts were to begin. All things 
 necessary for him and above his capacity or powers to 
 produce were provided, but unwrought or partially wrought 
 materials were given him because the ability to mould 
 them to his wants and wishes was imparted. Had it been
 
 THE EARTH A PRESS OF VARYING POWERS. 29 
 
 otherwise, metals had certainly been dug up in the forms 
 of necessary instruments, vegetable fibre had grown in 
 hanks of thread and in woven garments, glass and stone- 
 ware had been quarried, and boulders had been cubes 
 ready for the builder's hands ; while joists and boards and 
 articles of furniture had been the natural fruit of trees. 
 All substances would have been found in the most useful 
 forms, if the power to put them into such forms had not 
 been communicated. No fact is more prominent in the 
 divine economy of the world than that man was to have 
 nothing absolutely nothing done for him that he could 
 possibly do for himself. This was essential to the deve- 
 lopment of his character as an artificer. By it exertion 
 became inevitable, while the direction it was to take was 
 not to be mistaken. 
 
 But contemplate the earth as a whole, and it will be 
 found a perfect contrivance for preparing these materials. 
 Its spherical figure exerts a direct mechanical influence on 
 them. In consequence of the pressure of superincumbent 
 strata, their density increases with their depth. If a gas 
 were conveyed down far enough it would be squeezed into 
 a liquid : send it lower, and it would become heavy and 
 impermeable as lead or platina. The earth is, therefore, 
 ever acting as a press of varying powers, forcing matter 
 into less and less space, and producing a series of sub- 
 stances varying in their properties and densities from airs 
 to metals. 
 
 Now the question may and perhaps has occurred to the 
 reader If all minerals are for man to act on, and those 
 deemed the most essential, as the metals, are located at 
 the lowest depths, how is he to get at them ? If they
 
 30 NO INDICATIONS OF DECAY. 
 
 were designed expressly for him, means would Lave been 
 expressly provided to put him in possession of them. 
 Certainly: and so they have. It was by those means 
 that the metals and other solid bodies now on and near 
 the surface, were brought up. The exigence called for a 
 device that should raise materials through all time to the 
 hands that were to use them. And what is the device ? 
 A " Caloric Engine" in the centre of the Orb, the best loca- 
 tion to send up materials over the whole surface : an en- 
 gine whose chimneys and safety valves are volcanoes, and 
 whose action and diversities of action are subject to laws 
 as definite as any that control a windmill or a water- 
 wheel. 
 
 The continued energy of this Plutonic power is signi- 
 ficant of much work to be done, and the more so when 
 taken in connexion with the fact that the stock of un- 
 wrought material has hardly been touched. As long as 
 the motive wheels of a factory are kept in high order 
 there can be no intention of stopping the works. People, 
 however, have always been disposed to measure the life 
 and condition of the world by their own. There are still 
 those Avho imagine it broken down with infirmity and age, 
 and every now and then shaken with convulsions that 
 augur a speedy dissolution. They see little in lightnings, 
 tornadoes, and earthquakes, but supernatural contrivances 
 addressed to human fears. They are, like children, alarm- 
 ed at roaring furnaces, flowing and spurtings of metal, the 
 dust, smoke, and deafening clamor of driving and forming 
 gearing in iron-works. 
 
 Instead of a premonition of decay, the great subterrene 
 prime mover indicates the reverse. Instead of a blind
 
 UNINTERMITTENT ACTION. 31 
 
 agent of destruction, it presents as fine a proof of fore- 
 thought and conservatism in the Divine Proprietor as any- 
 thing that can be named. But we are so accustomed to 
 view such matters with reference only to our individual 
 selves and to our own times, that we seldom view them 
 aright. In this case we are apt to forget that it was not 
 for us and our predecessors alone that this wonderful 
 machine wa,s contrived and put in play, hut for supplying 
 materials to all that are to come after us, through periods 
 involving new arrangements of the earth's surface trans- 
 position of its mountains and valleys, continents and oceans. 
 We may think the supplies now on and near the surface 
 abundant, and that it may as well cease working till they 
 are consumed ; but, in fact, its action being continuous 
 instead of intermittent is one of its finest features, since 
 its work is accomplished so gradually as to be generally 
 imperceptible, and so quietly as rarely to be heard. Were 
 it otherwise, its action would be violently impulsive ; and 
 its displacements of matter, instead of being local, would 
 be universal, and universally destructive of life. 
 
 To look on the internal fires and forces of the earth, as 
 some do, with dread to view them as destructive agents 
 held in check for a day of wrath is intensely absurd and 
 superstitiously wicked. They were benevolently ordain- 
 ed to furnish man with materials he could not reach, and 
 to keep raising them to the surface as the surface supplies 
 diminish. To them he will ever be indebted for minerals 
 essential to him. A foot is a small portion of a mile, yet 
 the deepest mines, compared with the distance to the cen- 
 tre, hardly exceed the proportion of six inches to a mile ; 
 Low then could he have reached lower or even penetrated
 
 32 ALTERNATION OF STRATA. 
 
 upper strata 1 We should have heen ignorant of the me- 
 tals, of our common building materials, of lime, gypsum, 
 clay, sandstone, marble, slate, granite, and other rocks ; 
 for all these are formed at immense depths below us. We 
 should not have known what the contents of our world 
 were, or if we had, we never could have obtained them 
 but for the Divine solution of this most interesting of en- 
 gineering problems. Without it the destinies of man and 
 his connexion with the earth had been very different from 
 what they are. 
 
 Proofs of intelligence and design in the earth's strata 
 thaw into admiration the most frigid of geologists ; and is 
 not this, the only imaginable plan by which every kind 
 of matter stored below can be brought up for us, calcu- 
 lated to awaken as deep an interest ! How simple, ef- 
 fective, and suggestive ! The nearest device that occurs 
 to us are the steam-engines in the deep cellars of govern- 
 ment stores that send up samples and bales of goods as 
 merchants call for them. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF THE EARTH'S MATERIALS IN 
 STRATA. 
 
 ONE of the most characteristic features in the structure 
 of the earth is the alternation of strata. It is built of
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF STRATA. 33 
 
 layers of hard and soft, compact and loose materials, 
 which are thus kept from running into each other and 
 rendering the whole a disordered and confused mass. 
 The system is eminently methodical and mechanical. 
 If it were not that the lower matter is located in the 
 earth, the more compact and adhesive, as a general rule, 
 it becomes, much of it could not have been protruded as 
 it has been. It would have crumbled and become mixed 
 with, and lost among the detached and loose substances 
 through which its passage lay. A bed of sand or clay 
 could not be pushed up in an unbroken body through a 
 hundred or through ten miles of miscellaneous materials, 
 unless a plate of rock was interposed between it and the 
 upheaving force, and without another above it to keep 
 out other matters ; hence the geological formation of 
 alternate plates and of softer materials is precisely what 
 mechanical philosophy and every day's experience sug- 
 gest in analogous operations by man. Coal is of too 
 friable a nature to be thrust up except between platens 
 of rock. Lastly, these platens become dislocated more 
 and more as they approach the surface, and thereby fulfil 
 the remaining requisite that of opening the contained 
 beds to human observation and research. If the plates 
 had remained unbroken their contents could not have 
 been got at. 
 
 The strata of the earth have been classified in the fol- 
 lowing comprehensive orders, beginning at the upper- 
 most and descending to the lowest : 
 
 1. Consisting chiefly of sands and clays. 
 
 2. Comprising chalk ; sands and clay beneath the 
 chalk ; then calcareous freestone, and argillaceous beds,
 
 34 FUNCTIONS OF GRANITE. 
 
 new red sandstone ; conglomerate and magnesian lime 
 stone. 
 
 3. Coal measures; carboniferous limestone; old red 
 sandstone 
 
 4. Roofing slate and its cognates. 
 
 5. Mica slate : gneiss, granite. 
 
 " In all these formations from the lowest to the highest 
 we find a repetition of rocks and beds of similar chemical 
 compositions, i. e. siliceous, argillaceous, and calcareous, 
 but with considerable difference in texture ; those in the 
 lowest formations being compact and often crystalline, 
 while those in the highest and most recent are loose and 
 earthy." * 
 
 Surely, no engineer can glance over the series without 
 perceiving how admirably it is made up for the elevation 
 of portions of every layer to the surface. Granite is the 
 lowest. It is the hardest, the strongest, and an unstrati- 
 fied rock, as it ought to be, since, like the piston of an 
 engine, it receives and transmits the upheaving power to 
 all the rest. It breaks its way through all that overlie 
 it, and bears up beds of them all with it. because of its 
 superior compactness and hardness. Ware the series 
 reversed no such effects could have followed. We should 
 not have known coal except from minute fragments 
 picked up by collectors of rare minerals. 
 
 Then how the character of granite changes into gneiss ! 
 This rock is a species of granite, but from. an excess of 
 one of the elements, mica, its texture becomes lamellar 
 and slaty. It is weaker than granite. Next, dropping 
 
 * Conybeare's Introduction to the Geology of England and 
 Wales.
 
 TWO OPPOSING FORCES. 3t 
 
 the feldspar ingredient, gneiss passes into mica-slate, 
 whose components are mica and quartz a still weaker 
 compound, and one at which the stratified series begins. 
 
 " Although the five foregoing comprehensive classes 
 serve to exhibit a general view of the great outlines of 
 modern geology, we no sooner begin to trace in detail the 
 succession of mineral beds, than their numbers and varie- 
 ties appear to be endless, and but for some classification 
 would be infinitely perplexing to the student. By group- 
 ing together individual strata in a natural and easy 
 manner we reduce them to a limited number of series ; 
 each series comprehending numerous individual strata 
 naturally allied and associated together. To explain, 
 this by an example. If Derbyshire be the country 
 under examination, the investigator will find a series of 
 twenty or more alternations of beds of coal, sandstone, and 
 slaty clay, repeated over and over ; and beneath these a 
 like alternation of limestone strata, with beds of the rock 
 called toadstone. Here, then, all the individual beds 
 resolve themselves into two comprehensive series, the 
 upper containing coal, the lower limestone ; .each series 
 being characterized by the repetition of its own peculiar 
 members."* 
 
 The materials of the earth are, then, constantly under 
 the influence of two opposing forces : one urging them 
 from the centre, the other, their prodigious weight or 
 pressure, crowding them towards it. Here several inte- 
 resting reflections are evolved, every one of which, is a 
 lesson in engineering. 
 
 * Conybeare.
 
 36 INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FORCES. 
 
 1. If there were no internal force to interfere with the 
 external one, the volume of the earth would grow less 
 and less as consolidation proceeded. Contraction would 
 continue till the maximum solidity was attained. The 
 change from the present dimensions and density of the 
 orb would probably be as great as if a three-inch ball of 
 clay or sandstone were compressed into 1 a half-inch bullet. 
 At all events, the earth would become a quiescent, impe- 
 netrable body : no portion save what the surface exposed 
 could be used, vegetation would be impossible, and, as a 
 consequence of that, animal life impossible too. But all 
 these, and other fatal results, are avoided by the central 
 expanding force heaving up material in quantities sufficient 
 to balance the effect of the contracting one. 
 
 2. Suppose the internal greater than the external force, 
 then the diameter of the earth would increase with matter 
 accumulating on the surface ; but here also a compensat- 
 ing principle is at work. Mountains have been pushed 
 up, but equal masses have settled down. Some lands are 
 rising, but then others are descending. The ocean is 
 creeping up some shores, and at the same time receding 
 from others. Thus, the two forces are so adapted to each 
 other, and act under such circumstances, that the earth 
 neither swells nor shrinks. Did either effect take place, 
 it would be destructive of stability and the present consti- 
 tution of things, and hence life itself requires the conti- 
 nuous activity of the earth-quaking power. 
 
 3. But admitting the forces to be equal as indeed they 
 necessarily are, since the expanding one is due to the 
 compressing one, the law of action and reaction being as 
 fully developed in them as in anything else then, if the
 
 ACTIOiN OF THE TWO FORCES. 37 
 
 earth were composed of homogeneous concentric strata, no 
 interior movements could take place, and consequently no 
 materials be displaced. The forces would be in ecjuilibrio 
 like steam in a close boiler. Now, the way in which 
 materials are brought up is singular for its simplicity, and 
 the certainty of action under any and every contingency. 
 That there is an irregularity in the thickness of the walls 
 of the earth is certain ; that is, unless there are cavities 
 and protuberances at the centre corresponding with eleva- 
 tions and depressions without, a condition of things impos- 
 sible, and all but inconceivable : hence there are weak 
 places always in the walls, and upon such places the cen- 
 tral force is expended. Besides inequality of strength 
 arising from inequality of thickness, we know that homo- 
 geneity of strata has been broken by the upheaval of 
 lower through upper series ; and we also know, from the 
 moderate mean density of the planet, that it is not now, 
 whatever it may have been in the early periods of con- 
 densation, composed of layers of uniformly increasing 
 densities. There is, therefore, an entire absence of uni- 
 formity in the strength of the walls ; and the beautiful 
 result is, that, while the external force acts continuously 
 and uniformly over the whole, the internal one acts 
 locally and in succession on the whole. 
 
 4. Were the performance of the central force different 
 from what it is, it would be of no benefit to man. Sup- 
 pose its action could be uniform on the whole, and just 
 sufficient to prevent further contraction, like air confined 
 in a bladder, or steam in a boiler, every thing would 
 then be at rest, and no change of material on the surface 
 could take place. But to originate and maintain internal
 
 38 ALL MATTER TO BE MANIPULATED. 
 
 currents of matter upwards is its vital function. Without 
 this circulation and exchange of interior and exterior 
 substances, the earth might as well have been a shell, as 
 some suppose it is, since its hidden treasures would for 
 ever have remained hidden ; whereas, by the existing 
 arrangements, they stream upwards and return as through 
 an immense colander. As near as can be, the movements 
 resemble those of fluids. In a globe of water a current, 
 the minutest and slowest, would keep varying the local 
 positions of the particles, and causing those within and 
 without to change places. In a ball of sand the same 
 thing would occur if a central force started the move- 
 ments. The earth is such a ball : its central force induces 
 and maintains the currents, though they move at so slow 
 a rate as to be almost irreconcilable with our accustomed 
 ideas of fluid motion. 
 
 5. The material is sent up with the least disturbance, 
 and the general arrangement by which this is accomplished 
 is beautiful : Thus, while the compressing force increases 
 in intensity as it descends, because it keeps forcing the 
 materials into less and less space, the expanding one 
 diminishes as it ascends, from becoming diffused into ever 
 widening areas. 
 
 In this admirable way, then, is all matter brought under 
 human influence, and made to contribute to human enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 ' All matter ?' Yes ! I do not think it is too much 
 to assert that the whole was destined to pass, and that 
 repeatedly, through human hands, preposterous as the 
 thought may seem. God has made coal and ores for man 
 to use not to conceal them uselessly. If an approximate
 
 THE EARTH NOT A SHELL. 39 
 
 estimate could be made of what has been acted on from 
 the beginning, or if even the amount now annually dis- 
 placed, or otherwise made use of, could be ascertained, 
 the idea of a scarcity rather than a surplus would be sug- 
 gested ; and, especially in view of a prolonged future, 
 when the planet will, in all probability, be occupied by a 
 dense working population, the arts and sciences universally 
 extended, and inorganic motive agents abounding beyond 
 our present conceptions. So far from an excess, a defi- 
 ciency would inevitably occur, were it not for the continual 
 recomposition of decomposed bodies a principle that 
 prevents the establishments from being closed for want of 
 fresh stock to work up. There is no reason whatever to 
 infer that the fertility of a surface layer can be indefinite 
 in duration that it can continue beyond certain periods 
 to support vegetable or animal life. To recover or main- 
 tain its virtue, the material must descend into the alembic 
 again. Like broken utensils and scrap metal, they must 
 be recast ; for the heat of the central furnace is as neces- 
 sary to prepare materials for man as to furnish the power 
 that pushes them up to him. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SHELL THEORY OF THE EARTH UNMECHANICAL. 
 
 THE hypothesis that makes the earth a hollow shell 
 a thin one, too, for the thickness has been estimated as
 
 40 THE EARTH NOT A SHELL. 
 
 low as fifty or sixty miles, which compared to the diame- 
 ter is little thicker in proportion than the shell of the 
 domestic fowl's egg is not only a startling one, but it 
 certainly conflicts with mechanical laws. Unless the 
 shell was composed of perfectly homogeneous^ matter, 
 uniform in thickness and truly spherical, it could not 
 retain its figure ; because the effects of condensation from 
 the pressure of its materials would be unequal. If it 
 were even of iron it would be crushed in, and more 
 promptly than an irregular formed exhausted glass re- 
 ceiver. But the earth is known to be made up of any- 
 thing but homogeneous materials ; so far as observed, it 
 consists, and down to low strata, of miscellaneous sub- 
 stances of exceedingly varied densities ; of sand, gravel, 
 ores, rocks, coal, clay, &c. : the whole forming a mass of 
 material most unfit for a permanent arch or dome, most 
 inadequate to resist uniform external pressure, and the 
 less so when subject to be shaken and ruptured by earth- 
 quakes, and to wide displacements of matter. It may, 
 we think, be assumed as an utter impossibility that a 
 large proportion of the interior of the earth is hollow. 
 
 The idea that it is so is, of course, purely speculative. 
 The whole globe is supposed to have been long in a state 
 of ignition an orb of molten matter, the cooling of 
 which first at the surface caused that portion to solidify. 
 The fluid within continued to congeal and thicken the 
 walls, but shrank at length from them, and left a hollow 
 space between the shell and itself; somewhat as if the 
 yolk of an egg were to remain in its place after the white 
 had been withdrawn. Besides other difficulties in the 
 way of this hypothesis, the origin of the fire is one, and
 
 THE CENTRAL HEAT DUE TO COMPRESSION. 4 1 
 
 its beginning to cool looks like another. "Why, after 
 being once ignited, did not the matter continue to burn 
 till consumed, or till the elements of heat were dissipated 1 
 What was there to hinder ? If, as is said, caloric is now 
 slowly leaving the earth, it would seem then to have had 
 an opportunity to desert it altogether. 
 
 The hypothesis that originates worlds in whirling balls 
 of fire, we think can hardly be surpassed in wildness. 
 
 It seems more philosophical, because consistent with 
 known facts, to suppose the central heat the result of the 
 earth's contraction that it was slowly squeezed out of 
 matter and driven to the centre by the pressure of the 
 encompassing and superincumbent mass just as we 
 squeeze it out of air by a syringe, out of cold iron by 
 hammering its particles closer together, or out of any 
 substance whatever by compressing it. The elementary 
 matter of the earth, it is not doubted, once formed a 
 gaseous sphere whose radius extended beyond the moon, 
 and which by condensation became reduced to its present 
 dimensions. The caloric diffused through the immense 
 orb has been slowly crowded in and become concentrated 
 at the centre, whence it would again rush through the 
 whole, if the whole were dilated as at first to make room 
 for it. In this view the presence and the accumulation 
 of heat at the centre of the earth are accounted for. It 
 was, we suppose, developed, and is sustained by mechani- 
 cal pressure, and to that, chemical and galvanic influences 
 may contribute. There are also sources of heat in the 
 inflammable metallic bases of earths and alkalies, and 
 doubtless in many other matters at present unknown, but 
 which science will eventually reveal.
 
 42 THE CENTRAL HEAT NOT DISSIPATED. 
 
 Every planet, then, has its appropriate quantity of 
 internal heat inherent in its materials, and must retain 
 it while possessing them, though its manifestations may 
 greatly vary. Some philosophers do not believe this. 
 They think the earth's central fires are burning out, and 
 that in time the temperature here will be too low to sus- 
 tain life ; but this is reasoning on God's furnaces from 
 our own. True, the central heat radiates in the walls 
 that inclose it, but, unlike ours, they are too thick for it 
 to pass through. It is questionable whether any reaches 
 the surface except through volcanoes and mines, while 
 there can be little doubt that the sun supplies all, or more 
 than all, that radiates from the surface and becomes, if 
 any becomes, dissipated in space.* It is the great exter- 
 nal heater of our planet, and the supporter of vegetable 
 and animal life, while the function of the other is with 
 inorganized matter. Great as the heat at the centre is, 
 it is insensible at the surface, because the solar rays pene- 
 trate to a depth to which it does not seem to rise. As 
 an inseparable and indestructible element of matter, the 
 same quantity of heat or material of heat must continue, 
 although it may not always be equally excited, or be in 
 
 * Suppose matter does escape from the surfaces of all the planets 
 and in greater proportion from the sun, may they not all take up 
 just as much as they lose, from the medium through which they 
 are floating; for it now seems to be admitted that the regions 
 of space are filled with a fluid whose density is sufficient to affect 
 the motions of comets, if not those of other bodies? In this way 
 space performs for all orbs the part which the atmosphere performs 
 for ours imperceptibly receiving and restoring the matter of which 
 they are made.
 
 TEMPERATURE OF THE OUTER PLANETS. 43 
 
 the same circumstances for excitement ; more or less may 
 become latent by diffusion more or less manifest by con- 
 centration. 
 
 It is singular how writers differ. There are those who 
 suppose the earth's temperature actually rising, in con- 
 sequence of the sun's heat being transmitted entirely 
 through it by the conducting power of the ground. The 
 accumulation of thin waves of heat moving inwards'every 
 summer resulted, it is said, in igneous liquefaction at the 
 centre; and is eventually to result in the melting of the 
 elements and in the earth's passing away as a scroll. 
 Thus, between the two theories, it is either to become a 
 dead and frozen body or be heated into gas, and that gas 
 dissipated in flame. Then there are others who shiver 
 when contemplating the outer planets, because of their 
 being located so far from the sun ; and yet the average 
 surface temperatures of those orbs may, for aught we can 
 see, be quite as high and even higher than that of the 
 earth. Jupiter is over 1300 times larger, and the heat 
 developed by the compression of such an immense volume 
 of matter may more than compensate for its being five 
 times the earth's distance from the sun. While solar 
 heat preponderates on the surface of some, internal heat 
 may surpass it in others. 
 
 The disposition to anticipate evil in the earth and in 
 the heavens is a relic of the ages of horoscopes and 
 omens : and so is that which lingers over an early wind- 
 ing up of the affairs of the earth, as that of an establish- 
 ment no longer profitable ; its occupants to be killed off 
 by freezing or by fire, its roof and walls torn down and 
 dispersed, and its elements used for building up a better
 
 44 THE EARTHQUAKING POWER 
 
 one. Can a better one -be made? Infinite wisdom may 
 produce a different one, but not one more perfectly suited 
 in every imaginable respect to us. It might be occupied 
 by better tenants, but then there is no limit to our im- 
 provement if we choose to pursue it : and our species will 
 improve. Men will advance spiritually as science and 
 arts advance. 
 
 The power that produces earthquakes, then, so far 
 from being a destructive, is eminently a conservative one. 
 The stability of the earth depends on it ; and it is as 
 essential to the life of the world as the heart is to an ani- 
 mal. Neither has it been more fatal to human life than 
 some of the arts. Who would decry mills because men 
 have been drowned in dams, or gas-lights because they 
 have set houses on fire, or foundries because workmen 
 have been scalded by molten metal ! Who would give 
 up navigation by wind or steam because of storms ! or 
 travelling on railroads because cars have run off the 
 tracks ! No one. Neither do people quit the sites of cities 
 or other places shaken by earthquakes. In time the phe- 
 nomena will be better understood, will be accompanied 
 with less loss of life. Premonitions of their coming, now 
 misapprehended or unperceived, will then be construed 
 aright and acted on. 
 
 Earthquakes have not been investigated with the care 
 their importance demands. Their purpose, or the motive 
 of the builder of the earth in establishing by means of 
 them a constant exchange of internal for external mat- 
 ter, has yet to be taken up and philosophically considered. 
 Sometimes locally calamitous, and at all times fearful 
 from the magnitudes of their movements, and the utter
 
 A CALORIC EXGINE. 45 
 
 helplessness of mau to control or prevent them, they are 
 anticipated with disquietude and witnessed with affright. 
 This is just the conduct of those nervous persons who 
 only contemplate steam in its explosion of boilers, clos- 
 ing their eyes to the benefits it confers on society. Earth- 
 quakes are the workings of an igneous engine that is in- 
 finitely more advantageous to the inhabitants of the whole 
 earth than is steam to people who use it. 
 
 As a caloric engine simply, the earth's central force is 
 interesting, and as the most compact and powerful one 
 still more so. Planned and executed by the Great En- 
 gineer, it carries out his ideas of the best mode of dis- 
 placing large masses of matter here ; it therefore is a 
 standing lesson to us on one of the most laborious and 
 enduring departments of art. It is calculated and in- 
 tended to initiate and instruct us in similar applications 
 of the expansive force of fire ; it suggests artificial vol- 
 canoes, which have accordingly been adopted by civil 
 and military sappers and miners. The principle has been 
 but partially employed hitherto. We believe it is des- 
 tined to greatly more varied and extended uses. The 
 simplicity of the regulation of the central engine has 
 been adverted to. Were the power confined, like gun- 
 powder in a shell, it would burst the world asunder ; but 
 by the absence of uniformity in the strength of the walls 
 that encircle it, its perfectly harmonious and perpetual 
 working is secured. The rending of the shell is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 The earth's material, besides passing through or towards 
 the glowing centre, circulates also through another and 
 widely different receptacle. Into the atmosphere the
 
 46 THE FACTORY COMPLETED IN PARTS. 
 
 constituent gases of all matter are received. It is the 
 great dissolver of all. There is not an atom in our bodies, 
 nor has there been one in the bodies of the dead, but 
 what came from it ; not one on the earth or under it but 
 what has been in it. Towards one or the other of these 
 laboratories all matter is progressing, and changing as it 
 progresses, being urged on by the two great forces already 
 named. 
 
 These laboratories, and the forces urging the contents 
 of the orb through them, constitute one of the earth's 
 chief working features as a whole and a most interest- 
 ing one in a mechanical aspect it is. 
 
 But there is a feature in the factory not yet noticed, by 
 which the debut of man was hastened, and one which 
 everywhere had a direct, and will everywhere have a 
 lasting bearing on both workmen and the work. It is 
 this : 
 
 The earth, was not matured throughout at once, but 
 only in parts, and as each became ready for man, he 
 made his appearance on it. Its great sections are now in 
 diverse stages of development. No two are of the same 
 date. In recent as in remote ages the highlands were oc- 
 cupied before the basins were well drained. This is 
 exemplified as much in the new as in the old world. The 
 regions of the Andes have long been peopled, while the 
 valleys of the Amazon, Oronoco, Parana, and other 
 streams, are in the almost undisturbed possession of the 
 lower tribes. Indeed, at this hour, a very large propor- 
 tion of the earth is unsubdued another proof that we 
 belong to an early period of its history. 
 
 Thus it appears to have been a distinct trait in the
 
 FIRE INDLSPENSAHLE TO THE FACTORY. 47 
 
 Divine plan that the factory should not be equally and 
 uniformly matured. The advantages of this were great : 
 Man was sooner introduced than otherwise he could have 
 been ; while growing up on one part, another was pre- 
 paring for him. His materials and agencies were vastly 
 multiplied ; instead of having no animals and plants ex- 
 cept such as belonged to his own epoch, he had around 
 him representatives of all that had flourished from the 
 beginning. And the same may be said of his own spe- 
 cies, for at present there are as many varieties of men as 
 have probably existed since the first settlement of the 
 planet. Another advantage was, that the occupants of 
 one part were made mutually dependent on and bene- 
 ficial to those of others. In a manufacturing point of 
 view the plan commends itself as the most economical and 
 productive in every conceivable respect. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 FIRE INDISPENSABLE TO THE FACTORY, AND TO MAN AS A 
 COSMOPOLITE. 
 
 BEFORE man could attempt earthen or metallic wares, 
 he lacked another element ; one neither visible nor pal- 
 pable. He might knead clay into forms, but if he stopped 
 there, they would remain clay. To succeed, he must, 
 like Prometheus, animate them with the life and soul of 
 the arts. It is fire that enables us to open the teeming
 
 48 FIRE WITHHELD FROM ANIMALS. 
 
 earth and to use its treasures. Without it the artist and 
 the artist's hammer, and all that they have done, had 
 never heen. The factory could not itself have been 
 tenantable ; and if it had, no work could have been done 
 in it. Essential to man as a cosmopolite, his earthly pre- 
 eminence rests on the exclusive use of fire. Withholding 
 it from brutes was essential to his rule over them. Did 
 they possess the power to elicit it, enraged by his tyranny 
 they would set and keep the world in flames. His supe- 
 riority would wane, and his tenure on earth be uncertain 
 and insecure. To prevent this, special provision has 
 been made. Animals fly from fire a dread of it is, im- 
 planted in their natures. Those that prey in the night 
 are impelled by a law of their organization to avoid it ; 
 for when dazzled by the blaze of a torch, the contraction 
 of their pupils amounts in some species to blindness, and 
 in all the sight is affected. Hence, though many of the 
 lower tribes surpass man in physical energies, speed, 
 flight, duration of life, minuteness and magnitude of 
 their works, happily none can strike fire, nor fan it into 
 flame. 
 
 Still, lights in the night were not withheld wholly from 
 the lower tribes. For those that required them, a spe- 
 cial illuminating element was provided. There are some 
 that surpass in numbers the human species, of which 
 every individual carries a torch that rivals in brilliance 
 the best of our candles, the materials for which they have 
 the power to secrete. Glow-worms and fire-flies are fa- 
 miliar examples. In tropical climes, various luminous 
 insects are attached to female head-dresses. They are 
 used also as lamps. I have read fine print in a dark
 
 DEVICES FOR OBTAINING FIRE. 49 
 
 room by the light of two small Long Island fire-flies in a 
 tumbler. But man was not the first to rob these living 
 gems of their liberty and radiance. There are birds that 
 seize and suspend them as chandeliers for their dwellings. 
 The bottle-nested sparrow, or baya, is one of the kidnap- 
 pers. Its nest is closely woven like cloth in the figure of 
 a large inverted bottle, with the entrance at the orifice of 
 the neck. The interior is divided by partitions into two 
 or three chambers, one over the other. These are pro- 
 foundly dark until lit up with fire-flies caught alive, and 
 mercilessly fixed to the walls or ceiling with pieces of 
 wet clay or cowdung for sconces. 
 
 How was fire first obtained ? Does the reader know ? 
 If not, if he have never reflected on the subject, let him 
 now reflect. The operation and materials must of course 
 be suited to man's condition in the earliest days of his 
 apprenticeship, since neither the metals nor any thing like 
 tools were in use : applicable, too, to all lands since untu- 
 tored man first occupied them all. Suppose the reader 
 were thrown ashore on an uninhabited island, without 
 flint or steel, match or tinder, or any artificial substitute, 
 how would he act ? Unless he knew what the primeval 
 device was, he might perish, as many have perished, for 
 lack of the information. 
 
 The process was by friction, and the only instruments 
 employed, two small pieces of wood. By twirling the 
 point of a dry stick in a rude indentation made in ano- 
 ther, or by rubbing it to and fro in a groove, sparks were 
 evolved and flame obtained : an apparatus so simple that 
 Indian boys and girls have been observed to prepare it 
 by breaking suitable pieces from a branch and gnawing 
 
 3
 
 50 FIRE BY FRICTION. 
 
 the pointed one into shape. Such, from the beginning, 
 has served the wild man for a tinder-box ; and thus, 
 wherever fuel was, he had the means of kindling it. 
 Viewed in any light, this was a remarkable invention. 
 The blessings it immediately secured and those it has 
 given rise to, mark it as the most memorable of pristine 
 discoveries. 
 
 Who the first inventor of the device was, history has 
 not informed us. The author of the Pentateuch takes no 
 notice of it, though he mentions inchoate discoveries of 
 less moment. One might have expected that in treating 
 of man's origin and early progress, he would not have 
 overlooked an art or device with which human enter- 
 prise began, and the introduction of which opened the 
 leading act in life's drama. Ancient nations almost inva- 
 riably ascribed it to their founders or patron deities : 
 hence its incorporation in traditions, histories, and legends. 
 The description, in one of Homer's hymns, of Mercury 
 kindling a fire to roast cattle he had stolen, is literally 
 that of a Camanche or Apache after a buffalo hunt, or a 
 foray into New Mexico. 
 
 'And gathering fuel, the inventor rare 
 To fashion fire did his wits renew. 
 Hermes first taught how sparks could catch. 
 T'was he invented tinder and match ; 
 For where the hard branches grew 
 He snatch'd a branch and stripp'd the bark, 
 Rubbed piece 'gainst piece, till spark by eoark 
 Was kindled, and the flame upflew." * 
 
 The hint that led to the process, according to an old 
 * Translation in Blactwood.
 
 ORIGIN OP FIRE BY FRICTION. 51 
 
 tradition, was the ignition of trees by collision during a 
 high wind. The story was preserved by Sanconiatho, 
 and adopted by both Grecian and Roman writers. It is 
 ingenious, but unsatisfactory. Forests may occasionally 
 be fired by lightning ; seldom or never, we believe, by 
 friction alone. But leaving the question, which would 
 divert us too far from the track of this Essay, it is worthy 
 of observation that all primitive people, no matter how 
 distantly located or how isolated, have kindled their fires 
 by friction. In the eastern hemisphere, it dates from the 
 first age or ages, and was universal. In fact, it was the 
 device by which the Patriarchs and their immediate 
 descendants obtained fire ; and when these continents 
 were discovered, it was found in possession of the natives 
 from the Esquimaux to the people of Terra del Fuego, 
 from those who hunted on the borders of the Atlantic to 
 the tribes that dwelt on the Pacific shores. It was as 
 familiar to the half-civilized occupiers of Chili, Mexico, 
 Central America, and Peru, as were vessels to hold water. 
 In the islands of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, 
 and through the regions of Australia, it was equally 
 known. 
 
 Is it to be inferred that all these people derived the 
 art from observing trees kindled by friction in a storm, or 
 from a primeval source, when mankind is supposed to 
 have been one family ? We should say from neither, 
 but that, like the bow, axe, lever, and canoe, it was an 
 instinctive suggestion, and hence its universality. 
 
 It has been too much the custom to consider the 
 simplest arts as having had one date and place of birth, 
 whereas they certainly have been independently dis-
 
 52 THE DOMESTIC HEARTH. 
 
 closed at different times and in distant lands. So far 
 from being exclusively due to a few sagacious men of 
 old, they are the natural and necessary results of human 
 organization. Man, as well as the lower tribes, has 
 natural arts belonging to his species. 
 
 Once introduced into the hut, fire came under the 
 management of females, and wrought a revolution in 
 previous habits. Food was no longer consumed without 
 cooking ; roots as well as flesh were roasted ; subse- 
 quently, victuals were boiled, and the phenomena of 
 ebullition, hot water, and steam observed. Culinary 
 utensils were devised ; rude seats, tables, and beds made 
 their appearance. Natural vessels were superseded by 
 artificial ones ; earthenware caldrons succeeded those 
 formed of skins, of the calabash, and joints of bamboo. 
 Spinning, weaving, and knitting stepped in ; and the com- 
 forts of a permanent habitation put an end to the miseries 
 of roving the forests without dwellings or dress. Before 
 these things were accomplished, man could have had but 
 faint views of his destiny, none of the glory that awaited 
 his posterity. 
 
 It may truly be said, that the phoenix of the arts arose 
 from the ashes of the domestic hearth, and that from it 
 the first rays of science shot forth. Then who can re- 
 flect, without admiration, on the numerous sources of 
 artificial light, by which social communion, and the great 
 work of domestic and professional fabrication, is con- 
 tinued after the going down of the sun ! To the vege- 
 table oils, resins, tallows, sperm, lard, &c., we are indebted 
 for the multiplied myriads of tapers that are kindled every 
 evening, and around which social parties are everywhere
 
 ARTIFICIAL LIGHT 53 
 
 employed, and cheerfully employed, in modelling and 
 adorning rude matter. In warm climates, the candle or 
 lamp is as indispensable as the stove or grate in cold 
 ones ; and, in all lands, what would the condition of the 
 sick and dying be, were it not for light to assist them in 
 midnight hours ! A condition so distressing, that imagina- 
 tion cannot exaggerate it ! Humanity cannot be repre- 
 sented in a lower depth of degradation, than when pictured 
 without the tinder-box or its congeners. 
 
 Fire gives us what Eden had not. If a flaming sword 
 drove one man out, the knowledge of flame has put 
 within the reach of all men blessings unknown there. 
 
 The adaptations of things in the matter of fire, with a 
 view to keep it in human hands, small as they seem, have 
 a bearing on the general economy of the world. The 
 conditions necessary to the evolution of a spark by fric- 
 tion, and to nourish it into flame, are such, we all per- 
 ceive, as serve to prevent any serious results from natural 
 abrasions. Had the necessary amount or intensity of 
 friction been double what it is, man had made little use 
 of fire to this day. We do not see how, in the first ages, 
 he could have procured it at all, nor yet in subsequent 
 days unless an advance in the arts supplied him with bet- 
 ter means. Yet, how the arts could exist, much less be 
 advanced, without fire, it would be hard to tell. At all 
 events, sparks could not have been drawn out of wood 
 by individual exertion without mechanism, and what 
 mechanism did the pure savage possess, or could he, 
 without fire, possess ? 
 
 Had the requisite amount of friction been less than it 
 is, we might have scarcely known wood as a fuel or in
 
 54 NATURAL ABRASION DOES NOT KINDLE FIRE. 
 
 the arts, since Nature might then have acted the part of 
 an incendiary, and fired it as fast as it grew. And why, 
 it may be asked, do not gales of wind now produce con- 
 flagration ? Because the required rapidity and intensity 
 of friction at one point are not continued there, till hot, 
 abraded dust is sufficiently collected to receive the spark. 
 The verge of danger is approached nearer in hot than in 
 cold climates ; and yet we find that where vegetation is 
 parched like stubble, the air glowing as in an oven, resins 
 oozing out of some trees, and heat and inflammability 
 impressed on all, the violent collision of trees with trees 
 and stems with stems, inflames neither the reed swamps 
 of India, the corn brakes of America, the pitch pines of 
 the North, nor the unctuous boles of equinoctial regions : 
 so admirable and nice are the adjustments that prevent, 
 in such cases, ignition. 
 
 If it were not for these, the world would be in constant 
 danger : the larger animals would leave tracks of smoke 
 and ashes behind them ; the tread of an elephant or buffa- 
 lo's foot on dry reeds and grass, or the rushing of their 
 bodies through jungles, would fire them. Were the 
 amount of friction required to produce fire less than it is, 
 excessive care would be indispensable in thrashing and 
 stacking grain, carting timber, and even in working it. 
 The mere opening of a set of drawers might endanger a 
 bureau, while a straining ship would wrest a spirit out of 
 her groaning frame more to be dreaded than the element 
 she tossed on. Indeed, as things are, the line between 
 artificial attrition that produces fire and natural attrition 
 that does not, is so fine as to excite wonder that a barrier 
 so frail should be so powerful in preventing conflagrations.
 
 FIRE FROM PERCUSSION. 55 
 
 But the adaptations and adjustments of every thing in 
 this wonderful workshop to the work, are everywhere, 
 and abound where least suspected. What a volume will 
 some Humboldt of the arts one day write on them ! 
 
 Means to produce fire were not to be confined to 
 laborious attrition of wood. As all arts were to advance, 
 so this also, meagre as it might be supposed in variety of 
 resource. Tinder was early kindled by sparks struck out 
 of certain stones, which, however, were not universally 
 used, because not everywhere found. Neoptolemus ob- 
 served in the cave of Philoctetes a. few rags, a rough 
 drinking vessel, and some flints. This ancient Crusoe, in 
 reciting his miseries, says he had had no fire ; " but rubbing 
 flint on flint, hardly did I elicit the hidden light !" * 
 
 Flints contain sulphur, detected by the odor when two 
 are struck together. Sparks are given out by quartz, 
 also by the cane or Indian reed when struck, probably 
 from the silex they secrete. 
 
 Hearne, in journeying to the Northern Ocean in 1772, 
 discovered a solitary female of the Dog-ribbed Indians, 
 who had been seven months in the forests without seeing 
 a human being. To support herself she had built a hut, 
 and with much ingenuity snared rabbits and partridges, 
 &c. To procure fire she picked up two sulphurous stones, 
 from which, by long friction and hard knockings, she 
 drew sparks, and used touchwood for tinder. Though 
 acquainted, as she must have been, with the process of 
 obtaining fire from wood, she probably found herself for 
 want of practice unable successfully to perform it. 
 
 Botturini says the ancient Mexicans occasionally drew 
 
 * Tragedies of Sophocles, literally translated.
 
 56 THE TLVDBR-EOX. 
 
 fire from flints ; they are not known to have Lad iron, but 
 they had iron stone, which they used for the purpose. 
 The Patagonians pursued the fcame process. Samiento, 
 in 1580, met with Indians in the Straits of Magalhaen* 
 who struck fire with flint and a piece of metallic earth. 
 They used feathers for tinder. The Arctic Indians have 
 two ways of obtaining light, " one by rubbing two sticks, 
 the other by knocking together two stones, and catching 
 the sparks on dry moss." 
 
 These examples, among a host, may suffice to show by 
 what steps the second great device for obtaining fire was 
 reached. The flint and steel, or tinder-box, not only 
 economized time and labor, but introduced an epoch 
 vastly in advance of that represented by friction sticks. 
 It marked the conquest of iron, and the consequent 
 emergement of man from the forest. The blacksmith's 
 forge had then been put up. The date of the tinder-box 
 is as much unknown as its contriver. Mythology ascribes 
 it naturally enough to workers in iron to Vulcan, and 
 also to the Cyclops. Long and prosperous has been its 
 career ; it has come down to us improved by the ingenu- 
 ity of men of all nations, but its days are ended. It has 
 fulfilled its mission and retires, being succeeded by the 
 friction -match, a device as much superior to it as it was to 
 its predecessor. Its departure is characterized too by the 
 opening of a new cycle in the arts one eclipsing in 
 glory all other cycles. 
 
 Sparks drawn from flint and steel excite no curiosity, 
 but they are interesting phenomena. Received on a 
 sheet of paper they are found to be globules of vitrified 
 metal, each being separated by the flint, fused by the 
 heat elicited by collision, and oxidized by contact with
 
 THE FRICTIOX-MATCH. 57 
 
 the air as they fall, just as fine filings are melted when 
 dropped through the flame of a candle. Strange, that 
 while man is ignorant of the metals, he can draw fire out 
 of wood ; and when he subdues them, he extracts it 
 more copiously and readily from cold iron itself. Who 
 can fathom or even imagine the resources of the arts 
 that yet lie hidden in matter ! 
 
 Steel gives out more sparks than iron. Reaumur 
 found a composition of two parts of iron and one of anti- 
 mony supplied more and larger sparks than the best 
 steel. While this alloy was being dressed in a vice a 
 train of fire followed the file. 
 
 There have been till of late days two general modes 
 of producing fire. Each represents a certain condition 
 of the arts, and both embrace the entire cycle of human 
 existence to the present century. The friction-match is 
 the third device : its career is but beginning. 
 
 Fire and fuel having been provided, means for obtain- 
 ing a wide range of temperatures were required. With- 
 out devices for increasing and modifying the intensity of 
 heat few of the metals, and especially the chief of them, 
 could ever be reduced. These were within man's reach, 
 but he was to develope them himself. Of blast furnaces 
 he had many hints in the influence of wind on flames, and 
 in the action of his breath on the coals on his hearth. 
 Every savage thus urges his smouldering fires, and as he 
 progresses, employs reeds for blowing tubes. With such, 
 Asiatic and African smiths still fuse metal. Rude bel- 
 lows, as substitutes for the lungs, followed ; and at length 
 draught-furnaces were found out, and continue still to be 
 improved. 
 
 3
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE THREE STOREHOUSES OF MATTER. 
 1. MINERALS. 
 
 LET us now glance at the three great departments of 
 matter, in the order in which they appeared, and see how 
 each furnishes a peculiar class of contributions to the 
 factory; or rather how the mineral, vegetable, and ani- 
 mal kingdoms, as they have been named, are veritable 
 laboratories and storehouses of materials for human 
 manufactures. This is rigidly and to the letter true ; for 
 there is.no't a substance, force, or motion in one of them, 
 be it what it may, that does not reflect light on the earth 
 as a workshop, and on man as an artificer. We can 
 refer only to a few items in each department ; but they 
 will serve as specimens of the multitudes, seen and unseen, 
 that crowd around us. To some thoughts on the first, or 
 MINERAL division, let us devote the present chapter. 
 
 If subterrene materials are to go through man's hands, 
 are they offered to him in such forms and conditions as 
 to be manageable ? Yes ; and remarkable are the dis- 
 criminations in this respect. Those that are easily dug 
 into are homogeneous, and extend over large areas, as 
 fields of clay, coal, sand, marl. So also with such as can 
 be quarried, as rocks; they are in immense and con- 
 tinuous masses, from which blocks of any required
 
 METALS METEORIC IRON. 59 
 
 dimensions may be taken monolithic temples have been 
 dislodged. But how is it with the metals 1 Suppose 
 they had been laid up in solid mountain piles like granite, 
 or in continuous pure and thick strata, what could have 
 been done with them ? Nothing. It would have been 
 beyond human power to have extracted a supply from 
 them. Had a mammoth boulder of the finest malleable 
 iron been placed at the birth of man in the centre of 
 every township for the use of its inhabitants, all would 
 have remained undiminished to this day. Like blocks 
 of copper recently found in ancient diggings on Lake 
 Superior, from which Indians had endeavored to cut 
 portions with flint tools, they would have remained 
 monuments of tantalism. With all the advantages of 
 modern arts, masses of native copper present serious 
 difficulties in the way of their reduction into manageable 
 masses, say of a ton or two. In the Lake Superior mines 
 the present method is to cut grooves with chisels entirely 
 through the blocks. Twelve thousand dollars were thus 
 expended on a single block. 
 
 In New Mexico meteoric masses of fine malleable iron 
 frequently occur. For centuries some have been used as 
 town anvils. At Tuscan in Sonora, Mr. Bartlett, late 
 commissioner to determine the boundary line between the 
 United States and Mexico, heard of one weighing about 
 600 pounds, and serving as an anvil in the blacksmith's 
 shop. Desirous of obtaining a specimen, Mr. Bartlett 
 observes it was with much difficulty that a small frag- 
 ment, only sufficient for an analysis, was detached. At 
 the Hacienda da Concepoion, in Chihuahua, he found 
 another weighing between three and four thousand pounds,
 
 60 IRON ONLY IN ORES. 
 
 and such, he says, was the tenacity and hardness of the 
 metal that, after an hour's incessant labor and the break- 
 age of five chisels all his company possessed they 
 only succeeded in detaching three or four pieces that did 
 not weigh an ounce altogether. An attempt had once 
 been made to reduce the mass by building a fire round 
 it, and heating it to a white heat ; but the workmen could 
 not then approach it, and their labor was lost. The ex- 
 pense of the operation exceeded one hundred dollars, and 
 the only result was a piece of metal large enough to be 
 worked into a pair of spurs.* 
 
 Thus, where the metal has been of the first necessity 
 since the conquest, and more precious than gold, the peo 
 pie have brought it, and still bring it, from a distance of 
 a thousand miles overland, because of their inability to 
 take what they require from these moderate-sized lumps 
 at their very doors. 
 
 Without reflection, we might have thought it prefer- 
 able to have metals thus provided, and pure without the 
 trouble of smelting them ; but the Proprietor knew better, 
 and hence, happily for us, they seldom occur except as 
 minerals that readily yield to the pick, while iron, the 
 chief of them, is only found in ores. Even the softer 
 metals, as lead and tin, would have presented difficulties 
 in solid strata far surpassing all that attend their quarry- 
 ing and reduction. Their very softness and inelasticity 
 would have been exceedingly embarrassing to miners of 
 them, whereas, found as they and others are, they are 
 
 * Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New 
 Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, fcc. By John Russell 
 Bartlett New York: 1854.
 
 IRON ITS FUNCTIONS. 61 
 
 obtained and passed through the furnace without embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 But while iron is the most important of metals, it is the 
 most difficult to reduce to a malleable state ; so that man 
 was not to have it without a corresponding outlay of men- 
 tal and physical exertion, that he might appreciate it the 
 more. Still, every aid consistent with the prime design 
 of his education as an artificer was given him. Thus, 
 how pregnant with meaning is the fact that iron is gene- 
 rally found stored with fuel to reduce it ! English writers 
 proclaim it as the chief cause of the development of the 
 iron trade in Great Britain, that the ore occurs among the 
 coal-measures, " so that the ore and coal for smelting it 
 are found in the same spot ; while not unfrequently the 
 coal-measures contain the refractory clay used in the con- 
 struction of the smelting furnaces, and the limestone 
 needed as a flux occurs at no great distance."* 
 
 If man was to be pre-eminently a manufacturer, a suit- 
 able material for cutting-tools was of paramount import- 
 ance. The agent of all arts, it would be among the first 
 and last of his requirements. We know that iron is that 
 material. In reference to it, a question arises, which, 
 though now of little moment, would be a serious one if 
 the metal had only just been discovered. It is this : 
 If the substance be intended to cut all others, how is it to 
 be cut ? How formed into tools without the aid of still 
 harder tools ? Let it be remembered that before these 
 queries were practically answered, the idea of giving to 
 natural bodies qualities they did not already possess had 
 
 * Report of the juries of the London Exhibition of 1851.
 
 62 STEEL THE MASTER METAL. 
 
 not entered the minds of men. Had mines of steel and 
 adamant been provided specially for tools, the same diffi- 
 culty would have occurred ; for tools of still harder ma- 
 terials would have been necessary to shape and sharpen 
 them. While, therefore, a metal sufficiently indurate to 
 carve, cut, drill, and plane others was of the first neces- 
 sity, it was not provided by nature, because it would have 
 been useless unless furnished in the form of finished tools. 
 Now the way in which this most interesting exigence was 
 met excites, what every mechanical resource in nature 
 excites when first taken cognizance of, unmingled surprise 
 and pleasure. Iron was made capable of being artifi- 
 cially hardened, and thereby of being made into implements 
 that forge, file, saw, and cut even iron itself as easily 
 almost as soft lead or tin. The grand secret of convert- 
 ing iron into steel opened an ocean of new ideas on the 
 arts. It was an early discovery, but second in importance 
 to none. Steel is emphatically the master metal. 
 
 Iron is more in demand than other metals, while its 
 applications are being rapidly multiplied, some of them 
 involving vast additions to its yearly consumption. Now 
 what is the amount of the stock in view of such drain- 
 ings 1 Just what might be supposed. The metal abounds 
 more than any other, and apparently more than all others 
 put together, and it abounds everywhere. The quanti- 
 ties now annually raised, immense as they are, will in 
 another century or two be deemed trifles. 
 
 In France, the consumption of iron is set down at 
 about 80,000,000 of kilogrammes. In the United States, 
 there were raised in 1850, 1,579,309 tons of iron ore ; 
 but it is in small countries, as England and Belgium, that
 
 
 GREAT CONSUMPTION OF METALS. 63 
 
 the riches of the earth's cellars in this and other mate- 
 rials better appear. In the island of Great Britain, the 
 product of iron ore in 1848 was over two millions of tons 
 of metal ; in 1853, two and a half millions ; upon which, 
 as pig and bar iron, were expended over ten and a half 
 million tons of coal. This enormous amount of one 
 metal is not to be taken as the yield of the whole island, 
 but only of a few spots, which bear no greater proportion 
 to it than it bears to the rest of the world. Indeed, all 
 the mines opened on the face of the earth amount merely 
 to a few borings, from which samples only have been 
 extracted. 
 
 The lead ore raised in England in 1852 was 91,198 
 tons, which produced 64,961 tons of metal. Of tin, the 
 average produce is 5,000 tons of metal ; of copper, 11,776 
 tons of metal, in 1852. The annual product of the East 
 India tin mines is estimated at 53,000 piculs [McCul- 
 loch.J Besides her home consumption, England export- 
 ed in 1841, 690,000 cwts., or 38,000 tons of hardware, 
 cutlery, steel, silver, gold and plated wares, tin plate, 
 pewter and brass ware. The value, 33,000,000 of dol- 
 lars. The amounts were nearly doubled in 1852. 
 
 In the three principal mints of the world there was 
 coined in pounds sterling, in 1853 : 
 
 Gold. Silver. Copper. Total. 
 
 United States, . . 10,377,776 1,670,514 13,412 11,901,702 
 
 England, 11,952,391 704,544 9,073 12,666,902 
 
 France, 13,218,536 803,588 78,996 14,101,180 
 
 The total amount of coin of all kinds coined during 
 the year in the three mints was d38,728,830, which con-
 
 64 ALUMINUM. 
 
 sisted of no fewer than 174,448,021 pieces ; or in Ameri- 
 can money, the total coinage of the three mints was 
 193,644,150 dollars. 
 
 There is no need to enumerate the metals or their 
 diverse properties ; but one particular may be adverted 
 to, though it is merely one of ten thousand confirmations 
 of a general truth, viz. that as the arts advance, and 
 new materials are required, they will be forthcoming ; or 
 else the desired qualities will be found in old materials. 
 Examples are not uncommon in both particulars. As 
 regards the former, caoutchouc and gutta-percha are quite 
 modern instances from the vegetable kingdom ; and what 
 are the facts as respects the metals ? The ancients are 
 supposed to have known only the seven principal ones : 
 gold, silver, copper, iron, mercury, lead, and tin. In the 
 dark ages of inactivity that followed, the number con- 
 tinued the same. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
 modern inquiries began, and antimony, bismuth, and zinc 
 were added to the list ; in the eighteenth century platina, 
 nickel, arsenic, cobalt, and seven or eight others ; and in 
 the present century some twenty more. 
 
 Among these last is aluminum, a white metal resem- 
 bling silver, which fuses at about the same temperature, 
 ductile, exceedingly tenacious, light as glass, and not tar- 
 nished by exposure. In time, beds of clay (its ores) will 
 be converted into it. In many arts a new metal is much 
 wanted. For suspension bridges, a wire whose tenacity 
 exceeds that of iron, much lighter, and not subject to 
 rust, is now a desideratum. Aluminum offers some of 
 these advantages, if not all of them. But there are 
 others. From M. Vertheim's experiments on wires of
 
 METALLIC ALLOYS. 65 
 
 equal diameter, made of iron, of nickel, and of cobalt, it 
 appears that the weights which determine the rupture of 
 these several wires are respectively as the numbers 60 
 for iron, 90 for nickel, and 115 for cobalt. This would 
 establish for cobalt a degree of tenacity almost double 
 that of iron. Moreover, nickel and cobalt are worked 
 at the forge with the same facility as iron. They are 
 perhaps less subject to oxidation than iron, and may be 
 used for the same purposes. 
 
 From recent experiments of M. Deville, laid before the 
 Academy of Sciences of Paris, it would seem that alu- 
 minum is soon to be given to the arts and to commerce. 
 Common clay, so abundantly spread over the whole earth, 
 yields 25 per cent, of its weight of metal. Medals have 
 been struck in aluminum. It is represented as inoxidi- 
 zable as silver, and a much better conductor of electricity 
 than iron. 
 
 We can, indeed, form but imperfect ideas of coming 
 changes in engineering by fresh accessions of metals, and 
 in all arts by new materials and new combinations of 
 them. The metallic alloys, now so few, will become a 
 multitude. The great fact that different bodies coalesce 
 in various proportions, and form compounds with proper- 
 ties not possessed by the originals, but eminently service- 
 able, elicits little remark ; yet it is in every point of view 
 a remarkable one. Nature did not prepare for us such 
 alloys as brass, bell-metal, pewter, and a score of others 
 indispensable ; but she gave us the materials and the 
 power to produce them. 
 
 From the poverty of language or paucity of ideas, we 
 are accustomed to speak of the comparative values of
 
 66 GLASS CLAYS BRICKS. 
 
 natural productions ; yet it is hardly correct, for they 
 are all so allied to each other, that not one could be what 
 it is without the rest. But for this suggestion, we were 
 ahout to represent as next in worth to the metals the 
 earths from which come bricks, tiles, domestic earthen- 
 ware, and all the fertile varieties of ceramic manufac- 
 tures, so influential have such things been in multiplying 
 human enjoyments. This is perceived by comparing the 
 few rude attempts at pottery of primitive tribes with the 
 general profusion of porcelains at the present day ; and 
 yet that is but noting one item in a volume of items. 
 Glass, the most beautiful of compounds, is another ; and 
 the field of industrial enterprise it has opened has cer- 
 tainly not been half gone over. That the ingredients of 
 this artificial metal should be in such plenty, so close at 
 hand, the process of producing and working it so easy, 
 and that it should prove of transcendent utility to science 
 as well as to social progress, may be received as indica- 
 tions of equally novel and attractive alloys yet to be 
 found out for new branches of trade and commerce. 
 
 One of the earliest and most obvious of arts, the work- 
 ing of clays, prepared man to grapple with indurate 
 bodies. With the metals he could have done little or no- 
 thing till he had furnaces, crucibles, and retorts. It may 
 serve to assist the mind in trying to grasp the amount of 
 plastic matter annually drawn out of the earth and 
 worked up by man, to note a few items. There were 
 made in England, in 1847, 2,193,829,491 building bricks, 
 of all sizes. Allowing eighteen to the cubic foot, they 
 were sufficient to build a solid column one hundred feet 
 square and over two and a quarter miles high. The
 
 VAST AMOUNT OF MINERALS USED UP. 67 
 
 clays worked into paving, roofing and encaustic tiles, 
 draining and other pipes, works in terra-cotta and archi- 
 tectural decorations, into fire-bricks, grate-backs, fur- 
 nace linings, gas retorts, chemical apparatus, and nume- 
 rous other goods, in clays and cements, would suffice for 
 another ; while a third might be reared from the materials 
 worked into pottery, stone-wares, china, glass, and mine- 
 ral fabrics not enumerated above. Then how greatly 
 the number might be increased by the rocks quarried for 
 building and engineering purposes ! Amid the variegated 
 shafts that might thus be yearly raised on the soil of 
 England, those of coal would be conspicuous for their 
 number and for their color, since they would be relieved 
 by those of marble and chalk. 
 
 Suppose all the metals and minerals drawn out of Eng- 
 lish ground the last fifty years were thus disposed of, 
 what a striking illustration they would furnish of the 
 treasures stored away in the lower stories of this Earthly 
 Factory ! But what are fifty years of the past to the de- 
 cades of centuries to come, when the whole globe might 
 be more thickly dotted with such shafts ! 
 
 The amounts of dressed and undressed granite, lime- 
 stone, sandstone, flag-stones, slate and other rocks, drawn 
 annually out of the earth for the public and private works 
 of nations, would tax our powers to calculate. It is, 
 moreover, surprising how these amounts increase by new 
 applications of the commonest of minerals ; how slate, 
 for example, is becoming a substitute for wood in floors, 
 as well as in roofs ; in panelling, steps of stairs, linings 
 of rooms and cisterns ; in household and even ornamental 
 furniture ; in sideboards, tables, chimney-pieces, &c.
 
 68 SLATE COAL. 
 
 Sawn, split, planed, carved, polished, and inlaid, it has 
 already become an important element in the industry of 
 some nations, and will become one in many. The same 
 may be said of steatite or soap-stone. Then, how vast 
 the quantities of the richest marbles, alabasters, porphyries, 
 spars, serpentine, jasper, jet, &c.,whichare being constantly 
 worked up in columns, friezes, sculptures, mosaics, and 
 in every department of architectural and household carv- 
 ings and statuary. The conclusion is irresistible, that 
 these and other applications not yet found out, were con- 
 templated by the Creator, and that for them the diverse 
 properties, colors, textures, grain, and appearances were 
 given to rocks and stones. 
 
 One thought more before we dismiss them : To iron, in 
 one form or another, all solid bodies yield ; at the same 
 time a power to act on it is deposited in the most refrac- 
 tory ; and hence when blunted, these, in the form of 
 grindstones, whetstones, and hones, restore to its cutting 
 edges both sharpness and polish. This reciprocal power 
 between iron and the rocks may be considered if consi- 
 dered at all an incidental or small affair, and yet it is 
 of essential value in the arts. What would cutlers or 
 carpenters do without grindstones and hones, or millers 
 without millstones 1 
 
 Everything that has been discovered about coal shows 
 what it was intended for, and the importance attached 
 to it by the Creator. Its formation began with the 
 earliest land vegetation, that no time might be lost in its 
 preparation, and the advent of man not be unnecessarily 
 delayed. 
 
 The primitive or lowest rocks contain no traces of ani-
 
 FIRST FORMATION OF COAL. 69 
 
 mals or plants, although some of them, as clay-slates, 
 were deposited from water. Upon them repose certain 
 others of vast thickness, in which vegetation first appears 
 in sea-weed, accompanied with marine life in its lower 
 forms. These rocks have been named the old Palaeozoic 
 rocks ; and it is not till we ascend through other forma- 
 tions to the new Palaeozoic period that land vegetation 
 appears. Then, dense and matted forests covered all the 
 land. The universal and singular character of the vege- 
 tation has been well ascertained. Its varieties were ex- 
 ceedingly limited. About two thirds of the species and 
 four fifths of individual plants belonged to a single family 
 of ferns ; another group were club mosses ; and a third 
 the Equisetacese. These three families constituted three 
 fourths of the vegetable world during the first coal 
 period, and in that proportion contributed to make up 
 the first coal fields of the earth. 
 
 The plants thus converted into a substance more valu- 
 able than diamonds, are now counted among the worth- 
 less, The first kind is represented in the dress of our 
 heaths and moors ; the second by plants which none 
 notice but inquiring botanists ; and the third, by what 
 farmers call " horsetails," that grow in ditches and swamps, 
 and are everywhere deemed signs of bad land. The 
 three dwarf families were, however, giants in primeval 
 forests ; they there rose into trees, with trunks varying 
 in height from ten to sixty or seventy feet. Having 
 accomplished the task assigned them, they are probably 
 now dying out. 
 
 Such was the monotonous and unattractive character 
 of the oldest vegetation. It had no grass, nor succulent,
 
 70 CHARACTER OF THE FIRST VEGETATION. 
 
 crisp, or pulpy fruits ; no flowers, no animals, and no 
 birds to break the awful silence with their songs. The 
 period was too early for them : food had not been pre- 
 pared, the sweltering temperature was uncongenial, and 
 the atmosphere thickened, if not darkened with vapors 
 fatal to life. Still, everything was just what was required 
 to accomplish the objects of the epoch. 
 
 We have no data for measuring the period during 
 which the vitality of the earth was thus being concen- 
 trated ; and if we had, our minds are hardly prepared to 
 receive the results, so minute and contracted have been 
 popular and authorized speculations on the subject. But 
 let no one imagine it was prolonged unnecessarily or un- 
 profitably for a day. 
 
 Nor let any one surmise that the then vegetable power 
 was wasted in desert air. It has come down, and now 
 circulates through our vastly more varied and richer 
 flora. There was no human eye to glance at or roam 
 through the primeval forest ; but every person now can 
 have tons of its fossilized timber, and draw from it power 
 expended on its growth. In the vast duration of the 
 silent ages which constituted the coal-formations, the 
 intention of the Creator is apparent in laying up a mate- 
 rial that, in the remote future, was to give unprecedented 
 animation and activity to the planet. 
 
 The first vegetation grew rank, and, as it ripened, 
 much of it appears to have sunk, as in peat bogs, for 
 trunks are found in perpendicular positions. Then a 
 new geological period brought over the whole a platen 
 of rock, and thus closed up the products of the first car- 
 boniferous epoch, preparatory to their undergoing the
 
 PRESSURE OF COAL BETWEEN PLATEMS OK ROCK. 71 
 
 requisite pressure to fossilize them. But the first was 
 not sufficient, hence successive alternations of rock and 
 mineralized forests occur. Is it asked, why not have 
 prepared the whole at once ? Because, among other 
 obvious advantages, time was saved by the plan adopted, 
 i. e. by sealing up the proceeds of the first formation, 
 and passing them on towards the final process of ela- 
 boration, while material for new charges, or beds, 
 was being accumulated. These kept compressing the 
 lowest one into smaller and smaller space, which 
 they could not have done except by the interposition 
 of the rocky platens. In this way the first layer would 
 be ready for man, while the others were, in their order, 
 maturing for him. 
 
 Thus were all the fields of mineralized vegetation 
 under our feet prepared. The interposition of platens of 
 rocks, besides being necessary in the process of pressure, 
 was also required to keep out other matters. Had coal 
 been mixed up with other substances, its value had been 
 greatly diminished ; but special care has been taken to 
 preserve it from adulteration. This feature in its history 
 is as interesting as any other. 
 
 The prodigious pressure to which the strata were, and 
 are submitted, increases as they settle down, and thus 
 the platens are brought nearer and nearer, as the material 
 between them is compressed into less and less space. 
 The pressure, combined with internal heat, is considered 
 sufficient to account for the carbonization of both bitumi- 
 nous and anthracite coal. The latter is the densest, and 
 is deemed to belong to the oldest formation. 
 
 Leaves, twigs, branches, and trunks grew much as now
 
 i2 VAST DURATION OF COAL PERIODS. 
 
 they grow, i. e. not faster than they ripen in the tropics ; 
 yet, if we examine American forests in the torrid zone, 
 no recognisable addition to vegetable remains is percep- 
 tible since the discovery. No doubt large quantities 
 have been swept down and buried at the mouths of the 
 Mississippi, St. Lawrence, the Amazon, Oronoco, and La 
 Plata, for ages, and also by all the large streams of the 
 Eastern hemisphere, during the historic period. But, 
 supposing the materials of the early coal strata were thus 
 collected, which is hardly reconcilable with their purity, 
 or allowing, which is more probable, that they sank in 
 bogs where they sprang up, still they matured not much, 
 if any, faster than now. 
 
 In upper beds of coal new systems of vegetation ap- 
 pear. Pines, palms, firs, maples, and poplars, are com- 
 mon ; and in them are intimations that, compared with the 
 duration of the coal periods, the historic epoch of forty 
 centuries is but as an hour. " A fossil trunk was found in 
 an upright position, measuring eleven feet in diameter, 
 and in which 729 annual rings were counted. This gives 
 us a striking illustration of the vast periods of time which 
 have passed by on earth ; and although chemistry is ca- 
 pable of strengthening and concentrating active forms in 
 high degrees, and although this magical science can often 
 bring about in a few minutes things that require many 
 years to effect in the ordinary course of nature, the con- 
 templation of the enormous sum of years of past times 
 warns us not thoughtlessly to over-estimate the experi- 
 ments of the laboratory, when we are investigating great 
 geological phenomena ; for by continued action through 
 thousands of years, very weak agents are capable of pro-
 
 COAL INEXHAUSTIBLE. 73 
 
 ducing results which at first sight we should imagine to 
 be impossible." Von KobeL 
 
 The annual yield of the English mines has risen to 
 34,600.000 tons. This enormous drain has led to inquiries 
 respecting the future : some writers predict exhaustion 
 within a few centuries, others contend that nothing of the 
 kind is inferable, even with a continuously increased de- 
 mand. In South Wales are stores not opened. They 
 have been examined and are found to extend over an area 
 of about 12,000 square miles, and they alone could meet 
 the demand after all the present English coal mines are 
 worked out. In the United States over 150,000 square 
 miles of coal beds have been ascertained already of these 
 upwards of 40,000 are in Illinois. 
 
 A first element of progress for all time, it is preposter- 
 ous to suppose the supplies of coal can ever be exhausted 
 or even become scarce. The idea is almost blasphemous. 
 It is a reflection on the Proprietor of the earth, and can 
 only arise from not knowing the manufacturing character 
 he has stamped upon it : though invisible in manufactures, 
 the presence of coal that is, its power is in almost every 
 thing man makes, from a needle or penknife to a steam- 
 ship ; from a brick to a city ; a ball of thread to anything 
 made of thread. 
 
 In nothing are the manufacturing purposes of the Crea- 
 tor more obvious than in the article of fuel. Of what 
 value indeed could metallic ores and soft earths have 
 been without it. To meet the constant demand, wood, 
 peat, turf, and other inflammable materials, are spread 
 over the earth's surface, while its interior is surcharged 
 with coal. It is a magazine of fuel and of materials to 
 
 4
 
 74 ELABORATION OP MATTER ENDLESS. 
 
 be heated. As long as it remains a factory, coal must be 
 provided, and will be. There is reason to believe that 
 the formation of this substance is now going on in the 
 depths of our oceans preparing a supply for workmen 
 under new configurations of the surface. There is indeed 
 nothing to indicate that the elaboration of matter here is 
 to stop. We cannot imagine it to cease on any inhabited 
 orjb. That the physical aspects and condition of the earth 
 are ever changing is certain ; and from the fact that, with 
 the whole heavens, she is ever varying her position in 
 space, it may well be that future mutations will exceed 
 those she has undergone. 
 
 But change implies not decay. It is the antagonist of 
 stillness, the preventive of stagnation, the conservative 
 result of the ever acting forces in matter ; hence, not a 
 plant, a pebble, a world, or the universe of worlds, can re- 
 main for two moments absolutely without change. It is 
 thus that an endless succession of varieties in the forms 
 and qualities of matter, with corresponding modifications 
 of artificial fabrics, are secured. As the earth's forms and 
 products vary, so will human arts. Perpetual vigor circu- 
 lates through all matter ; and the earth, we may presume, 
 has within herself the elements of lasting duration. 
 Therein lies the difference between God's mechanisms 
 and ours. Could we implant enduring energy within, 
 or cause it to circulate through them, we should rival 
 him in power. 
 
 The mineral kingdom furnishes raw material for human 
 labor : the production of food belongs not to it ; and yet 
 it supplies that which gives to food its best relish. Salt, 
 next to bread, is a necessary of life ; and as the common
 
 SALT. 75 
 
 seasoner and great preserver of food, it is quarried as a 
 mineral in most countries. The mines of England have 
 long been worked, and some are among the richest yet 
 discovered. The consumption of salt in Great Britain is 
 estimated at 616,000,000 Ibs. Counting 22 Ihs. for each 
 individual, and assuming this as a fair allowance for the 
 world's consumption and we should suppose it under 
 rather than over the truth, since there are immense quan- 
 tities consumed by cattle, and more still in various manu- 
 factures and arts not included then the thousand mil- 
 lions of human beings require an annual supply of twenty- 
 two thousand millions of pounds. A better illustration of 
 the profusion of man's kitchen supplies could hardly be 
 cited than these eleven millions of tons of one condi- 
 ment. 
 
 In warm climates, the sea is a magazine of salt, the 
 water being evaporated in wide basins, formed in the 
 soil. That little Atlantic patch, known as Turk's Island, 
 furnishes about 50,000 bushels of sea salt weekly. Salt 
 springs are also more or less common in all countries. 
 Were it required to quote particulars respecting the 
 sources of rock salt, we might refer to one bed of it in 
 Gallicia, which is 460 miles long, 90 miles wide, and 1200 
 feet thick.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE THREE STOREHOUSES OF MATTER. 
 2. VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. 
 
 THE factory would have been a failure if its operatives 
 had had only minerals to work in. Properties not found 
 in them were a necessity ; and unless substances possess- 
 ing them were to be had, the work would stop. The 
 VEGETABLE department, by its contributions, prevented 
 that. One prime desideratum was realized in the various 
 kinds of wood a species of matter eliminated by different 
 processes than minerals, but one that added to their value 
 by facilitating the means to procure and employ them. 
 
 Now, as wood could not be produced under ground, 
 and as, if it were developed like minerals in strata or 
 wide layers, there was not room for it upon the ground, 
 what was to be done ? What would have been our sug- 
 gestions on the dilemma 1 The needful quantity was so 
 large that, if trees had grown horizontally, the earth had 
 long ere now put on the appearance of a spherical raft of 
 closely interlaced timber, floating in space as if for a 
 market. There had been no room for man nor for his 
 operations ; and yet he requires almost the whole. Ob- 
 serve, then, with what singular wisdom and economy the 
 exigence was met, and only a moderate, indeed a very 
 small space, taken up. The new material was made to
 
 TIMBER FORM OF BOLES. 77 
 
 rise in vertical columns, whose lower ends only occupied 
 the ground, all the rest being above, where there was 
 nothing to interfere with or be incommoded by its exten- 
 sion; the intermediate spaces on the ground being, more- 
 over, as usefully occupied as if the boles of trees had not 
 interrupted them. 
 
 Another point of economy is exhibited in the general 
 form of boles of trees. Their sections are circles ; hence 
 the greatest possible quantity of timber is compressed 
 into the least possible space. Had they grown up in wide 
 slabs, in square or angular masses, the same quantity of 
 material would have taken up a great deal more space, 
 and would in other respects have been inconvenient. 
 They would have been less able to resist storms of wind, 
 and would have seriously interrupted the flight of animals 
 through forests. Does the reader think there was abun- 
 dance of room, and therefore no need of contrivances to 
 make the most of it ? Let us look at it : More than two 
 thirds of the earth's surface are covered by oceans, seas, 
 lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water sources and dis- 
 tributing reservoirs of moisture and fertility, and at the 
 same time theatres of aqueous and sub-aqueous life. Less 
 than one third, then, only is left (and in it are included 
 immense deserts of sand, wide regions of barren rocks, 
 extensive moors, and arid wastes) for the swarming myri- 
 ads of animals for which it has to provide room and food ; 
 for the moving millions of men, and their dwellings, farms, 
 cities, factories, roads, and all other undertakings requir- 
 ing room ; for vegetable products required in a thousand 
 manufactures, &c. ; and the wonder will be how such 
 masses of material are raised, and such inconceivable
 
 78 FUNCTIONS OF TIMBER. 
 
 legions of living beings accommodated, on so small an 
 area. Moreover, it is not merely what has been and is 
 now required, but what will be when our species, instead 
 of numbering one thousand, will amount to three, and 
 perhaps to five thousand millions. 
 
 It would be superfluous to remark that woods most 
 useful most abound, and that every climate has those 
 most durable in it ; nor need reference be made to the 
 functions this glorious material fulfils ; that to it we are 
 indebted for social, civil, and manufacturing architecture ; 
 for navigation and its wondrous appurtenances ; for imple- 
 ments and mechanisms without number ; and for some of 
 the most salutary and refining influences that pervade 
 society. 
 
 As in the case of the metals, timber is provided in 
 manageable masses. The size of trees is adapted for 
 human not Cyclopean artisans. Had they generally 
 approached in dimensions the great Californian cedar 
 325 feet high and 92 feet in circumference at the ground ; 
 88 feet at four feet, and 66 feet at ten feet above the 
 ground what could have been done with them with 
 logs, one of which laid along the pavement of some 
 streets, would fill them to the roofs of three-story houses ! 
 The difficulties of felling, transporting, handling, and slit- 
 ting such into beams and boards, would have been seri- 
 ously embarrassing. 
 
 The adaptation of the size of trees to human strength 
 and means is exemplified in the annexed table of the or- 
 dinary dimensions of full-grown boles of Europe, pre- 
 pared by Boussingault. (See his " Rural Economy.")
 
 SIZE OF TREES ADAPTED TO HUMAN STRENGTH. 7D 
 
 Names of Trees. 
 
 Usual Height of Trunks 
 in Feet. 
 
 Usual Diameter of Trunks 
 in Inches. 
 
 Spruce Fir, 
 
 
 
 26 to 100 feet 
 
 47.1 inches. 
 
 larch, 
 
 
 
 26 " 100 " 
 
 39.3 " 
 
 Poplar, . 
 
 
 
 19 " 65 
 
 
 31.8 
 
 Pine, 
 
 
 
 16 " 65 
 
 
 34.1 " 
 
 Plane, 
 
 
 
 16 " 48 
 
 
 36.1 " 
 
 Oak, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31.4 " 
 
 Elm, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31.4 " 
 
 Birch, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 29.4 " 
 
 Beech, 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 < 
 
 
 28.2 " 
 
 Lime, 
 
 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 25.9 " 
 
 Ash, 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 i a 
 
 
 23.5 " 
 
 Willow, . 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 < 
 
 
 11.7 
 
 Chestnut, . 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 < 48 
 
 
 36.1 " 
 
 do. another 
 
 arie 
 
 y. 
 
 " 
 
 < 
 
 
 28.2 
 
 Maple, 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 ' 48 
 
 
 
 
 Service, . 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 ' 39 
 
 
 17.6 " 
 
 Acacia, . 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 ' 26 
 
 
 19.2 
 
 Hornbeam, 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 23 " 
 
 21.2 
 
 Mulberry, 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 >< 
 
 16.5 ' 
 
 Wild Pear, 
 
 
 
 
 
 < (C 
 
 14.1 ' 
 
 Crab, 
 
 
 
 6 " 20 " 
 
 12.9 ' 
 
 Walnut, . 
 
 
 
 6 " 16 " 
 
 36.1 
 
 These measures are those of the trees at their maturity, 
 and fit for felling. The spruce and larch present the 
 largest boles, but even they do not exceed four feet in dia- 
 meter. Next are the plane, pine, oak, elm, chestnut, 
 and maple. The walnut exceeds most of them in growth, 
 but attains only one third of the length of many. 
 
 If the average dimensions of European trunks were 
 deduced from the preceding table, it would, we should 
 suppose, be much too high about 32 feet in length and 
 27 inches in diameter. The medium in the virgin forests 
 of both Americas, where magnificent boles abound, and
 
 80 GIGANTIC TREES HOLLOW. 
 
 where for decades of centuries they have been undis- 
 turbed by man, would hardly come up to it. In the 
 forests of the United States and Canada we should think 
 15 inches would be a fair average diameter, and 18 inches 
 a liberal one. Here we have the button-wood tree among 
 the largest ; then the white-oak, whose stems run up 80 
 and often to 100 feet, with a girth at two feet above the 
 ground of 15 feet ; white-wood tulip tree or yellow 
 poplar that furnishes carpenters with their widest panel- 
 ling ; black walnut ; white and pitch pines, and elms 
 that rival them ; hemlock, chestnuts, maples, lime or 
 basswood, red oaks, hickory, locust, ash, dog-wood, mag- 
 nolias, &c. 
 
 In most of these, examples of extraordinary dimen- 
 sions and age occur, as they occur everywhere ; but 
 such are no more to be taken as data for the general 
 growth of trees than individuals standing like Maximus, 
 eight feet high ; and others who live 150 years, as standards 
 by which to determine the stature and age of man. 
 Trees grow up and die like men. Experienced lumber- 
 ers tell at a glance when they are ripe ; that is, when 
 they will acquire no more sound wood. After that, they 
 may swell, like mortals in a dropsy, but not in health 
 and solidity ; hence trees, like animals, attain determined 
 dimensions, and then cease to increase in any one direc- 
 tion, except at the expense of another. Gigantic trees 
 are almost always hollow. Emigrants' wagons are often 
 backed into the interior of ancient button-woods. 
 The great dragon tree of the Canaries, 16 feet in dia- 
 meter, was as thick and hollow in A. D. 1402 as it is 
 now. The largest European oak (in France) is 23
 
 AVERAGE SIZE OF AMERICAN TREES. 81 
 
 feet diameter, but within the trunk is a natural chamber, 
 over 10 feet one way and 12 another. Besides the mam- 
 moth tree of California, already mentioned, there are 
 others in Oregon and California of the same kind ; some 
 even larger, but not sound. One offers a more commo- 
 dious room than many miners' lodges. Of some blown 
 down, a gentleman rode his horse through one, from end 
 to end ; another is mentioned 110 feet in circumference and 
 410 feet in length. This, too, is hollow ; and if the hollow 
 was a little enlarged it would make a very good rope- walk. 
 Admitting the primitive forests of tropical America to 
 be richer in gigantic trunks than the northern half of the 
 Continent a fact by no means certain it is, I think, 
 doubtful whether they would furnish an average thick- 
 ness of 20 inches in their boles. The mahogany tree is 
 the most remarkable for its magnitude, and yet the largest 
 recorded log was only 17 feet long by 54 and 64 inches. 
 In the public and private buildings of South America, 
 timber of unusual dimensions is not met with. Wide 
 flooring planks occur in Brazilian cities, the wood re- 
 sembling in color and texture soft mahogany ; but I have 
 rarely found them over 20 inches, and the greater part 
 within that width. The widest planks to be met with in 
 the Atlantic cities are in the boxes in which sugar comes 
 in from the interior, viz. from 2j to 3 feet. The tree 
 that furnishes them is the jequitaba, one of the largest of 
 Brazilian trees. The wood is white, soft, and light, some- 
 thing like our white-wood. The natives made and make 
 canoes of it, and in them its largest masses are to be seen. 
 Five or six feet in diameter are probably the limits of its 
 healthy growth. 
 
 4*
 
 82 WEIGHT OF VARIOUS WOODS. 
 
 I heard of the most extraordinary one on the upper 
 waters of the Macacu river, which runs into the bay of 
 Rio Janeiro. It was said to surpass in magnitude all 
 others in the province. It was a straight, slightly ta- 
 pering shaft, clear of branches and foliage for 100 feet 
 up. Near the ground it was 32 feet in circumference, and 
 three feet above the ground 27 feet. Its roots at one 
 part presented the appearance of a range of vertical wall 
 or rock, and 50 paces from the trunk they appeared half 
 out of the ground, in long masses, 2J and even 3 feet in 
 diameter. A few feet above the ground there was a 
 handsomely formed round hole in the trunk, naturally 
 formed, and through it I pushed a stick in a horizontal 
 position, seven feet, so that the stately trunk was hollow 
 a mere tube, whose walls were so thin as to cause surprise 
 at their stability. A few years more, and it will be pros- 
 trated by age and decay. 
 
 Another feature in the world's timber is the heaviest 
 woods are not found in the largest boles, but generally in 
 the smallest, a provision that vastly facilitates man's con- 
 trol over them. Fir is only half as heavy as oak, while 
 ebony, lignum-vitae, and box are rather shrubs than trees. 
 Hickory is rarely seen a foot in diameter, and exceedingly 
 few sticks of rose-wood are met with so large. The gi- 
 gantic button-wood weighs only 26 Ibs. to the cubic foot, 
 the poplar hardly 20, the huge cypress 22, yellow pine 
 22, spruce and hemlock 23, white-wood 24, titan cedars 
 26, chestnut 26, maple 36, hickory 49i dog-wood 47, 
 black-walnut 28, locust 40, ash 30, pitch-pine 32, elm 38, 
 white oak 53, live oak 56, lignum-vitse 71. The oak, 
 from the large size it acquires, seems to be a special ex-
 
 THE LARGEST TREES LIGHT AND EASILY WORKED. 83 
 
 ception, in favor of the great marine purposes to which it 
 it applied like the blue-gum tree of Van Diemen's land 
 and the teak of India, though the latter is not a heavy- 
 wood. It varies from 32 to 37 Ibs. per cubic foot. Cey- 
 lon teak is the heaviest, being 42 Ibs. The best English 
 oak is only 39 Ibs. 
 
 Thus the general truth remains that the largest trees 
 are light and easily worked. The acacia is one of Asia's 
 towering boles, but it \yeighs only 23 Ibs. to the cubic 
 foot. The great firs of Europe only 17 Ibs. But it may 
 be said How is it when from trees of the largest girth 
 some of the hardest timber is derived ? Why then the 
 boles are decidedly shortened. Thus in the account of the 
 woods of Africa in the report of the juries of the London 
 exhibition, the iron-wood tree, it is said, acquires a dia- 
 meter of four feet, but the height of the trunk varies be- 
 tween 25 and 45 feet. The blaauw-bosch attains to eight 
 or nine feet in diameter : as the wood is hard and heavy, 
 masts of it from 200 to 300 feet long would be all but un- 
 manageable ; but what is their height ? It varies between 
 five and twelve feet ! Another species has a diameter of 
 seven feet, and the height of its bole confined to twelve, 
 but more generally to ten feet ? The boschquarry has a 
 diameter of six feet ten inches, with a trunk six feet eight 
 inches ! Again, the seybast is seven feet nine inches in 
 diameter, and in height seven feet ten inches. 
 
 The baobab, or monkey-bread tree, is among the most 
 colossal of vegetable columns, but they are rather Doric 
 than Corinthian in their proportions. In Senegambia trunks 
 of great antiquity have been found from twenty to thirty- 
 feet in diameter, their heights not exceeding twice their
 
 84 PERPETUAL SUPPLY OF WOOD. 
 
 thickness. One, thirty -two feet in diameter, is supposed 
 to be from five to six thousand years old. Finally, yew 
 trees are often of immense dimensions, but chiefly in their 
 girth. The famous chestnut trees of Etna are so short 
 that at a distance each has been taken for a group. 
 
 From what is at present known of the forests of the 
 earth, this precious material is evidently prepared for us 
 in masses perfectly within ordinary efforts and appliances 
 to dispose of. Then, a perpetual supply is secured. Man 
 cannot, if he would, waste his mineral stock ; it costs too 
 much to raise it to allow him to do that. But of timber 
 and other vegetable products he might, through indolence 
 and carelessness, bring about a scarcity ; and so he would, 
 were it not for the provision, that they have in themselves 
 the elements of their preservation and multiplication. 
 Acorns drop and take root without his care. 
 
 There appears an analogy between the life of man and 
 that of shrubs and trees ; at any rate, they shoot up, and 
 ripen within such periods that human elaborators of one 
 age cannot deprive those of another of timber, any more 
 than they can of food. 
 
 Another fact : Wood was to be more or less used as 
 fuel over the whole globe. For this purpose no special 
 varieties were required, since experiments show that the 
 same weight of dry wood of every kind has the same 
 amount of heating power. 
 
 In the wonderful compounds of matter that make up 
 the second great division of material, how rmich there is 
 to elicit and exhaust admiration. A new world of thought 
 and of art was opened in wood simply : so different from 
 minerals, in its being developed before our eyes, in the
 
 COLORS AND OTHER ORNAMENTAL FEATURES DYES. 85 
 
 system of perpetuating its varieties, in the diverse magni- 
 tudes of trees and their variegated crowns of foliage ; in 
 the mechanical properties of the ligneous fibre ; in its 
 diverse degrees of hardness, softness, flexibility, elasticity, 
 and texture ; every feature offering a class of advantages 
 in the arts : in its ornamental attributes, too, as exhibited 
 in colors jet in ebony, black and dark brown in walnuts 
 and oaks, purple and light greens in the munjaddy and 
 myle-ellah of India, red in mahogany and cedar ; yellow 
 in box, satin-wood, and the maples ; then there is the red 
 ebony of Australia, the cream-tinted and snow-white tulip 
 tree, and every shade and tint in others. Moreover, how 
 still more attractive are these colors made by straight, 
 curved, waving, and involved graining ! In addition to 
 which, there is always more or less shading ; and in cocoa 
 and other rich woods are cloud-like dashes of India ink 
 some after the manner of tortoise-shell, and others re- 
 sembling jaguars' and leopards' skins invariably pro- 
 ducing such pleasing effects that decorative artists inces- 
 santly labor to imitate them. 
 
 Then woods, besides furnishing examples of painting 
 in colors, provide us with material for giving to other 
 substances colors which they do not always themselves 
 possess. Each pigment, too, besides imparting its every 
 tint, contributes to develop other and very different colors. 
 Logwood yields blacks and purples ; fustic, olive-browns 
 and yellows ; barwood, camwood, Brazil, and sappan 
 woods impart reds, blacks, and browns ; woad and indigo, 
 blues and greens ; madder, the brilliant scarlet or turkey 
 red ; turmeric, bright yellows ; orchil, purples, reds, and 
 blues ; annatto, orange ; safflower, crimson, scarlet, rose-
 
 86 EXTRAORDINARY AMOUNT OF WOOD USED UP. 
 
 color, and pink. There is the green ebony, and a thousand 
 more dyewoods, known and unknown. 
 
 From the same shelves in the vegetable storehouse we 
 receive the great preservatives of colors, in the various 
 lacs prepared from gums and resins. 
 
 Now, what is the language of these particulars, and of 
 forest timber at large ? That wood is specially designed 
 for man that no other occupant of the earth compre- 
 hends its worth, or can use it, or the lacs and dyes which 
 it furnishes. Had it all been light and porous as the 
 sycamore or cork tree, or, on the other hand, had it been 
 heavy and dense as lignum- vitse, it had been of compa- 
 rative little value to man. But we are ordained to be 
 elaborators in wood as in the metals ; and hence the 
 facilities for its acquisition, its varieties of masses, proper- 
 ties, and adaptations. 
 
 What proportion the amount of timber employed in the 
 arts bears to that of mineral bodies has not, I suppose, 
 been ascertained, perhaps not thought of. The beams, 
 floors, partitions, stairs, window-frames, wainscotting, 
 doors, roofing, and furniture, approach in bulk the mate- 
 rial of the walls of most houses ; but take the dwellings 
 of man at large, and the greater part are built wholly of 
 wood ; add that which is consumed in them as fuel, and all 
 the firewood used up in the earth's factories ; then take 
 into the account the timber worked up by ship-builders, 
 carriage-makers, and other workmen in it : and the 
 amount will equal, perhaps exceed, in cubic feet, all the 
 materials drawn out of the earth. In any point of vie^v 
 the amount is extraordinary, and especially so, considering 
 the very limited area of the earth's surface a mere frac-
 
 VEGETABLE MATERIALS FOR ROPES. 87 
 
 tion from which it is taken. But the secret is in its 
 development : had it matured slowly, as minerals, not a 
 ripe tree had been left standing, in the face of the enor- 
 mous and incessant demand. How simply and beautifully 
 are all difficulties arising from rapid demand met by rapid 
 production. By this, supplies are secured, aud will be 
 secured to artisans, although civilization levels, and will 
 continue to level, so many forests. 
 
 Of the annual accounts of ship-building in the United 
 States, the tonnage for 1852 amounted to 35,149.41 
 tons. . 
 
 The lumber trade of a single town in the United States 
 Bangor, in Maine amounted in 1853 to 182,942,284 
 cubic feet. 
 
 After timber was added to the artisan's stock, many 
 chasms remained to be filled from the same department. 
 One or two may be noticed. Wood and metals serve 
 admirably to transmit force from one end of a bar to an 
 object at the other, as in a crowbar or lever, the handle 
 of a spade or a hammer ; but in a wide class of cases it 
 is necessary to send forces over distances, and in direc- 
 tions, where inflexible rods or shafts could not apply ; as 
 in hoisting a ship's sails or anchor, raising coal and ores 
 from mines. A material, light, soft, pliable, tenacious, 
 aud easily handled, was wanted i. e. a material for ropes ; 
 and how varied and inexhaustible the sources of supply 
 are every one knows. Into few things was man more 
 early initiated than in the use of ropes. Long before a 
 tree was cut down he employed them. In tropical forests 
 especially, natural ropes abound, everywhere pendent 
 from the highest trees, and running along the ground,
 
 88 WICKER AND BASKET WARE COTTON THREAD. 
 
 thousands of feet in length, uniform in thickness, and 
 varying in dimensions from cables to whip-cord. The 
 prosperity and progress of the arts depended, and depend 
 no little on cordage : not by any conceivable possibility 
 could they have come up to what they are had ropes and 
 pulleys never been known. 
 
 Another primitive and permanent application of vege- 
 table matter constitutes the world's wicker, basket, chip 
 and straw-plaited wares ; embracing agricultural and 
 mechanical implements e. g. the bodies of carts, the 
 unique tepiti or mandioca press of the Caribs and of 
 South American Indians ; and an infinity of personal, 
 social, and domestic articles and utensils. In the manu- 
 facture of straw-plait alone, seventy thousand persons 
 find employment on one of the earth's small islands. 
 1,577 cwts. of plait were imported into England in 1852 
 for home consumption. 
 
 The vegetable world furnishes the most of our clothing 
 The annual produce of thread is, in its lineal extent, all 
 but inconceivable. 1,481,000,000 One billion four hun- 
 dred and eighty-one millions of pounds of cotton were 
 worked up into it in 1852. At the London Exhibition 
 one manufacturer furnished samples of one pound of cot- 
 ton spun into 900 hanks of 840 yards each, making nearly 
 430 miles. Another firm exhibited 4,200 hanks of the 
 same numbers of yards each, making 2000 miles from a 
 single pound of cotton ! If we therefore multiply the 
 above amount only by 430, the length of thread that a 
 single crop of cotton could make, would be over six hun- 
 dred billions of miles, or sufficient for a web of stout calico, 
 a yard wide, and containing 85 threads to the inch, that
 
 HEMP, FLAX, AND OTHER FIBROUS PLANTS. 89 
 
 wmld be more than enough to reach from us to the 
 sun. 
 
 And yet all this is from cotton alone. Hemp and flax 
 in some measure rival it : of them there were raised in 
 the U. States in 1850, not less than 1,860,000,000 of 
 pounds. In the rapidly increasing demand for material 
 for woven fabrics and for machinery to manufacture it, 
 but a few years would be required for our looms to fill 
 an order for webs of double belting, sufficiently long to 
 connect the Sun with each of the planets, in the way 
 motion is communicated from the large drum of a factory 
 to a number of smaller ones. We inclose our bodies in 
 artificial cocoons : In winter a lady is enwrapped in a 
 hundred miles of thread ; she throws over her shoulders 
 from thirty to fifty in a shawl. A gentleman winds be- 
 tween three and four miles round his neck and uses four 
 more in a pocket-handkerchief. At night he throws off 
 his clothing and buries himself like a larva, in four or five 
 hundred miles of convolved filaments. 
 
 Still, exceedingly few of the fibre-yielding plants have 
 been taken up by manufacturers, and yet they abound 
 everywhere in weeds, sedges, coarse grasses, and in the 
 leaves of some of the commonest shrubs and trees. The 
 banana and its relatives have recently been named as 
 examples, which besides fruit would yield from 9,000 to 
 12,000 Ibs. per acre, of fibre, fit for fabrics of every de- 
 gree of fineness, from muslin to ropes. Countless millions 
 of tons of this and kindred substances spontaneously 
 shoot up every year and sink again into the ground, 
 neglected by man. 
 
 For her factories, England imported in 1851, 1,301,488
 
 90 PROFUSION OF VEGETABLE ALIMENTS. 
 
 cwts. of hemp and 11,194,184 cwts. of flax = nearly 
 700,000 tons of 2000 Ibs. each. 
 
 The flax and the cotton plant are not known to have 
 flourished before the advent of man. Not till he came 
 were they fully developed. 
 
 The very first of necessities is also supplied from this 
 department. It is here that man's chief pantry as well 
 as his wardrobe is placed. A description of aliments 
 stored in it, their varieties, abundance, and means to im- 
 prove them, cannot of course be attempted in these pages. 
 Reference to some items will serve to show how liberally 
 the Proprietor of the factory has victualled it. There 
 were raised in 1850 in the U. States upwards of 592 mil- 
 lion bushels of maize or Indian corn. Counting the 
 bushel at l cubic feet, the grain would have filled a 
 store-room, twenty feet wide, ten feet deep, and seven 
 hundred miles in length. The yield of wheat in 1851 
 (125,607,000 bushels) would require an additional twenty 
 miles to the structure ; rye thirteen, buckwheat nine, bar- 
 ley four, between eight and nine for peas and beans, three 
 or four for rice, and not less than five hundred for potatoes, 
 beets, and other tubers. Partitions, miles apart, would be 
 also required for apples, peaches, grapes, phims, cherries, 
 and orchard produce ; for sugar (over 200,000,000 Ibs.), 
 nuts, strawberries, gooseberries, currants ; for peppers, 
 mustard, spices, and condiments, and all the produce of 
 market gardens, over a thousand miles more would be 
 taken up to say nothing of tanks for molasses, wines 
 (in 1853, two millions of gallons), ale, cider, and other 
 drinks. But figures soon lose their force on the mind, 
 and it is the same with magnitudes when repeated. Be-
 
 THE BREAD BOUNDARY THE WIDEST OF ZONES. 91 
 
 sides, to acquire definite ideas of the riches of vegetation, 
 definite quantities should be ascertained and considered 
 in reference to the areas whence they are taken. When 
 this is done with respect to every item in our world's 
 delicious and plenteous bill of fare, torpid must be the 
 souls that peruse it without emotions of admiration and 
 gratitude. 
 
 Of tea, England imported in 1853, 66,360,555 Ibs. Of 
 coffee, the world's product is between three and four hun- 
 dred thousand tons. The world's crop of sugar from 
 cane, beet-root, and maples, cannot be less than 900,000 
 tons, since the amount recognised in commerce is 840,365 
 tons. The demand is rapidly swelling, but however much 
 it may increase, there are no limits to the means of supply. 
 
 The bread boundary of the earth is the widest of 
 zones, extending from 45 north to 50 south of the equa- 
 tor ; while within it are others that foster maize, mandi- 
 oca, yams, plantains, bread-trees, cocoas, sago, and others, 
 so that man's larder is fully supplied with bread, and 
 quite as generously with fruits, fish, and meats. 
 
 Sicily, Barbary, and Egypt were formerly the gra- 
 naries of Europe, but are not now, because of the de- 
 cay, not of the land, but of the people. The supplies 
 now come from the south and south-east plains of the 
 Baltic. Among the places of export is Dantzic, and it 
 has sent out a million of tons of wheat and rye in a year. 
 The average of Russian exports of the same cereals, from 
 1538 to 1840, was 4,500,000 tons a year. 
 
 When man enters this depot for supplies, something 
 more is required of him than when he applies at the 
 storehouse of minerals. The latter are produced without
 
 92 MAN'S POWER OVER VEGETABLES. 
 
 his assistance ; the long periods required for them to ma- 
 ture in, put it out of his power to affect them. He can 
 neither change their quantities nor their qualities, while 
 in vegetables he can do both. Had the nature of mine- 
 rals been such as to admit of his labor in their prepara- 
 tion, it had certainly been required of him, since the 
 purport of his existence was to be attained through his 
 acquaintance with the compositions and evolutions of 
 matter ; but the processes of their formation are so slow, 
 that had the tenure of his life extended into centuries, he 
 could not have biassed their development. Now the pro- 
 ducing powers of vegetation are so active as to induce 
 greater changes in a day than do those that form mine- 
 rals in a thousand years, so that he has every oppor- 
 tunity to impress himself on them. 
 
 But is it his duty, and has he the power 1 Undoubt- 
 edly ; although it may be there are those who think he 
 cannot meddle with nature's works without marring them. 
 A great mistake. In this department she produces no- 
 thing absolutely perfect without him, and she will not. 
 Designed for a nursery, it requires nurserymen. Forests 
 and prairies are at large, what neglected farms are in 
 little. They cover the ground with things growing rank 
 and wild, and choking each other ; they are what he him- 
 self is before being drawn out of the jungles of igno- 
 rance and improved by cultivation. The principles at 
 work and the soil they work on are at his service ; but 
 like tools in a machinist's shop, their profitable employ- 
 ment rests with himself. They will cover his fields with 
 wheat and fill his gardens with fruit, if he so wills, by 
 properly exciting them. If he fold his arms in indo-
 
 EFFECTS OF HUMAN LABOR ON VEGETABLES. 93 
 
 lence, they will expend themselves in weeds. In this de- 
 partment man was to acquire a very large portion of his 
 knowledge of matter, and of his experience as a manipu- 
 lator ; hence, whatever he has the ability to do, is left for 
 him to do. Perfectly developed organisms are not pro- 
 duced for him, but their germs are supplied, and agencies 
 to unfold and ripen them. Spontaneous growth shows 
 the workings of these agencies, but not their perfect 
 working ; that is left for him to bring out. 
 
 In some respects, planters and farmers, florists and 
 fruiterers surpass other elaborators, inasmuch as they 
 join nature and improve her products before leaving her 
 hands. They cause qualities to appear where they were 
 not, and in greater or less quantities where they were. 
 They diversify dimensions, colors, and texture. The va- 
 riations and multiplications of plants, extinction of old 
 and introduction of new ones, are with them. 
 
 It is, then, by bringing in plants from the wilderness, 
 domesticating and carefully cultivating them, that they 
 are to be improved. It is thus that the sloe-bush has 
 been changed into the plum tree, and grasses into corn- 
 bearing cereals. Vegetables are literal mechanisms for 
 elaborating matter ; and to improve their products, they 
 themselves must be improved or changed, just as artificial 
 contrivances are, when required to turn out better goods. 
 Indeed, there have been made as great and beneficial 
 changes in natural as in artificial mechanisms, and the 
 future will no doubt record equally new achievements in 
 both. The former can be multiplied indefinitely, and 
 with infinitely greater facility than additions are made to 
 looms and spindles. New varieties, moreover, produced
 
 94 INFLUENCE OF THE ATMOSPHERE ON VEGETATION. 
 
 by hybridity, and corresponding with new inventions in 
 the arts, will never cease. Then as regards economy of 
 space, a matter of the first importance in reference to a 
 future densely populated world, it has been shown (in the 
 Kew Gardens of London) that on an area where not over 
 two hundred plants would grow in a wild state, twenty 
 thousand have been made to flourish. 
 
 There can therefore be no doubt that as great and be- 
 neficent discoveries are to come out of the ground as have 
 been, or will be made upon it, and that as broad, and 
 deep, and fresh-flowing streams of intellect are required 
 in the management of organic matter as of that which is 
 immobile and dead. 
 
 Some political economists have declaimed against for- 
 eign commerce that exchanges flour, corn, and other pro- 
 ducts for hardware, dry-goods, and fancy merchandise ; 
 the fertility of land, the essence of it, being bartered for 
 things that return nothing to replenish it. The fruitful- 
 ness of an island or a continent, it is said, may thus be ex- 
 hausted. Can this be ? Is there no compensating prin- 
 ciple at work in nature to prevent so serious an evil, and 
 one that might derange the whole economy of the earth 1 
 Surely there is, and is it not in the atmosphere ? All 
 plants derive their food directly or indirectly from it ; and 
 do not trade-winds, aerial storms, ordinary gales, and 
 ceaseless movements in it tend to maintain an equal dis- 
 tribution of the matter it holds in suspension sufficient 
 at least to counteract general and permanent if not local 
 and temporary irregularities. Plants raised in glass vases 
 from earth weighed and dried in an oven were found to 
 take nothing or next to nothing from the earth. The rich
 
 MANY SPECIES OF PLANTS UNKNOWN. 95 
 
 palm-oil of Africa is from trees that luxuriate in hot dry 
 white sand ; so it is with many or most of the cacti. 
 The olives of Sicily flourish on rocks. It is indeed an 
 agricultural axiom that a numerous people can never be 
 absolutely dependent on the soil of other countries for 
 food. In Great Britain and Ireland, are unproductive 
 lands sufficient to feed over eight millions of additional 
 population ; and of England alone, the most cultivated 
 of the two islands, it has been stated by competent au- 
 thorities that the produce might be doubled. 
 
 On the limited state of our knowledge of vegetable 
 arithmetic, Humboldt observes, that if we had sufficient 
 grounds for believing that one half of the phaenogamous 
 plants were known, and taking the known at 160,000 
 according to one estimate, or at 213,000 at another, we 
 should have to add from 25,000 to 35,000 species of the 
 grasses. And as these appear to form one twelfth of the 
 Earth's plants, the united numbers would only amount to 
 one eighth or one tenth of the species that now exist ? 
 
 The assumption that we already know half the exist- 
 ing species of phsenogamous plants is further opposed by 
 the following considerations. Several thousand species 
 of Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, and among them 
 tall trees, have been discovered in regions considerable por- 
 tions of which had been previously examined by distin- 
 guished botanists. The portions of the great continents 
 which have never even been trodden by botanical observ- 
 ers, considerably exceed in area those which have been 
 traversed by such travellers, even in a superficial manner. 
 The greatest variety of phaenogamous vegetation, the 
 greatest number of species on a given area, is found be-
 
 96 COUNTRIES UNEXPLORED BY BOTAKISTS. 
 
 tween the tropics, and in the sub-tropical zones. This 
 last mentioned consideration renders it so much more im- 
 portant to remember how almost entirely unacquainted 
 we are, on the New Continent north of the equator, with 
 the floras of Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guatimala, Nicaragua, the 
 Isthmus of Panama, Choco, Antioquia, and the Provincia 
 de los Pastos ; and south of the equator, with the floras 
 of the vast forest region between the Ucayale, the Rio de 
 la Madeira, and the Tocantin (three great, tributaries of 
 the Amazon), and with those of Paraguay and the Pro- 
 vincia de los Missiones. In Africa, except in respect to 
 the coasts, we know nothing of the vegetation from 15 
 north to 20 south latitude ; in Asia we are unacquainted 
 with the floras of the south and south-east of Arabia, 
 where the highlands rise to about 6,400 English feet 
 above the level of the sea ; of the countries between the 
 Thianschan, the Kuenlien, and the Himalaya, all the 
 west part of China, and the greater part of the countries 
 beyond the Ganges. Still more unknown to the botanist 
 are the interior of Borneo, New Guinea, and part of Aus- 
 tralia. 
 
 As, therefore, by the progressive exploration of new 
 countries, we gradually exhaust the remaining unknown 
 species of any of the great families, the previously as- 
 signed lowest limit rises gradually higher and higher ; 
 and since the forms reciprocally limit each other, in con- 
 formity with still undiscovered laws of universal organi- 
 zation, we approach continually nearer to the solution of 
 the great numerical problem of organic life. 
 
 But is the number of organic forms itself a constant 
 number] Do new vegetable forms spring from the
 
 ANIMAL PRODUCTS. 97 
 
 ground after long periods of time, while others become 
 more and more rare, and at last disappear ] Geology, by 
 means of her historical monuments of ancient terrestrial 
 life, answers to the latter portion of this question affirma- 
 tively. In the ancient world to use the remark of an 
 eminent naturalist, Link we see characters, now appar- 
 ently remote and widely separated from each other, asso- 
 ciated and crowded together in wondrous forms, as if a 
 greater developemenf and separation awaited a later age 
 in the history of our Planet.* 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE THREE STOREHOUSES OF MATTER. 
 3. ANIMAL PRODUCTS. 
 
 IN this third department matter appears in types and 
 forms widely unlike mineral and vegetable bodies. In 
 one of those it is inert ; in the other it has motion, but is 
 tethered to the ground ; in this it is locomotive. In the 
 first it crystallizes, in the second germinates, in the third 
 it lives, being endued with sensitive organs, and impelled 
 by instinctive impulses. The change of an impalpable 
 air of matter so attenuated that leagues of it offer no ob- 
 
 * Humboldt's Aspects of Nature. 
 5
 
 98 ANIMALS ELABORATE MATTER FOR MAN. 
 
 stacle to vision passing through it to a gross liquid or solid, 
 is marvellous ; hut not more so than the metamorphosis 
 of common earth into fruit trees and flowers, into in- 
 sects, reptiles, fishes, birds, quadrupeds, and men. 
 
 There is no medium adapted to sustain life but what is 
 pervaded with it. While the torrid and temperate zones 
 teem with living forms, the polar ice resounds with the 
 cries or songs of birds, and the hum of insects. The 
 atmospheric ocean, from its bottom on which we move to 
 the elevations in which the condor soars, is redolent of 
 life. But utterly innumerable as visible living forms are, 
 their numbers are insignificant compared to the legions 
 that the microscope reveals. Nor is it known where life is 
 most abundant on land, or in the unfathomed depths of 
 the oceans. 
 
 As with plants, so it is with animals : they are natural 
 apparatus for supplying man with materials for his fabrics, 
 such as he could not elsewhere obtain, as wool, hair, 
 feathers, down, silk, leather, glue, horn, ivory, wax, oils, 
 furs, coloring matters, bone, pearl, tortoise and other shells, 
 sperm, whalebone, isinglass, &c., &c., their numbers 
 filling important pages in the catalogue of his working 
 stock. 
 
 Now, though man cannot originate living organisms, he 
 can control them so far as essentially to modify the pro- 
 ducts they yield him : a circumstance wonderful in itself, 
 although being common no one wonders at it, and yet 
 nothing less than a verbal or written declaration from 
 above could more emphatically proclaim him a manufac- 
 turer than the power given him over the development of 
 most of the substances just enumerated, and over others
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF ANIMAL PRODUCTS. 99 
 
 in the vegetable world. By them he learns that the two 
 active departments of Nature unite with the passive 
 (mineral) one in preparing materials for him. It seems 
 strange that he should be trusted with the awful power to 
 contract and expand the area of existence, and, conse- 
 quently, its enjoyments ; but as tenant and manager of the 
 factory, and alone responsible for the manner of conduct- 
 ing it, he was left to determine what living aids he should 
 reject or employ. As in the vegetable department, so in 
 this, he was to have the means within himself of increas- 
 ing and diminishing the materials he wanted. 
 
 Elaborators who provide materials for clothing and food 
 operate chiefly on the soil and its products. While some 
 devote themselves to fibrous substances, to cereals, sugar, 
 fruits, and roots, others convert grass, corn, and potatoes 
 into beef, mutton, and pork, into wool, hair, horns, and 
 hides operations that are as truly arts and manufactures 
 as the casting of types or building of ships. Indeed, 
 those whose producing apparatus are plants and cattle 
 are, in some respects, superior to other elaborators, since 
 they deal with matter in its highest forms of development. 
 They diversify products, and evolve them with equal cer- 
 tainty and uniformity as operatives on inert matter. They 
 improve them too, as do engineers and manufacturers, 
 who, to obtain better results, alter or exchange their 
 machinery. Precisely on the same ground do planters 
 and herdsmen introduce new seeds and breeds. 
 
 A few items of the statistics of animals and' of animal 
 products will lighten the subject by breaking the monotony 
 of its disquisitions. 
 
 The milch cows of the IT. States in 1850 numbered
 
 100 PRODUCTIVE ANIMALS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 6,385,094, working oxen and other black cattle 11,393,813, 
 sheep 21,723,220, swine 30,354,213, laboring horses, 
 mules, and jacks, 4,335,669. There were, exclusive of 
 the above, animals slaughtered for food, whose value was 
 nearly 112,000,000 dollars, and whose numbers could 
 not therefore have been under 20,000,000. The numbers 
 for 1853, according to the Patent Office Report, were 
 Five millions of horses and mules, twenty millions of 
 horned cattle, thirty-two millions of sheep, and twenty- 
 three millions of swine. Arrange these flocks and herds 
 after the manner of Jacob, allow ten feet for the larger 
 and eight for the smaller, to prevent their treading on 
 each other mount five millions of drovers, being one to 
 every sixteen animals and the line would extend several 
 times round the globe. But what are they compared to 
 the wild animals that range the forests and prairies of the 
 IT. States ! The buffaloes alone would form an unbroken 
 phalanx round the earth, and the wild horses another. 
 Still, to the quadrupeds of the world they are little more 
 than specimens in a menagerie. 
 
 Of animal products leather is an ordinary one. Of the 
 amount made in the U. States in 1850 we have no ac- 
 count, but the value of that worked into the single article 
 of shoes in a single state (Massachusetts) is set down at 
 twelve millions of dollars. The leather manufactures of 
 England stand third or fourth on the list, being inferior 
 only in point of value and extent to those of cotton, wool, 
 and iron. She imported in 1851, and tanned 2,330,901 
 hides. She uses up yearly 60,000,000 Ibs. of leather, and 
 the value of the manufactured article is 70,000,000 dol- 
 lars.
 
 SHEEP AND WOOL THE OCEAN. 101 
 
 In 1800, England had 26,147,743 sheep and lambs. 
 In 1854, the number in the three kingdoms was 32,000,000. 
 She now imports (chiefly from Australia) 70,000,000 Ibs. 
 of wool, and clips from her own sheep 120,000,000 Ibs., 
 making one hundred and ninety millions of pounds of the 
 fibre spun and woven by one people in each year. The 
 clip of wool in the U. States in 1850 was 52,516,959 Ibs. 
 France ten years ago (1843) worked up 45,000,000 Ibs. 
 of wool annually. 
 
 Such are at best but a few solitary specimens of pro- 
 ducts furnished by domestic land animals. More might 
 have been added, as hair, horn, and tallow of the last, 
 Russia, after supplying herself, sent 137,160,000 Ibs. to 
 other peoples. 
 
 Animals are not confined to land, water is an immense 
 theatre of vitality. Why were two thirds or three fourths 
 of the earth permanently flooded with this liquid ? Was 
 so large an evaporating surface required to supply rain to 
 fertilize the soil and aid in breaking down mountains ] 
 Was so wide a receptacle necessary to receive the debris 
 washed into it through one geological period, in order to 
 digest and prepare undisturbed the sediments for reap- 
 pearance in stratified layers in another ? Had it special 
 reference to aqueous life, or was it determined by these 
 and by other requirements ? Whatever it was that led 
 to the present proportions betwixt land and water, they 
 are doubtless beneficial in the highest degree, and per- 
 fectly fulfil every organic and inorganic condition. 
 
 Water is a distinct arena for man's enterprise, and as 
 such it has incalculably extended the range of his thoughts 
 and of his acquisitions. It teems with substances precious
 
 102 ANALOGIES BETWEEN SEAS AND LAND. 
 
 to him, and he can travel over it easier than on land. It 
 presents no impenetrable thickets nor inaccessible moun- 
 tains ; and although as yet the basins of oceans and seas 
 are imperfectly known, the same remark applies, though 
 in a less degree, to many of the great slopes of continental 
 valleys. In full one half of the earth there remains as 
 much to be explored as ir rfome of the seas. Subaqueous 
 researches are not to be expected of man in the morning 
 of his career ; still he has turned and is turning his atten- 
 tion to them. Explorations of wrecks and other matters 
 at the bottom of the sea are becoming common as des- 
 cents into mines. 
 
 Between the ocean and the land are other analogies ; 
 the face of the former varies in color from the white surf 
 and pale green along shores, to olive green and deep blue 
 further out. Sometimes it is colorless and transparent, at 
 others dull and opake. The Greenland sea changes from 
 ultramarine blue to green and grey ; at one time pellucid, 
 and muddy at another. The Mediterranean puts on a 
 purple hue, the Gulf of Guinea appears white, and the 
 waters about the Maldives look black. As in landscapes, 
 the colors are often due to the soil and to surface vegeta- 
 tion. Then the surface, as on shore, is broken by undu- 
 lations, and at night lit up by phosphorescent animal- 
 cula analogues of fire-flies. Like continents, seas and 
 oceans are fertile fields of labor, and in some respects the 
 most profitable, since their crops are raised without man's 
 care, and he has only to reap them, as in Avhale, seal, cod, 
 mackerel, herring, shad, oyster, salmon, coral, pearl, and 
 other fisheries. The fecundity of the ocean equals, per- 
 haps surpasses, that of the land. Its contributions to the
 
 FISHERIES BIRDS. 103 
 
 arts are numerous and unique, while the streams of food 
 it turns into man's garners never cease to flow. The 
 fishermen of one nation have taken in one season, from 
 the banks of Newfoundland, a million and a half of quin- 
 tals of one kind of fish : in 1853 United States whalers 
 brought in 363,191 barrels of whale and sperm oil, be- 
 sides five and a half millions of pounds of whalebone. In 
 1850 the English home fisheries yielded 340,256 barrels 
 of herrings. In 1852 the Scotch fishermen took 112,000 
 cwts. of cod and ling (mostly dried). The Dutch fisheries 
 probably were more productive. The Scotch fishermen, 
 sent 3,192,672 Ibs. of salmon to London in 1841. Yet all 
 these put together form but a small item in the annual 
 yield of the deep sea, shore, lake, and river fisheries of 
 the United States, and an insignificant one in that of the 
 earth's fishery as a whole. 
 
 Birds : The three general forms of matter are the me- 
 dia of life on our planet, and on and in them respectively 
 flourish the three great cohorts of living beings of crea- 
 tures that walk, swim, and fly. Air and water, essential 
 to the concrete portion of the earth, presented opportu- 
 nities for diversifying the forms and functions of life, and 
 of immensely swelling the amount of sensuous enjoy- 
 ment ; hence, without affecting the applications of air 
 and water to other purposes, they are made to sustain the 
 tountless hosts that live in them. In thus doubling, or 
 perhaps quadrupling the numbers of sensitive creatures, 
 the beneficence of the Creator is as conspicuous as his 
 wisdom and power. 
 
 We reluctantly passed over the grasses, shrubs, and 
 trees, without alluding to them as the abodes of what
 
 104 BIRDS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 many consider the most strongly marked and attractive 
 class of the lower tribes : and certainly, birds are singu- 
 larly captivating in their forms, colors, and movements, 
 the sweetest of songsters and the cheerers of man in his 
 labors. Their subdivisions are such that they draw plea- 
 sure from every part of vegetation, and by feeding on its 
 enemies they are its great conservators. But for them 
 the earth had been barren as granite or a desert of sand ; 
 nor had there been a man living to till it. Scratchers 
 seek their food about the roots, climbers hunt insects in 
 the boles and stems, perchers feed and warble on the 
 foliage, waders stalk among aquatic plants, while swim- 
 mers forage in deeper water. The swallow tribes course 
 insects through the atmosphere ; the accipitrines soar over 
 all, prey upon all, and act as scavengers for all. 
 
 Birds do not elaborate as much matter for manufac- 
 turers as quadrupeds, but as protectors of vegetation 
 the value of their labors is incalculable. Besides the 
 flesh and eggs of those used as food, feathers are their 
 chief offering. With those of water-fowl, pillows and 
 beds are stuffed ; and from the soft delicacy and non-con- 
 ducting properties of down, it also is employed for the 
 same purpose, but chiefly for various articles of female 
 attire and accompaniments tippets, boas, muffs, &c. 
 Plumes of the ostrich and of other birds have always 
 been worn as ornaments and insignia. Fans and screens 
 are made of feathers, and entire dresses of them are com- 
 mon among Indians. From the variety and richness of 
 colors in which birds are draped, artificial flc wers have, 
 for ages, been made of feathers. 
 
 Quills ha - .'e been split and made into cheap and dura-
 
 MECHANISM OF FEATHERS- -GUANO. 105 
 
 ble brushes, and also into hats and other parts of dress. 
 But the pen is the most memorable application of the 
 quill. In it birds have contributed more than all other 
 classes to what has been deemed the highest of arts, the 
 recording of thought. By the instruments of their flight 
 man has soared into higher regions than the material at- 
 mosphere. In a mechanical and engineering view, the 
 structure and material of feathers and of pinion quills are 
 of surpassing interest. Of a singular composition of mat- 
 ter and moulded into peculiar forms, they, the latter parti- 
 cularly, combine unequalled strength and elasticity with 
 the least weight of material ; the qualities required in 
 propelling organs. Every feather is a study in itself, 
 and in the mechanism and movements of wings lessons of 
 the highest practical value are to be learned. 
 
 The most singular, unexpected, and the largest contri- 
 bution of birds to the arts is guano : a substance so rich 
 in fertilizing power as to have become a staple item in 
 commerce, and to afford employment for ships of all na- 
 tions. In it the economy that pervades this heritage of 
 ours is very obvious. Volcanic and other rocks appear 
 here and there in the midst of oceans. Without vegeta- 
 tion no land animals can live on them, but they are the 
 very places for oceanic birds to sleep and breed on, and 
 for amphibia that seek dry land on which to expire. 
 Hence guano has been accumulating on islet rocks for 
 unknown periods of time, and is now dug out of beds va- 
 rying from 50 to 100 feet in depth. It is found in Afri- 
 can and Australian islands as well as in the Pacific. 
 Samples from the Cape of Good Hope and Van Die- 
 man's Land were at the London Exhibition. Thus have 
 
 5
 
 >06 INSECTS MIRACLES OF MECHANISM. 
 
 oceanic birds, in remote ages, whom men never saw, been 
 laying up material for us. 
 
 The varieties of birds now on the planet are unknown ; 
 one naturalist has recorded 3,800 species. 
 
 Insects are interesting as birds. The most unattrac- 
 tive, if fully known, would appear beautiful as golden 
 pheasants. A bee, a minnow, a beetle, and a common 
 house-fly, are as great miracles of chemical and mechani- 
 cal actions and motions as the universe itself is. Without 
 irreverence, we may believe that in no world can there be 
 more wonderful illustrations of what mechanism can do. 
 Statuaries go into raptures over the Elgin marbles, and 
 old men and youths gaze and copy their moving outlines 
 of horses and men, while inventors turn not so much as 
 an eye aside to study infinitely higher lessons that con- 
 cern and are daily pressed on them. The time will come 
 when their successors will be sensible of the advantages 
 of contemplating the chefs-d'oeuvre of God. Had the 
 earth produced but single specimens of reptiles, insects, 
 fishes, and birds, philosophers would have gone to the 
 antipodes to witness their movements when living, and to 
 dissect them when dead. One might almost be tempted 
 to think it an error in the owner of the earth in giving us 
 such numbers of his devices, since the more he sends the 
 less they are regarded. But the days of sciolism are 
 passing, and men will seek for higher lessons in manu- 
 facturing mechanisms than they learn from inorganic 
 matter. 
 
 Animals are elaborating machines, and by carefully 
 studying their construction and their actions, we iray as- 
 certain how each does its work, and imitate it. Theii
 
 SILK-WORMS AND THEIR THREAD. 107 
 
 organs of elaboration, their processes, and the materials 
 they use are as purely mechanical, chemical, and common, 
 as those employed in artificial works ; and so it is, that 
 every class, order, genus, and species invites us into 
 fields of knowledge that will never become barren of me- 
 chanical and chemical novelties ; no, not if harvests be 
 reaped every hour. 
 
 As yet man has pressed but few insects into his ser- 
 vice, because his limited wants and researches have not 
 made him acquainted with the nature and uses of ten 
 thousand substances which these minute and most dexte- 
 rous and delicate of elaborators produce; It is not, how- 
 ever, improbable that in time they will induce as great 
 changes in the artificial as they have induced in the na- 
 tural world. No works on earth approach in magnitude 
 and durability some of theirs ; and none tend more fully 
 to illustrate our globe as one vast factory. 
 
 Silk-worms man has long employed. They are among 
 the most industrious and profitable of his assistants. 
 The fine, soft, and hitherto unparalleled thread they 
 yield him is extraordinary ; it were futile to attempt its 
 measurement by yards, or even leagues. In the United 
 States, in 1850, the census gives only 10,843lbs, while in 
 1844 the amount was 396,790 Ibs.* We know not what 
 quantities are raised in Canada, Mexico, South America, 
 and the rest of this western hemisphere. In Great Bri- 
 tain, about 5,000,000 Ibs. are annually worked up ; in 
 France, much morejt then large quantities are raised 
 
 * Kennedy's Abstract of the Seventh Census, 
 j- Besides the quantity manufactured and consumed in France, 
 Ihe enormous amount of 1,074,144 kilogrammes of raw ani thrown
 
 108 REFLECTIONS ON SILK-WORMS. 
 
 and woven in Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, 
 Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Russia, Turkey, Persia, &c. 
 Yet the aggregate product of Europe and America must 
 be very small compared to that spun by the worms of 
 India, China, and the rest of Asia, by those of Africa 
 and Oceanica. 
 
 Every thing about these creatures is surprising. How 
 singular the contrast presented by their delicate natures 
 and ephemeral duration with the strength and durability 
 of their products ! No sooner are they grown caterpillars, 
 than they begin their filamental bobbins, and they live 
 but a few days after finishing them hastening to be dis- 
 solved in air to make room for fresh legions. But the 
 thread they leave is lasting. Ladies' silk-dresses, after 
 being worn through life, often descend as heir-looms 
 through several generations. Then what is more remark- 
 able than their numbers ! There may be throughout 
 the world fifty millions of persons engaged more or less 
 directly in the manufacture of fibrous materials. Suppose 
 one tenth of our living species, or a hundred millions, 
 thus engaged. That number is truly a great one, but 
 square it multiply it by itself and the quotient would 
 not equal the hosts which the Proprietor of this factory 
 has sent to make even one kind of thread for us. And 
 moreover, swarming as they do, it rests with us to multi- 
 ply them, and that indefinitely. To other tribes of insect 
 spinners little attention has yet been given. 
 
 As elaborators of rich chemical compounds, bees have 
 from early times been kept at work by man. The 
 
 silk was exported from the country some years ago. The amcunt 
 is now probably much greater.
 
 . BEES AND HONEY INSECT DYES. 109 
 
 amounts of wax and honey they yield is prodigious. 
 Those given in the U. States seventh census are alone 
 at hand, and certainly do not represent a tithe of what 
 might be procured. Nearly fifteen millions of pounds of 
 wax and honey are given as the product for the year 
 1850. It would be interesting in these and all other arti- 
 cles, whether of food or clothing, to know how much is pro- 
 duced and how much might be produced, that by dividing 
 the amounts by the number of our species we might 
 ascertain how much each individual receives or might 
 receive. 
 
 Dyes are mostly from other departments, but not alto- 
 gether so. The famous Tyrian purple of old was obtained 
 from a sea shell. The modern color is derived from an 
 insect. Besides the cochineal the grana kermes furnishes 
 another red dye. The lac dye is produced on trees by 
 an order of insects. The amount of coloring matter 
 these minute creatures furnish is also remarkable. Nearly 
 two millions and a half of pounds' weight of cochineal 
 were imported into England in 1850, and over two mil- 
 lions of lac dye. Thus some of our richest colors are 
 from insects, and in the vegetable world from lichens, 
 masses of weeds from things insignificant and worthless 
 in appearance. 
 
 It has been well remarked that numbers of new color- 
 ing materials have been in late times discovered and 
 made available ; so that the dyer of the present times 
 employs substances of the existence of which his practi- 
 cal predecessors were wholly ignorant : and just such 
 remarks will be made hereafter with regard not to our 
 dyers only, but to almost every other profession.
 
 110 PRODUCTION OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 Is it asked of what use are invisible animated molecules 
 ever likely to be to man ? What effect can they produce 
 on matter serviceable to him ? Why, there are examples 
 of the accumulation of matter by them that are perfectly 
 startling that put at, utter defiance the efforts of large 
 animals and of man himself. Ehrenberg has shown that 
 not only on several microscopic infusoria do others live 
 as parasites, but such is the prodigious power of develop- 
 ment or capability of division of the gallionellse that in 
 four days an animalcule, invisible to the naked eye, can 
 form two cubic feet of the Bilin polishing slate, or tripoli ! 
 
 It may have occurred to the reader that if animals were 
 designed to supply materials for man, their numbers and 
 developments should be found to excel within the human 
 era, and to inquire whether they did not flourish in previ- 
 ous ages more than now. The interrogatory is pertinent. 
 
 Naturalists recognise a general law presiding over the 
 animal kingdom. " Each group, each natural order or 
 family, the history of which has been investigated, has 
 manifestly shown a development parallel to that of indi- 
 vidual life : 1st, an early period corresponding to that of 
 youth, during which the group has but a small number of 
 representatives : 2d, a period of full development, cor- 
 responding to that of the adult, during which the group 
 exhibits the greatest diversity which was in its power to 
 assume : 3d, finally there is a period of decline, corre- 
 sponding to old age and fall, during which the individuals 
 are less numerous. In the class of Mammalia there are 
 comparatively few groups which have thus reached the 
 third part of their history and passed away from the 
 earth. The majority attained their period of fullest de-
 
 WHAT ELABORATORS CAN LEARN FROM NATURE. Hi 
 
 velopment at the beginning of the human era, and are actu- 
 ally in existence upon the external surrounding crust of 
 our planet."* But two groups are known to be on the 
 decline, the Pachydermata and Edentata. At the same 
 time, the most useful members of the former are more 
 numerous now than at any former period. Thus it is 
 found that animals most useful to man passed their non- 
 age just previous to his appearance. The noble horse 
 has come to us in his prime, the ox also and the sheep, 
 the deer family and the camel. 
 
 So far as known, the same may be said of the most use- 
 ful birds, and of the bee and silk moth among insects, 
 
 Some ask, what elaborators can learn from the organic 
 world? Almost everything. We know nothing, or 
 next to nothing, of the principles by which matter is 
 elaborated in wool, hair, feathers, scales, horn, ivory, &c., 
 &c., nor how colors are evolved, denned, limited, and 
 mingled in the bodies of animals, birds, and flowers : how 
 the metallic lustre in the peacock and other creatures is 
 produced, how perfumes are drawn out of common earth 
 in a word, how every object in nature is produced as it 
 is. This knowledge is to be acquired. Man is not for 
 ever to be empiric. 
 
 * Classification of Mammals, by Professor C. Girard, Smithsonian 
 Institution.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MOTIVE POWERS. 
 
 Now provided with materials and with knowledge io use 
 them, one thing more was wanted to render the factory and 
 its facilities complete. Had man been left to the employ- 
 ment of his own muscular power, he could have made 
 little progress as a manufacturer. His stock would have 
 been vastly too large for him to work up, and his energies 
 had been consumed, as in semi-barbarism, in gross labor ; 
 hence the crowning gift was a series of motive agents, by 
 which his power over inert matter was increased immea- 
 surably beyond what his own strength could have effected, 
 and achievements made possible that otherwise could not 
 have been imagined, let alone attempted. In making 
 this assignment, the Proprietor of the factory completed 
 his share of the contract thenceforth the lessee was to 
 perform his. 
 
 It need not here be stated with what facility man seizes 
 and employs organic and inorganic forces how the weak 
 and the strong, the willing and wayward, the fitful and 
 violent obey him a facility he never could have acquired 
 had he not been ordained to control them. Prime movers 
 are the prime civilizers. Without them the natural world 
 had be-en dead, and the artificial one stagnant. Of unli- 
 mited and lasting applications, their sources, like those of 
 materials they are employed on, can never be dried up : a
 
 ANIMAL POWER THE HORSE, OX, CAMEL, ETC. 113 
 
 perpetual necessity, they are everlasting. At all events 
 while the earth endures, the waves and tides of the ocean, 
 falling and running waters, atmospheric pressure and cur- 
 rents, animals, steam, electricity, and other agents will 
 continue. So will minor and local sources of power, as 
 boiling springs, spouting fonts, burning wells, and all 
 surface movements arising from subterranean heat and 
 action. 
 
 Some coal-pits have long been on fire in Europe. The 
 combustion, for want of air, goes on slowly. In Saxony 
 the heat has been turned to account by market gardeners, 
 who, in favorable spots, locate hot-beds, and raise southern 
 and tropical plants. Thus, observes Kobell, it is the 
 strange destiny of carbonized remains of palms, which 
 flourished in long lost tropical climates, to force pine- 
 apples at the present day. 
 
 The greater part of animal power at present employed 
 is drawn from the equus and bos genera. Among them 
 are the most valuable of laborers. They serve man over 
 the largest part of the habitable globe, but there are wide 
 districts to which they are not adapted, and there others 
 are provided. The camel family is specially organized to 
 labor in deserts : it is the sole medium of communication 
 between those countries which are separated by seas of 
 hot sand, and on which rain seldom or never falls. In the 
 beautiful and expressive metaphor of eastern speech, the 
 camel is " the ship of the desert," and, in truth, it is the 
 only ship by which the wilderness can be navigated with 
 certainty and safety. In hot regions the elephant toils 
 for man, and in arctic circles reindeer and dogs. The 
 ancient Peruvians employed dogs as well as the llama.
 
 114 POWER FROM WAVES AND TREES. 
 
 The actual animal power of the TJ. States in 1850 was 
 represented by 1,700,000 working oxen, 4,336,719 horses, 
 and 559,331 mules and jacks upwards of six millions 
 and a-half of animals of draught and burden. 
 
 The amount of water and wind power employed in the 
 TJ. States is not known. The former is greater than in 
 any other country. 
 
 Mechanical power is above all price, and yet the 
 amount given out by inanimate matter that might be 
 used is utterly incalculable. That which is ever running 
 to waste in waterfalls and rapids is inconceivably great. 
 It is within the range of possibilities that the ocean's re- 
 sistless waves may eventually be used to aid in the pro- 
 pulsion of vessels, and do other work, by compressing air 
 into chambers opened to receive their impulse that is, to 
 employ them as rising and falling pistons, in inverted 
 cylinders, for urging it into proper reservoirs. 
 
 Then, again, in fields and forests, what power is lost, 
 though presented in forms more tangible and 'accessible 
 than in waves. A plan is wanted for collecting it from 
 swaying boles and branches : one possessing the proper- 
 ties of an alleged discovery of an old inventor, by which 
 in whatever directions the primum-mobile moved, up and 
 down, sideways and every way, the desired result fol- 
 lowed : a device which, working day and night, might 
 accumulate power for planters and others, while they 
 slept. 
 
 Trees while in motion give out more power in a windy 
 day than would cut them down when at rest ; and in all 
 cases power proportioned to their magnitudes. Doubtless 
 the idea of using such power will appear to many puerile
 
 STEAM AN I) OTHEK MOTIVE AGENTS. 115 
 
 and visionary ; but for all that it is practicable, and some 
 day if not in ours, will, we think, be turned to account. 
 Farmers will not then neglect long swinging-levers radiat- 
 ing from boles around their homesteads, but make them 
 serve as pump-handles for raising water for their families 
 and cattle, and for other purposes. Movable windmills 
 have, at great expense, been put up to do what a single 
 stout stem, or two or more united, could perform. 
 
 The mechanical and engineering world has been much 
 excited of late on the subject of an efficient new motor ; 
 a desideratum calculated to inaugurate and give tone to a 
 higher civilization. There is a prevailing vagueness in 
 the minds of many inventors on the employment of heat 
 as a motive agent, that has led to great and useless out- 
 lays of thought, money, and time. They forget that each 
 pound of coal can only give out its equivalent of power, 
 and that water, air, alcohol, chloroform, bicarbonate of 
 sulphur, or any other fluid with which boilers are charged, 
 are mere vehicles or media for employing the heat. The 
 heat is the power, and all that can be accomplished is 
 economically to evolve and apply it. One medium may 
 be better than another, still power comes out of the fuel. 
 
 There may be other fluids, natural or artificial, that pos- 
 sibly may prove preferable to steam in particular circum- 
 stances, and to a limited extent. We know not wlu.t 
 science is to disclose, and it would be unwise to assert 
 that a better one is not to be had. Still, with our faith in 
 nature as a guide, and that on so momentous a question 
 she has made no more a secret of a general agent of 
 poAver than of the materials power is wanted to work up, 
 our hopes are not strong. Steam is the grand medium
 
 116 HEAT THE GREAT SOURCE OF POWER. 
 
 she uses. By it she produces the great moving powers 
 upon the earth, and most of those within it. And as if 
 it was to he the cheap and common agent in the arts, she 
 has given us the substance from which it is evolved, and 
 the means of evolving it in the largest profusion water 
 and fuel. The first costs nothing, the other hut little, 
 and that little will be less as the vast stores become opened. 
 Engineers have yet to learn how direct a teacher na- 
 ture is. 
 
 Another idea has been and still is maintained, that heat 
 can be used as a motive agent over and over again : in 
 other words, that power can repeat itself. Could this be 
 established, its demonstration would be cheaply purchased 
 by an outlay of millions of dollars in experiments. 
 
 Mechanical powers being the result of matter in motion, 
 are comprised in two general divisions : 1. Such as come 
 from matter put in motion by nature, and, 2. From mat- 
 ter excited by man. Of the latter, comparatively few 
 have yet been developed. Various in their forms and 
 modes of action, they are based, as all must be, mediately 
 or immediately on heat. The glowing sun is the Great 
 Prime mover in the natural world ; and, that we might 
 give motion to mechanisms where natural motors are in- 
 applicable, we have been furnished, in inflammable ma- 
 terials, with the means of kindling artificial suns. Some 
 motive agents may appear to have little connexion with 
 heat, as gunpowder, carbonic acid gas, and electro-mag- 
 nets, but the power of all is referable to it. Investigation 
 would show that their energies are derived from the heat, 
 natural and artificial, expended on their ingredients and 
 application. In fuel, then, is laid up man's chief store of
 
 ADAPTATION OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE TO COMMERCE. 117 
 
 artificially excited power, and here we again perceive the 
 intentions of the Creator in what have been named " car- 
 boniferous periods," when vegetation was so rife and active 
 in elaborating coal for us. If the earth shows foot-prints 
 of the deity, coal strata bear the impress of his hands. 
 He has legibly written on them, " To artisan man." 
 (See Chapter 4, Section II., for Mechanical Forces.) 
 
 Before closing this division of the subject, the adapta- 
 tion of the earth's surface to facilitate a general exchange 
 of the results of labor should not be overlooked. It is a 
 system of intercommunications. There are few inacces- 
 sible districts ; its high and low lands, its seas and rivers, 
 are open passages for intercourse with every part. They 
 are natural roads and canals, which have suggested the 
 diversities of land and water carriages, and means of pro- 
 pelling them. But mountains obstruct the traveller's 
 path ? Not more so than piles of lumber, coal and ores 
 in builders' and founders' yards, interrupt the walk of their 
 proprietors. Natural elevations are stores of unwrought 
 goods, and is it not better to turn aside and pass round or 
 between them, than to be without them ? They may 
 appear to us utterly exhaustless, and some perhaps of no 
 use, but we live in early times ; a thousand centuries are 
 nothing in the life of the world : they will all be cut 
 down and used up by our successors, and others will be 
 raised for workmen that will succeed them. 
 
 As to oceanic obstacles to free communion, they are 
 imaginary, and belong to early phases of civilization. 
 Navigation has been attained, and we can imagine how 
 limited without it trade would be ; how many arts would 
 be unknown, and even incomprehensible, if there had
 
 118 MAN EXCLUDED FROM THE POLAR CIRCLES. 
 
 been no locomotion but on solid ground ; and how bald 
 and poverty-stricken our fund of ideas, if deprived of 
 those that arise from the terraqueous character of our 
 orb. 
 
 There are, however, two portions of the earth's sur- 
 face from which man is excluded the polar circles. 
 They are evidently not intended as arenas for human ex- 
 ertions. Their functions have reference chiefly to gene- 
 ral temperature and ventilation. They promote a healthy 
 circulation by drawing towards them the heated vapors 
 of the torrid regions ; they induce aqueous as well as at- 
 mospheric currents ; and they afford secure retreats for 
 swarms of fish, and other creatures. It is well for these 
 that man is shut out, since he has hunted some of them 
 in the open oceans till they have become few, and were 
 his present eager pursuit of them within the arctic and 
 antarctic zones not arrested, they would inevitably be 
 exterminated. At all events, the enduring barriers of ice 
 are not simple incidents of climate, but organic features in 
 the economy of the planet. 
 
 In conclusion : To meet man's wants through the en- 
 tire cycle of his destinies, to furnish employment for the 
 varied world of thought within him, to keep pace with 
 his enlarging grasp and power, it was necessary that 
 suitable materials, and objects, and forces, and theatres 
 of action should be provided for him. And so it is, that 
 there is no substance, quality, or condition of matter but 
 what tends to further his operations as a manufacturer ; 
 none which does not exhibit the world as a factory, and 
 him in charge of it ; and which does not show that such 
 was the grand scope and design of the Creator in prepar-
 
 DURATION OF THE EARTH AS A FACTORY. 11& 
 
 ing it, and placing him on it. The wonderful processes 
 through which this factory has passed, to make it what it 
 is, and the time required for them, indicate its duration. 
 It has cost too much for a temporary workshop or shed 
 the Divine mechanician uses none such too much to he 
 destroyed hefore its elaborated treasures are worked up, or 
 its resources half understood. No engineer erects a 
 costly structure, furnishes it with expensive machinery, 
 and ere it he put in successful operation, tears it ruth- 
 lessly down ; much less can it be supposed that the 
 Builder of this splendid one will. act in like manner. For 
 countless ages it has been in the sole possession of the 
 lower tribes, whose presence and labors were necessary 
 to prepare it for man. Surely the periods it is to be 
 under the control of him for whom it was chiefly made, 
 cannot be less. The period of occupancy will be pro- 
 portioned to that of preparation, and as one has been, so 
 will the other be diuturnal. 
 
 To meet objections that may possibly be taken to the 
 foregoing views of the earth, as partial and contracted, it 
 may be well to state here, that it is not pretended that 
 materials in mountains, for example, were raised solely for 
 manufacturing facilities. Every person knows that these 
 elevations diversify climate, temperature, vegetable and 
 animal products, and life. The ocean, as the high- 
 way of nations, interferes not with it as the home of 
 special orders of animals, and the same may be said of 
 the land. So also with regard to the central fire engine ; 
 besides elevating materials for man, it performs innume- 
 rable other functions, in accordance with a cardinal law 
 of the planet (and of the universe), that nothing exists
 
 120 THE EARTH APPROPRIATELY NAMED A FACTORY. 
 
 or subsists for itself, or for one purpose. Everything, 
 from a mountain to a fly, is influenced by the whole, and 
 reacts on the whole. But this does not in anywise con- 
 flict with the predominating characteristic we have as- 
 cribed to the earth. Is there any other designation so 
 comprehensive and literally appropriate and true ?
 
 SECTION H. 
 
 OF MAN; HIS NATURE, INSTINCTS, AND ACHIEVE- 
 MENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MAN'S FORM AND STRUCTURE INDICATE THE ARTIFICER. 
 
 Now let us turn to man himself, and see if his form and 
 structure, instincts and achievements, do not indicate the 
 nature and purposes of his being. Observe the perfect 
 freedom of his upper limbs to operate on matter, in con- 
 sequence of their being released from the labor of sus- 
 taining the body and aiding in its locomotion ; a feature 
 peculiar to his species, and the one which specifically pro- 
 claims him an artisan. Mark the termination of those 
 limbs in the hands ; the adaptation of these to work in 
 all substances, their duality, the double-jointed levers they 
 are attached to, their lithe and diverse movements, their 
 power to grasp objects of every shape, their durability 
 under incessant wear and tear ; the articulations of the 
 wrist and fingers to avoid the necessity of always moving 
 the arm with them, and of a consequent waste of power ; 
 the sense of touch in the fingers, so exquisite and so 
 
 6
 
 122 MAN CREATED FOR AN ARTIFICER. 
 
 active in a thousand acts. In the large development of 
 the thumb man's superiority as a manipulator largely con- 
 sists ; it has been named a second hand. Still, it was in 
 the unoccupied levers at whose extremities the fingers 
 are, that his instincts as an artisan resided, and through 
 which they have been manifested. Had those levers been 
 employed as in their nearest analogues, man had been at 
 best but an improved orang-otang, but in disengaging them 
 from other service, and placing them as it were like 
 laborers in the market-place waiting to be employed, the 
 Creator gave us in them the prime instruments of our ele- 
 vation. 
 
 Wonderful as are the capabilities of the manipulating 
 organs of many of the lower tribes, they do not equal in 
 number and diversity those of the human hand. In this 
 instrument man's superiority is as marked as in any other, 
 while it indicates with unerring precision what the chief 
 employment of his earthly existence was to be. 
 
 If we revert to his entrance into the world, we shall 
 be led to the conviction that he is created an artisan, and 
 sent here to exercise his vocation. What were the things 
 on which he opened his eyes, and which continued through 
 life to arrest his attention, but those of a factory crowded 
 with work ! " All things," saith the Preacher, " are full 
 of labor," and so full that man cannot utter it. The 
 more he observed the earth, the more he found it the 
 theatre of ceaseless manufacturing activities : Its forces, 
 chemical, electrical, and mechanical, latent and palpable, 
 imperceptible and overpowering, never sleep. Without 
 intermission, they are converting elemental matter into 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral, into solid, liquid, and
 
 HE IS BORN AND BROUGHT UP AS ONE. 123 
 
 gaseous bodies ever breaking up and renewing them* 
 Every foot of it is paved with influences that are decom- 
 posing ingredients of worn-out fabrics, preparatory to 
 their being again made up into similar things, or in gather- 
 ing them up for other commodities. There is no suspen- 
 sion of the work on account of the moving-machinery, no 
 waste of power, and no refuse material not a scrap but 
 what is worked up. The supply keeps pace with the 
 demand, and, as with human merchandise, the goods vary 
 with what they are made of, and their style with changes 
 of times and seasons : a perfectly organized manufactur- 
 ing establishment. 
 
 Born and brought up in the busy scene, confined for 
 life to it, having no ideas but what are derived from it 
 a true factory child what else could he do but in the 
 theatre of action assigned him imitate 
 
 "The Great Artificer of all that moves!" 
 
 His instincts, organization, and condition defined his pro- 
 fession, and compelled him to assume it. In no other 
 capacity could he work his mission out. He saw that the 
 Proprietor had furnished him with raw materials, not with 
 finished goods. He had corn, but no bread ; fuel, not 
 furnaces ; clay, but neither bricks nor tiles ; sand, but not 
 glass ; textile substances were supplied, but he was to 
 convert them into plain and ornamental fabrics : iron was 
 given, but not in bars. The properties of alloys he was 
 to find out, and discover the means of producing a prime 
 material for cutting implements and tools. He essayed 
 these things, and succeeding, his natural career opened 
 before him.
 
 124 THE SPECIES DIVIDED INTO RACES. 
 
 As no factory involving a multiplicity of operations can 
 be carried on without diversity of talents in the work- 
 men, so this diversity is a prominent feature of the plan, 
 on which this earthly workshop has been established. 
 If the work given to man was to be uniform in its charac- 
 ter and applications, if it was to be limited in its kind and 
 stationary in its results, no difference in the qualifications 
 of operatives would have been requisite. When once 
 the tasks were learned, nothing would be wanting but 
 instinctive repetitions of them. The establishment would 
 resemble one of those mills in which certain kinds of 
 goods only are fabricated, and where certain sets of ideas 
 suffice for the fabricators : all would think and act alike, 
 and tameness and sameness pervade the whole. But if 
 the productions were to be varied like those of nature, 
 then equal, that is endless, diversity in the capacities and 
 tastes of the elaborators was essential, and hence it is 
 that no two individuals are in these and other respects 
 the same ; thus variety is the law of human arts, because 
 it is the law of human perceptions. 
 
 Besides this, the Creator has divided the species into 
 races or varieties, distinguished them by organization 
 and color, and marked diversities of intellect in them by 
 these also. Is it asked, why these subdivisions and dis- 
 tinctions ? In the first place, they characterize every 
 genus and species of physical beings. Climate and cli- 
 matic productions seem to call for them ; certain animals, 
 as well as plants, flourish only in certain localities and 
 latitudes, and so it is with human tribes. It may there- 
 fore be inferred that differences in the physique of men 
 were, among other reasons, ordained to meet differences
 
 CLIMATES OF COLORED MEN RICH IN MATERIAL. 125 
 
 of climate, and though mind of itself may have nothing 
 in common with matter, its discipline and developments 
 are materially affected by the things upon which and the 
 circumstances under which, it is exercised. While its 
 nature is everywhere the same, it may be germinating 
 as a seed among weeds in one zone, in another as a shrub 
 throwing out fresh leaves, and in another rising into a 
 vigorous tree. 
 
 The climates of colored men are all rich in materials 
 for the arts, while on them they have expended little 
 thought much less, it is said, than might have been 
 expected. This is simply because progress made by 
 other races has not reached them. No race can progress 
 of itself, and no one is independent of another ; a chain of 
 obligations and advantages unites all. The one that is 
 lower in the scale than another is waiting for assistance 
 from without. We are too apt to contemplate the man 
 of Africa in an isolated position, and expect him to origi- 
 nate and prosecute improvements independently of others ; 
 whereas, taking all things into view, he is no more 
 obnoxious to reproof for non-progress than the whites. 
 It is but yesterday, comparatively, that most of them 
 emerged from rank barbarism. 
 
 Another reason for the creation of races we may pre- 
 sume had reference to the furtherance of the work by 
 dividing it, and assigning such parts to each as each was 
 best adapted to perform. This is so beneficial, so obvi- 
 ous and natural a process, that it is evolved more or less 
 in all communities. In factories men are selected for 
 their fitness for particular performances, that skill and 
 intellect may not be consumed where not wanted, and
 
 126 MENTAL CAPACITY NOT UNIFORM IN RACES. 
 
 that the work might not suffer by incapacity taking the 
 place of talent. Were there no variations of mental 
 capacity and disposition the world would be in a perpe- 
 tual uproar. Like ambitious players, few would be satis- 
 fied with the parts assigned them. If all were engineers, 
 who Avould attend to the furnaces ? But the Creator has 
 settled all by graduating intellect and temperament so as 
 perfectly to meet all contingencies. 
 
 But why should not mental capacity be uniform in the 
 species, if even its development be unequal in races 1 The 
 answer is in the fact, there is gradation in all things. In- 
 telligence diminishes from God to man ; and from man it 
 flows, or seems to flow, in constantly narrowing channels, 
 down to vanishing points in the lowest phases of animated 
 matter. In passing through species, as through genera, 
 it continues its resemblance to a conical tube which at no 
 two points is of equal capacity. This inequality in 
 human, as in lower families, shows that economy in the 
 outlay of reasoning and perceptive faculties is as much 
 a natural law as in the expenditure of external materials 
 and forces. No greater capacity is given than can be 
 employed. Where less is given the work requires less, 
 and hence variation in human races implies, as in the ani- 
 mal world, variation in their work. Of necessity, supe- 
 rior intelligence, whether in nations or races, will always 
 rule. Were the Creator surpassed in knowledge, he would 
 cease to reign : nor is there any ground for dissatisfaction 
 here, since inequality is a law pervading all orders of 
 beings. If the tube be slightly larger on one side it is 
 smaller on the other, and there is no end to it in either 
 direction. There are as marked disparities in dark as in
 
 NO LIMITS TO IMPROVEMENT OF RACES. 127 
 
 light-colored races, and there are black tribes equal if not 
 superior in capacity to some other varieties. Color alone 
 is not the criterion of intelligence. 
 
 Many persons, in their denunciations of slavery, erro- 
 neously insist on an original or innate equality of mental 
 capacity in all varieties of men, and that all may be 
 brought to the same actual level ; but no such anomaly 
 in creation can ever be. It would be fraught with evil. 
 There would be an end to progress, and to all stimulus to 
 progress. But this absence of uniformity in races neither 
 prevents nor limits improvement. They will advance in 
 their order. The lowest may accomplish the same things 
 as the highest, but not in the same era or age. Pioneer 
 races will take the lead, and communicate the impulse of 
 new movements to those in the rear. The human sloe, 
 will become a plum, and the almond a peach ; but if the 
 colored people of the earth attain in the course of time 
 all that white men have now acquired, there may then 
 be as great a difference between them as there is now. 
 Cultivation works wonders, but it cannot break down 
 natural distinctions. In nations society is made up of 
 classes : in society at large races form the classes ; and as 
 in enlightened countries people generally have acquired 
 conveniences that were formerly deemed luxuries for 
 rulers, so it will be with races. 
 
 It is a scriptural doctrine that knowledge is to cover 
 the earth, and so it will ; but neither knowledge nor its 
 fruits can at any time be everywhere the same. Grada- 
 tion will ever characterize the face of the planet. One 
 district will be in advance of others as long as one race 
 precedes others. As a whole it will be improved, but not
 
 128 WORKMEN FOR EVERY ZONE. 
 
 equally in its parts : a beautiful provision, since if the 
 arts and sciences were equally cultivated, there would be 
 no exchange of knowledge in them, and little to foster 
 national intimacies and universal brotherhood. The 
 great social bond between peoples and countries would 
 be vitally weakened, if not broken. Whether the earth's 
 colored artisans will ultimately and exclusively hold their 
 native homes, and prosecute the great work of civilization 
 by themselves, time only can tell. It seems natural that 
 it should be so ; but communication with other races will 
 always be indispensable. Universal progress can only 
 arise from and be maintained by universal intercourse. 
 
 The plasticity of the human constitution is very great, 
 but there is no probability that the white race can of 
 itself carry and sustain progressive civilization over the 
 tropical belt hence the wisdom that has provided work- 
 men for every zone. It is the belief of many that white 
 men slowly but certainly degenerate, physically and men- 
 tally, as they approach the tropics. The fact, if it be 
 one, is a proof that races can only permanently flourish 
 in the zones to which they are indigenous. 
 
 We have so long been accustomed to contemplate man- 
 kind as one family, of one date and place of birth, uniform 
 in innate capacity, and ordained to the same earthly des- 
 tiny, that it seems to many wrong to speak of races, 
 differing as much in the periods and places of their advent 
 as in their organization. There is no difference of opinion 
 about the fact of sections of the earth's surface maturing 
 in different epochs, involving intervals of incalculable 
 duration ; the question is, were these sections colonized 
 from older ones, or were they independent centres of
 
 RACES NOT OF ONE DATE. 129 
 
 human and animal life ? As respects the inferior tribes 
 there seems little room for doubt, since sections of most 
 recent formations have animals peculiar to them, and such 
 as correspond with fossil analogues of other lands when 
 in the same stage of geological development : nowhere 
 else extant, they could not have been brought in from 
 abroad. There appears also ground for applying a like 
 remark to the human occupants. If they were emigrants 
 they should indicate whence they came, and the people 
 to whom they belonged ; instead of which they exhibit 
 characteristics of distinct races of varieties neither allied 
 to nor to be merged in others ; such as the men of Africa, 
 of America, and of Australia. The last named country 
 is allowed to be of the latest formation, and the latest 
 occupied ; and there, man appears in the lowest forms of 
 humanity, and is associated with the lowest types of ani- 
 mals and plants. According to the colonial theory, the 
 latest colonized countries should bear definite evidence of 
 at least some degree of a civilized origin. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ORDER OF MAN'S APPEARANCE ON THE EARTH'S GREAT 
 SECTIONS. 
 
 WE know from the earth itself that man made his ap- 
 pearance in different countries at different times, though 
 whence and how he reached them we have nothing con- 
 
 6*
 
 130 RACES AND THEIR BREAD PLANTS. 
 
 elusive. We can however trace, and with every indica- 
 tion of certainty, the geographical and chronological 
 order of his entrance on the earth's great sections, in the 
 indigenous vegetables and animals of each. We know 
 that the country of the ornithorhynchus and kangaroo is 
 passing through processes of development which Europe 
 and Asia myriads of ages ago underwent, and that where 
 the opossum still lingers the country is of more recent 
 formation than the eastern continents ; and therefore it is 
 inferable that the red man is of a later origin than the 
 white man, and the tribes of New Holland younger than 
 those of the Americas. 
 
 Then, there is an observable and characteristic connex- 
 ion between the races and their bread plants : the latter 
 rise in the scale of development with the former. The 
 Caucasian had the highest of the cereals wheat ; the 
 Mongolian, rye and buckwheat ; the Malayan, rice ; the 
 African, millet ; the American, maize and mandioca ; the 
 Polynesian, yams ; while the Australian had not at- 
 tained to so much as the cultivation of roots, much less 
 that of grains ; and was, moreover, without a single one 
 of the species of quadrupeds essential to civilization. 
 
 Facts not unfavorable to the hypothesis of several cen- 
 tres of population, may be found in the absence of uni- 
 formity in staple, primitive arts. Ideas common to the 
 species are often wrought out differently by races, and so 
 differently as to show that no connexion could have ori- 
 ginally existed between the parties. As might be sup- 
 posed, the conceptions are found further developed on 
 the older than on the later continents. A few examples 
 are added.
 
 ABSENCE OF UNIFORMITY IN PRIMITIVE ARTS. 131 
 
 1. In spinning, the device of the Aztecs, Mexicans, 
 Peruvians, and their descendants, varies so much from 
 that of the eastern hemisphere, as to be irreconcilable with 
 a knowledge of the latter, or of its users. The spindle, 
 instead of being suspended by the thread, and whirling 
 free in air, was and is spun round, like a top on its peg, 
 in a fixed or movable cavity. Moreover, the distaff, an 
 inseparable part of the oriental apparatus, was wholly 
 unknown to occidental spinsters.* 
 
 2. The amount of pottery made by old Americans is 
 almost inconceivable. It is found scattered over the 
 greater part of New Mexico, and in some parts abounds 
 on the surface continuously for from twenty to forty 
 miles. Most of it, and much of that made in Central 
 America and Peru, indicates correct taste in forms and 
 styles of ornament. Now the whole was fashioned with- 
 out the potter's wheel; an instrument dating behind the 
 dawn of history, in the eastern hemisphere. The Egyp- 
 tians represented " Amun, the Creator," forming worlds 
 upon it, and turning it with his foot. The only aid to the 
 fingers attained by the advanced nations of America con- 
 sisted of moulds by which shallow vessels were modelled 
 whole, and others in halves and smaller portions, which 
 were united while the clay remained plastic. Nearly all 
 vases into Avhieh the hand could not be introduced, were 
 thus made. The lower portions of small vases were 
 formed in moulds, and the necks gathered in by hand. 
 
 * See the Report of the United States Commissioner of Patents, 
 for 1850, Part I., for an article on this subject ; and a paper on Abo- 
 riginal Arts and Artisans, with illustrations from Mexican paint- 
 ings, in the fourth volume of Schoolcraft's national work on the In- 
 dian Tribes.
 
 132 PRIMITIVE ARTS INDEPENDENTLY DEVELOPED. 
 
 3. Another example is furnished by the quern, or hand- 
 mill, which was as common in the eastern half of the 
 world, ages before Solomon or Homer, Moses or Job 
 spoke of it, as in subsequent times. The red race never 
 knew it. They had the pestle and mortar, its remote 
 predecessor ; and some had realized its immediate fore- 
 runner a large, flat stone, and a smaller or movable 
 one for the hands, to push to and fro. Between these 
 corn was ground. By inclining the body, so as to throw 
 its weight on the hands, the operation was tolerably effi- 
 cient, but exceedingly laborious. Such was and still is 
 the mill of the most advanced of American tribes.* 
 
 4. Besides the absence of the distaff, potter's wheel, 
 and quern, another domestic implement should perhaps 
 be named the lamp. It seems almost impossible that 
 the people of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, could 
 have made the progress they did in the arts, and be with- 
 out artificial lights in their dwellings, except what they 
 had from slips of resinous woods. And yet I am not 
 aware that any such thing as a lamp or a candle has been 
 found in ancient graves, or dug out of the ruins of Aztec 
 cities. 
 
 These are simple facts, but they furnish pretty strong 
 evidence that civilization was as independently developed 
 on this part of the earth as on any other part. 
 
 Again, if the Australian continent were peopled from 
 an older one, indications of the arts of the latter should, 
 
 * See a representation of women of Zuni, New Mexico, grinding 
 corn with their native mill, in Captain Sitgreave's Report of "An 
 Expedition down the Zuni and Colorado rivers;" published by 
 order of Congress. Washington, 1853
 
 THE ARTS RESULTS OF ORGANIZATION. 133 
 
 as already suggested, appear and even abound. But, 
 instead of this, the people have no traditions and no arts 
 neither spinning, pottery, nor even the mortar ; and 
 yet, as if to strengthen the hypothesis, they have realized 
 a device in the boomerang which, it is believed, has no 
 prototype in other lands. The throw-stick of the 
 Egyptians and other ancient (and modern) people does 
 not appear to have been in the least allied to this singular 
 missile. 
 
 It has long been the fashion to consider the primary 
 arts as descended from one source. They may have 
 come from one to us, but so far from being exclusively 
 due to any one people, they are the natural fruit of human 
 organization in all lands. If a second cataclysm were to 
 sweep mankind off to-morrow, except one family, they 
 would be revived independently of any previous know- 
 ledge of them, just as would those of the bee and the 
 beaver. Were it not for a feeling allied to pride, the 
 construction of huts, evolving fire, ensnaring game, and 
 cooking food, spinning, weaving, canoes, and other de- 
 vices more or less common to barbarians,would be admitted 
 to be suggestions of instinct, just as contrivances not 
 inferior to them are conceded to emanate from the same 
 principle in lower tribes. The difference is, that with 
 man the arts are progressive, and with animals stationary 
 though not absolutely so, since some decidedly modify 
 their staple devices under marked changes of circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Another singular notion is, that barbarism is not a sim- 
 ple but a highly artificial state : that the original condition 
 of man was one of profound knowledge of nature, and
 
 134 PARTS OF THE EARTH 
 
 that ancient and modern civilizations are debris of primeval 
 science and refinement ! This is reversing matters 
 making the stream dwindle as it flows, instead of gather- 
 ing breadth and depth and momentum from swelling tri- 
 butaries. It is like building an inverted pyramid, begin- 
 ning at the base, and suspending the base from a point. 
 The idea is not only opposed to all experience and obser- 
 vation ; to the earth's records, which everywhere preserve 
 specimens of the first arts in arrow and spear heads of 
 flint and axes of stone, instead of philosophical remains ; 
 but is expressly contradicted by all histories, sacred and 
 profane. They describe the first men and women as 
 destitute of clothing, dwellings, fire, and consequently of 
 artificial light, and of the metals. If they possessed high 
 theoretical knowledge it was clearly useless to them. 
 Had they known better, ought they not to have done 
 better ? 
 
 It is natural to ask, What part or parts of the factory 
 were first matured? And where and when did our fore- 
 fathers begin their labors on them ? The answers are 
 written upon it, without and within; and when, in the 
 course of time, they become clearly translated, they will 
 be found full of interest and instruction. If we take up 
 an atlas, and turn to the usual hemispherical maps on 
 polar and equatorial projections, we perceive how greatly 
 the land preponderates in the northern half; while the 
 southern one is a continuous ocean, broken only by the 
 lower portions of Africa and America, with Australia and 
 scattered islands, most of which appear to have emerged 
 from the waters long after the continental tracts on the 
 opposite side of the equator had risen. Now, history
 
 FIRST OCCUPIED BY MAN. 135 
 
 coincides with what reason suggests that it was on the 
 northern hemisphere, the earliest and largest arena pro- 
 vided for him, that man first made his appearance. But 
 this vast area consists of two very unequal parts, sepa- 
 rated by two oceans. The North American continent is 
 one ; the other, three or four times larger, includes the 
 whole of Europe, Asia, and much the greater part of 
 Africa. On which did men first open their eyes ? Cer- 
 tainly on the one that was first prepared for them ; and 
 which of the two that was, history, tradition, and geology 
 point to the largest. 
 
 But it may be asked On what part of the northern 
 hemisphere did man begin his career 1 There is no doubt 
 there can be none that by the same law which assigned 
 to all species of lower tribes their appropriate homes, 
 man was put in possession of his first one, there being 
 nothing arbitrary in its selection. Now, if there is a 
 natural line or parallel more favorable than another it 
 undoubtedly is the true one. The equator is by far the 
 most marked of terrestrial circles, but there are strong 
 reasons against it. If lands under it were most favorable 
 to human development, they would have been continued 
 round or nearly round the globe ; instead of which, out 
 of 360 degrees, water sweeps over 275. There is not a 
 spot, or hardly a spot of land, cut by the equinoctial line 
 in the Pacific ocean, from the Spice Islands, in 130 east 
 longitude, to the coast of America, in 80 west ; a dis- 
 tance of between ten and eleven thousand miles. Fol- 
 lowing it across South America to the mouth of the 
 Amazon, it passes over 60 degrees in the Atlantic ocean 
 one-sixth of the earth's circumference more of unbro-
 
 136 LITTLE TERRA FIRMA UNDER THE LINE. 
 
 ken water to Gaboon, in the Gulf of Guinea ; continuing 
 thence to Zanguebar, it ranges over four thousand miles 
 of the Indian ocean, till it touches the Malayan group 
 whence it started Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and the 
 Spice Islands. 
 
 Thus a very small part of terra firma is under the line. 
 Europe and Asia are entirely north, and so is the largest 
 of the American continents, while the great expanse of 
 Australia is away south of it. It crosses Africa, not at 
 the widest part, which is from 60 to 70 degrees, but where 
 the width is reduced to 35 degrees. So also, the broadest 
 part of South America approaches to 50, while under 
 the line it is less than 30. These facts are full of mean- 
 ing. They show, if nothing else had shown, that an 
 equatorial belt was not designed to be an early centre of 
 civilization. If it had been, so much of it had not been 
 buried under water. No science and no arts have ema- 
 nated from it ; and so far as the countries have been ex- 
 plored, the whole (a few minute spots, the fruit of modern 
 efforts, excepted) abides in primitive wildness. We must 
 therefore look elsewhere for the most congenial theatre of 
 human development ; for wherever that was, there the arts 
 began. 
 
 Land being the proper theatre of man, should we not 
 turn to the largest tract 1 If the fact of a comparatively 
 small field appearing on the equator, and in disjointed and 
 widely separated portions, predicated too limited and too 
 interrupted an area, the converse may have been at 
 the beginning true. As civilization was -not to flow from 
 the equator, it must have arisen at some distance from it, 
 and the question is, at what distance ? There are two
 
 THE TROPICS BASE LINES OF CIVILIZATION. 137 
 
 other great natural and influential lines that intervene 
 between the torrid heats and polar colds viz. the tropics 
 Their influence on the vegetable and living world, and 
 on human as on animal developments, is unquestionable. 
 Passing round the earth at 23 J degrees from the equator, 
 they are three times that distance from the poles ; but as 
 the circles or parallels of latitude diminish from them to a 
 mere point at the poles, they are all powerful in the dis- 
 tribution of heat over the hemispheres, and in determining 
 and locating the mean temperature. 
 
 They seem intended for the base lines of civilization. 
 Let us see how this accords with known and acknow- 
 ledged facts. Immediately above the northern tropic is the 
 widest stretch of continuous land on the face of the globe ; 
 extending over 135 degrees of longitude, and running 
 through what have always been deemed the earliest-peo- 
 pled portions of the earth, and those, too, from which the 
 arts are acknowledged to have descended to us China, 
 India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, and the anciently advanced 
 states on the northern shores of Africa, from Barca to 
 Morocco. Then, if a perpendicular or meridional line be 
 drawn through the middle of this land, it will pass through 
 Arabia, Persia, and the Caspian, or vicinity of the Cas- 
 pian lake ; and the place of intersection will be found 
 the centre of the largest and earliest of the earth's land 
 sections. It need not be remarked how the location coin- 
 cides with the oriental and scriptural accounts of the 
 birth-place of man (or of the Caucasian race). Nor yet, 
 that in the same region the best of the pulses, of esculent 
 roots and fruits, the highest of the cereals, the three great 
 staple materials for clothing, and the most valuable of
 
 138 PROGRESS OF THE ARTS FROM THE EQUATOR. 
 
 domestic quadrupeds were indigenous. Here were fertile 
 soils, genial climates, and everything else favorable to 
 physical and mental vigor. 
 
 The arts at the earliest times inclined northwards, and 
 so they have continued to the present times. Between 
 the parallels of 10 and 40 all the famous nations of old 
 flourished. None extended their influence to the equator. 
 It was the same on the western hemisphere. Mexico, 
 Yucatan, and the central American states are within the 
 same parallels, or rather between 10 and 30. Ancient 
 American civilization never passed the isthmus, and conse- 
 quently never reached the regions of the Amazon. 
 
 In the eastern hemisphere there have been no occupied 
 and active centres of civilization south of the equator, 
 except what modern colonies are producing, and hence it 
 has never reached the line in that direction. In the wes- 
 tern hemisphere the Inca dynasties, or their predecessors, 
 extended their imperfect civilization along the Pacific 
 coast from the tropic to 40 south, and also north quite 
 up to the equator in a narrow and mountainous region, 
 which from its elevation rather resembled a temperate 
 than a tropical cline. 
 
 Without amplifying the foregoing facts or adding to 
 their number, enough has been said to sanction the position 
 assumed that the tropical lines are the natural bases of 
 civilization throughout the earth. And here a parting 
 glance at the map again reminds us that this mundane 
 factory is only emerging from the chaos attending its 
 erection ; that but a small part of its machinery is yet put 
 in play ; and that, so far from ourselves and our immediate 
 successors being among the last and most enlightened of
 
 ELABORATORS AND THEIR WORK. 139 
 
 its operatives, many epochs have to pass by before it be- 
 comes in full working order so vast is the amount of 
 ground to be covered, and work to be done. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELABORATORS AND THEIR WORK. 
 
 THE various forms and qualities of matter, associated 
 with the multiplicity of human habits and inclinations, pre- 
 destined, as already intimated, the divisions and subdivi- 
 sions of elaborators. Two important consequences fol- 
 lowed : The work could be prosecuted with system and 
 success ; and the workmen united by ties of mutual de- 
 pendence and support. 
 
 There was to be no remission of labor ; no stoppages 
 of the work from lack of raw or a surplus accumulation 
 of wrought material. No means were provided for lay- 
 ing up in one age a stock of goods for another. Each 
 generation was to labor for itself; a law on which hangs 
 the continuance of living bodies. If the present race of 
 bees, for example, were to elaborate honey and wax suffi- 
 cient to supply their young through life, and thereby 
 render them independent of labor, the succeeding gene- 
 ration would perish, and the species become extinct. It 
 would be much the same with us. All creatures are 
 made to labor, and their enjoyments to depend on their 
 industry.
 
 140 DURATION OF LIFE FAVORABLE TO PROGRESS. 
 
 As a wise proprietor, the Creator determined the sea- 
 sons or hours of work by adapting our organization to 
 the length of days and nights, or periods of activity and 
 quiescence. Had we not been ordained to labor we 
 probably had known no night, and consequently nothing 
 of the sweets of rest after fatigue, or of the renewal of 
 vigor and elasticity from repose. 
 
 I believe the average duration of human life is favor- 
 able to progress in the arts, and that it has been deter- 
 mined with reference to them. It is long enough to 
 mature the faculties and afford them full employment in 
 their maturity ; so that society can be benefited by the 
 ingenious and industrious of each generation, and not be 
 embarrassed for a longer period by the indolent and dull. 
 They who do no good in sixty or seventy years would 
 do little in twice that time. If the lives of artificers 
 rivalled those ascribed to men in the first ages, it is evi- 
 dent that expansion of mind would not keep pace with 
 their years ; while their energy and enthusiasm would 
 certainly flag. And what a drawback on the world's 
 industry, if the improvident and unproductive had to be 
 fed, and clothed, and cared for, during eight or nine 
 hundred years ! 
 
 No factory can be successfully carried on by superannu- 
 ated operatives ; hence the Proprietor of this earthly one, 
 in limiting the period of service in it, has provided for 
 perpetual accessions of new and vigorous hands, and 
 consequently of new and improved products. But for 
 this quick succession of employees there could probably 
 be no rapid increase of ideas, nor anything like the 
 healthy excitement on the subject that is beginning to
 
 WORK, NOT YEARS, THE STANDARD OF LIFE. 141 
 
 pervade men's minds. Now, more than ever, are many 
 stimulated to surpass their predecessors and to leave 
 impressions of their genius behind them. To the credit 
 of such, an increasing balance will be recorded long after 
 they have left the establishment, while the accounts of 
 the unprofitable will be closed with their discharge, and 
 their names expunged. 
 
 Men may eat, drink, and sleep for a century, and not 
 live a year. Food and rest are simply means to aid us 
 in accomplishing the objects of life. We do not make 
 steam-engines for the sole purpose of decomposing fuel, 
 nor has God made us only to consume victuals and wear 
 out clothing. Like artificial motors, we are created for 
 the work we can do for the useful and productive ideas 
 we can stamp upon matter. Engines running daily with- 
 out doing any work resemble men who live without labor ; 
 both are spendthrifts dissipating means that would be 
 productive if given to others. 
 
 Another feature in the administration of the establish- 
 ment js, its employees are kept ignorant of the periods 
 of their discharge. None know how long they are to be 
 employed ; and though liable to be dismissed at any mo- 
 ment, the knowledge of this does not make them one 
 whit less energetic in their callings a fact unaccountable 
 on the ground of reason alone, but it was indispensable, 
 and hence the principle on which it rests was implanted 
 in our natures. Thus the work progresses, although 
 workmen are hourly called away from it, and in the very 
 midst of its excitements. 
 
 The succession of life is a most beneficent feature in 
 creation. Surely, it is better that millions should enjoy
 
 142 SUCCESSION OF LIFE COMMERCE. 
 
 life than a few scores. As for the pains of dying, they are 
 momentary, while enjoyment is the attribute of existence. 
 Moreover, pain in life or death is due to the violation of 
 natural laws ; but for this we should withdraw as easily 
 from life as do the lower tribes drop as ripe fruit into 
 the ground. If it were not for the succession of life we 
 should have neither animal nor vegetable products. 
 There could be no arts. 
 
 The bent of man's nature, or his instinct, is as mani- 
 fest in his works as are those of animals in theirs. The 
 tenor of his life has been to invent and construct ; and 
 now that science is espoused to art, the entire face of the 
 world is rapidly assuming a manufacturing and mercan- 
 tile aspect. Its circumnavigation on commercial adven- 
 tures is becoming an every -day affair. Agriculture, arts, 
 and commerce, comprise and represent the material pur- 
 poses of the earth's creation. Through them, as through 
 channels, man's exertions instinctively flow, and by them 
 the volume and velocity of his efforts are measured. Be- 
 longing to all lands, their elements are varied in all. 
 One zone is rich in materials not known, or partially 
 known, in others ; hence arise systems of trade, by which 
 products of nature and art, however local in their origins, 
 become universally diffused, and mind and genius circu- 
 late with them. 
 
 Without this principle of giving one thing for another 
 there could be no professional employments, and no ex- 
 change of thought. Without buyers there could be no 
 manufactories. Without them this world had not been 
 one. It has no foreign commerce, no correspondence 
 with neighboring or distant orbs, because it produces no-
 
 WHAT IS MEANT BY SUBDUING THE EARTH. 143 
 
 tiling which their occupants want, nor do they raise any- 
 thing essential to us. Had an exchange of merchandise 
 been beneficial, it had been instituted. The earth's fa- 
 brics are therefore designed for home consumption, and 
 domestic demands require them all. By diversifying the 
 character and qualities of matter, and so distributing it 
 that each people has something which others require, 
 every man becomes a dealer with all other men ; and 
 thus the fraternal principle of international exchange is 
 revealed, and its application rendered perpetual. A 
 market is provided for the world's productions that can 
 never be glutted. 
 
 Tilling the soil and subjugating animals is only half 
 complying with the prime stipulation in the great char- 
 ter. It implies Have dominion over inert matter ; 
 over rocks, stones, wood, metals, and minerals ; over all 
 liquid, fluid, and solid bodies ; overcome their inertia, and 
 put every form, quality, and condition of them under 
 contribution. 
 
 Great things were to be done with organized, but 
 greater with inorganized matter ; though man, at the 
 first, little suspected that common things he trod on, and 
 things he passed by daily as of little worth, would be- 
 come of the first importance to him. The mineral king- 
 dom was to be a special arena of his exploits ; in it he was 
 to find materials for his mechanisms, and forces to propel 
 them. As Grod had imparted motion to animals, so he 
 was to put life, or the activities of life, into dead and 
 shapeless things to bring forth classes, orders, genera, 
 and species of organisms for himself, such as should take 
 hold of matter like that of which they were made ;
 
 144 . LOCOMOTIVE MECHANISMS. 
 
 knead, mould, and move it as he willed them, and with an 
 accuracy, persistence, and absence of fatigue, surpassing 
 the powers of living laborers. 
 
 But can man take pieces of wood and metal ; dress 
 combine, and arrange them ; place them in positions and 
 locations agreeable to him ; tell them to move among 
 themselves, and do his bidding to card, spin, weave, 
 sew, embroider ; plait and knit ; crush, grind, and sift ; 
 forge this substance into bars, draw that into tubes, 
 spread this into sheets, stamp those into plain and orna- 
 mental vases, dress granite into moulded blocks, form it 
 into columns, carve it into statues, and will they obey 
 him ? Yes ! Every day they are working matter into 
 every desirable consistence and figure, however hard or 
 soft, tough or brittle, dense and massive, or light and fra- 
 gile it may be. This is subduing the earth ; not a part, 
 but the whole. 
 
 The extent to which human toil has in this way been 
 relieved, is one of the best things accomplished in the 
 present century. Like every great acquisition, it has 
 cleared the way for others. The machinery just noticed 
 is stationary, its whirring sounds are confined within fac- 
 tory walls, and to it the work must be taken. This is the 
 case with natural motors, except animals. When a horse 
 is released from thrashing grain or grinding corn in a mill, 
 he labors in the field or works on the road. A locomo- 
 tive power, he goes to the work, instead of remaining on 
 one spot, and having it brought to him. Now, could arti- 
 ficial movers be brought out into the open world, run 
 hither and thither, put on the character of docile beasts 
 of draught and burden, the period would be hastened
 
 LOCOMOTIVE MACHINES. 145 
 
 when the power of animals would be laid aside ; for it 
 can hardly be questioned that their enslavement was de- 
 signed to initiate more economic and efficient laborers from 
 the inorganic world. 
 
 Well, to some extent this has been effected, and the 
 achievement most honorable to the present age will be 
 felt for good through all succeeding ages. Already, pas- 
 sengers by the thousand, and goods by the hundred tons, 
 are swept along by horses whose food is fire, and whose 
 breath is smoke travelling equipages that skim over 
 both land and sea with a speed surpassing that of the 
 swiftest racers. And all this done by what ? By simple 
 wood and iron, coal and water. 
 
 To take advantage of the obvious properties of natural 
 substances required little reflection to suggest, and only 
 ordinary tact to effect ; but to conceive and successfully 
 work out the idea of a travelling machine, to build up the 
 thing piece by piece, to screw, bolt, rivet, and otherwise 
 connect its several parts, place the whole on wheels, give 
 it water to drink and fuel to warm it ; and then to send 
 it out, the successful pioneer of a new order of perspiring 
 laborers is invention of the highest type. The produc- 
 tion of these moving powers has but commenced, and yet 
 the time appears rushing towards us when the face of the 
 earth will be literally alive with them. 
 
 This drawing out of the ground swarms of laborious 
 Cyclops, without limits to their numbers, strength, stature, 
 and obedience, surpasses the legends of Prometheus, 
 Antaeus, and Jason. It is the finest proof yet revealed 
 of man's power, and in several respects the most daring 
 and fruitful of his victories. The good to result from it 
 
 7
 
 l46 MECHANICAL FORCES 
 
 no one can even imagine, so great and so universally 
 diffused it will become. To make things that are unable 
 to stir of themselves active in moving others ; to make 
 insensible slaves go and come at our nod ; to draw our 
 carriages, plough and reap, fabricate every class of goods, 
 work at home and abroad, indoors and out, to propel our 
 vessels over seas and bring them back, &c., is subduing 
 the earth to an extent that perhaps few commentators on 
 Genesis have contemplated. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MECHANICAL FORCES AND MEANS TO EMPLOY THEM. 
 
 As it is in connexion with mechanical forces that man's 
 conquests over matter will ever appear to the best advan- 
 tage, let us glance at their development, and at the means 
 of modifying them. They have come gradually upon 
 him, and in a natural sequence ; each preparing the way 
 for its successor. Of overpowering influence on his des- 
 tiny, he has been slow to appreciate them, or to perceive 
 the design of the Creator in supplying him with them. 
 Those easily managed came first, and were succeeded by 
 others that meet higher requirements, and such as called 
 for higher skill successfully to employ them. His first 
 experience is with his own strength, which instinct leads 
 him, in common with the inferior tribes, to exert. How 
 long he applied his hands directly to objects he wished to
 
 AND MEANS TO EMPLOY THEM. 14? 
 
 move, before the lever and other cognate devices occurred 
 to him, we cannot tell ; but when he acquired them, he 
 mastered his first great lesson as an incipient engineer. 
 
 When a sense of the inadequacy of his personal force 
 began to prevail, animals were first called in ; their intro- 
 duction necessarily involving new mechanical combina- 
 tions. He could apply his hands directly to a saw, to 
 turn the quern, raise water by means of a pole or pulley ; 
 but with quadrupeds the working implements or tools had 
 often, and the mechanisms for communicating the new 
 power to them had always, to be modified. Horses and 
 oxen could readily bear off loads to a distance when laid 
 on their backs, but it was their power to drag, or over- 
 come resistances behind them, that was found most gene- 
 rally beneficial, and to that movement the devices had to 
 be adapted ; hence arose sledges and wheel carriages. 
 When continuous efforts in limited spaces were required, 
 then arose the primitive upright revolving shaft, forming 
 the centre of a circle around which the animal travelled, 
 being yoked by a horizontal lever attached to the shaft. 
 In this way the larger quadrupeds were initiated into 
 manufacturing labor, and man himself stepped in some 
 measure out of the traces. 
 
 Extending his views, he attempted to make running 
 and falling water work for him, and succeeded. Then he 
 fitted up vanes to catch aerial currents, and laid the fickle 
 wind under contribution. For a century past, steam has 
 done, and is doing, more for him than all other forces. He 
 thus keeps adding to the number, and relinquishes none : 
 hitherto he has rather sought to put each under heavier 
 .asks. The conquest of every new force called for ad-
 
 148 MEANS TO INCREASE AND DIMINISH MOTION. 
 
 ditional intervening mechanisms. Animals brought in 
 novel modes of transmitting power from the mover to the 
 objects moved ; water and wind required different ones, 
 while steam and the gases still further multiplied them. 
 Thus every new power called the inventive faculties into 
 fresh channels of thought, excited new aspirations, and 
 opened the way for still further achievements. 
 
 But all precious as forces are, they would have been 
 of little worth without the mechanical powers, improperly 
 so called. The former are gifts of nature, but the latter 
 were to be discoveries of man's own ; and momentous as 
 was to be their influence on his destinies, it is a singular 
 proof of divine provision for educating him as an artisan 
 that they were not difficult to develope. Early reflection 
 suggested, and early experience secured them. Atten- 
 dants on and exponents of forces, they were to accom- 
 pany him through his entire career ; and certainly, it 
 would be difficult to name an acquisition more essential to 
 Ibis well-being, in any one stage of his existence, from the 
 dawn of civilization to the close of its highest phases. 
 
 Means to increase and diminish motion irrespective of 
 that of prime movers, are a sine quA non in the arts. If 
 the world was yet without the six simple machines there 
 could be no manufacturers : mechanical movements could 
 not vary from natural ones, and motors would have to be 
 selected for the rate of their speed as much as for their 
 power. Leaping waterfalls and rushing currents of wind 
 and water could not be applied to delicate and slow ope- 
 rations, nor the requisite velocity of cotton-mill spindles 
 be attained from sluggish first movers. We could not 
 measure time if we had not the means of compelling the
 
 MODIF:CATIO\S OF FORCE AND VELOCITY. 149 
 
 seconds-hand of a chronometer to travel sixty times 
 faster than the minute-one, and this as much quicker 
 than the index for hours. Clocks and watches had been 
 impossible things. The spinning-jenny had still retained 
 everywhere one or the other of its eastern or western 
 primordial types a loaded whirling-stick, suspended \>y 
 the thread it twisted, or a similar stick spun with the fin- 
 gers, like a top in a shell. Carving might have been 
 practised, but the lathe had been unknown. There 
 might have been drills, but they would have been those 
 of the savage, whirled between the palms of the hands. 
 There could have been in fact no civilization, as we know 
 there is none, where power to modify motion is not. 
 
 The mechanical powers, therefore, serve as substitutes 
 for a multiplicity of movers as respects speed ; since by 
 them a series of velocities embracing every possible and 
 practical one is attained. But their advantages do not 
 stop here ; they also answer the purpose of an infinite 
 variety of forces ; for by them a force brought to bear on 
 an object is reduced or augmented in intensity to meet 
 every exigence. Thus, by them man's own force over- 
 comes resistances a thousand times too great for the direct 
 application of his strength ; and by them he reduces vio- 
 lent and overpowering strains to mild and uniform ones. 
 Two or three sailors can raise the largest ship's anchor, 
 and the marble columns of public edifices are elevated 
 and swung to their places by a few hands at a capstan. 
 The power of an elephant can be made to handle and 
 spin the most delicate fibres, and that of a thousand to 
 fabricate muslin thin as woven air. 
 
 By the mechanical powers the cardinal principle of an
 
 150 CHANGE OF ONE MOTION INTO ANOTHER. 
 
 interchange between force and motion is elucidated. By 
 them we can at our pleasure barter power for speed and 
 speed for power; so that wherever there is in a first- 
 mover an excess or a deficiency of either, both are so 
 perfectly subdued that any desirable degree of force or ve- 
 locity can be drawn from them. A force double the amount 
 necessary to move an object with a certain velocity is 
 made to move it so much quicker ; if it be sufficient 
 barely to overcome the resistance, the gearing is reversed, 
 and it performs the work, but takes double or quadruple 
 the time to do it in. By gearing, the speed of a first- 
 mover is increased to any imaginable extent, and reduced 
 to the slowest of perceptible motion. Another point of 
 equal importance is gained by them, the conversion of one 
 kind of motion into another ; straight into curved, recti- 
 linear into rotatory, alternating into continuous, direct 
 into oblique, and the reverse of these. Modern machin- 
 ery abounds with these conversions. Its efficacy depends 
 on them. 
 
 I scarcely know anything more wonderful in their 
 effects and more beautifully simple in themselves than 
 the elemental machines, since by them we have endless 
 gradations of forces and velocities at our command. 
 Without them the volume of the arts could not have been 
 opened, or, if opened, scarcely one of its problems solved. 
 Could their full value be perceived, they also would serve 
 to warm us into admiration of the Divine economy under 
 which we live, as students of and manipulators in matter. 
 
 The simple machines act directly only on solid bodies, 
 but there are forces to be obtained from liquids ; not 
 merely from their gravity in weighing down one side of a
 
 FORCE FROM THE PRESSURE OF LIQUIDS. 151 
 
 trheel, or from their momentum sweeping its buckets 
 round, but by their pressure. To render this element 
 available, we should have the means of exchanging speed 
 for intensity, and vice versd ; but here wheels and their 
 cognates are inapplicable. To meet the exigence, liquids 
 are subject to a law through which we can control and 
 employ them as motors. Unlike solids, they press 
 equally in every direction, and their pressure is as their 
 height ; and hence, as exemplified in the hydrostatic pa- 
 radox, a quantity of water, however small, can be made 
 to balance another, however large ; and as in the hy- 
 draulic press, by which a man working a small pump can 
 raise 500 or 1000 tons. 
 
 It is the same with elastic fluids. A person blowing 
 through a minute tube may raise tons with his breath ; the 
 power of a steam-engine is enlarged or diminished with 
 the area of its piston. 
 
 There is, moreover, an analogy between mechanical 
 forces and chemical solutions. The strength of both is 
 weakened by diffusion, and augmented by concentration. 
 The wheel and pinion are to one, what dilution and con- 
 centration are to the other. In fine, the laws impressed 
 upon fluids, for the purposes of the arts, and exemplified 
 in the operations of nature, are so admirable, that lan- 
 guage cannot express the feelings they awaken in minds 
 that appreciate them.
 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 HINTS TO MAN IN NATURAL MECHANISMS. 
 
 IT may perhaps be said that though inert matter was 
 made peculiarly subject to man, and ready to receive 
 whatever forms and movements he might wish to give it, 
 some kind of instruction was necessary. A stranger in a 
 strange world, or rather, a new being on a new orb, time 
 was required for him to realize his position and feel his 
 powers. So far as the instincts of his material nature 
 were concerned he was much on a par with the creatures 
 below him ; but, as observation and reflection marked his 
 character, he stood in need of information specific and 
 direct. Well, he was not left without it. In the teeming 
 mechanisms working everywhere about him he had illus- 
 trations of the principles that govern matter, and of quali- 
 ties, adaptations, and applications in profusion, to guide 
 him in producing creations of his own. What more could 
 be done for him when every object before him was a 
 lesson 1 Whenever a stone axe is ploughed up we do 
 not want an ancient Indian to rise out of a mound to tell 
 us what use it was put to. A knife, a pen, or any other 
 manufactured article is a tangible thought, or a congeries 
 of thoughts, in which the mind and workings of the mind 
 of the designer is perceived ; and so it is, that the ideas 
 and reasonings, if the terms be allowable, of the Creator 
 stand out in all his works. To those who study his
 
 ORIGIN OF ARCHITECTURE. 153 
 
 mechanisms, his intentions are as perceptible in forms, 
 motions, and proportions ; in levers, joints, valves, tubes, 
 mechanical equivalents, and results ; as those of a human 
 engineer in any one of his works. 
 
 The great doctrine of form, one of the first, will be one 
 of the last, to engage man's attention. It is taught every- 
 where by nature. All his first implements and utensils 
 were derived directly from her. In the gourd family 
 he had pitchers, vases, cups, and caldrons ready to his 
 hands, and a thousand hints in other groups. It is con- 
 ceded that architecture from huts of bent twigs to 
 palaces supported by single and clustered, twisted and 
 fluted columns is but an elaboration of natural sugges- 
 tions. It arose in the forest, and everywhere retains traces 
 in its materials and forms of its origin there. 
 
 Whatever amount of credit is due to classic stories 
 about the prototypes of columns and capitals, with their 
 volutes and foliage, in the olive, acanthus, and lotus, this 
 much I can say, from personal observations in a Brazilian 
 forest, that nature has given patterns for such things to 
 h.^ extent that I, at any rate, had not suspected. I met 
 with portraits of the Doric, and in a species of dwarf 
 cocoa with diverging capitals almost fac-similes of ancient 
 Egyptian shafts ; others, again, exhibited swellings at 
 their upper parts strongly recalling cognate features in 
 Hindoo structures. But what is the origin of mouldings 
 employed round the bases and other parts of columns 1 
 Resting with some companions on a fallen trunk, a singu- 
 lar and most unlooked-for incident arrested my attention, 
 which threw light on that question. I don't know that I 
 was ever so much and so agreeably surprised. 
 7*
 
 154 NATURAL MOULDINGS BEAUTY IN FORM. 
 
 A sipo f of an inch in diameter (one of the vegetable 
 ropes that everywhere abound) had wound itself several 
 times round the smooth trunk, and had assumed the form 
 of as regular an astragal, or ovolo with fillets, as if made 
 with a plane, except that the square edges of the fillets 
 were rather rounded than sharp. The sipo came down 
 from some lofty foliage, and after coiling round the bole 
 disappeared in the distance. Before it reached the trunk 
 it was of course cylindrical ; but where it began to wind, 
 the part in contact with the trunk became flattened, and 
 as it proceeded the yielding cord spread out laterally, 
 forming nuclei and at length perfectly formed fillets. The 
 evolution of these was clearly due to the pressure arising 
 from the tightening (perhaps by drying) of the cord. 
 Where it left the trunk the base of the semicircular pro- 
 file continued a few feet and then merged into a cylinder. 
 The fillets disappeared earlier. 
 
 It will ever be a leading principle in manufactures to 
 put suitable materials into shapes best adapted to the 
 purposes to be accomplished, because the virtue of form 
 does not stop with itself, but extends to everything con- 
 nected with it. All principles in the arts are allied and 
 run into each other ; thus correct contours and propor- 
 tions lead to economy of material, and this, as exemplified 
 in intermediate and propelling organs, to the least outlay 
 of power ; and consequently to the cheapness and dura- 
 bility of machines. 
 
 As forms improve, another element, viz. Beauty, be- 
 gins to appear, the perception of which opens a distinct 
 source of pleasure. It is the proof of excellence in na- 
 ture, and the reward of it in art. It does not arise solely
 
 NO ABSOLUTE LINES OF BEAUTY. 155 
 
 from what are deemed elegant outlines, but from their ac- 
 cordance with the uses for which the object is made. 
 Without this, the thing would, as a whole, be incongru- 
 ous and distorted, no matter what conventional taste 
 might approve in its parts. There are no absolute lines 
 of beauty, nor combinations of them ; the figure of the 
 most elegant dish could never be graceful in a goblet, nor 
 that of a tray in a caldron, because beauty can never be 
 where adaptation is not. Hogarth's curved line, return- 
 ing on itself, could have nothing attractive in railroads or 
 the walls of dwellings ; with them straight lines are the 
 most seemly, because most efficient. It is therefore on 
 account of the perfect fitness of particular forms to par- 
 ticular purposes, that nature's figures are so diversified 
 and pleasing. Even those from which we shrink would 
 be attractive, did we fully comprehend them. We should 
 then admit that the maternal toad, spider, or crab, might, 
 as justly as Juno, address her offspring as " beauties." 
 Perfection of form is the visible evidence of it in other 
 respects. Man conceals bad work and bad taste under 
 showy exteriors nature never does. 
 
 In the earth's fauna and flora are myriads of forms 
 wholly unknown ; only a portion is open to man's ordi- 
 nary vision, nor can ages of close investigation bring 
 them all out. Of those of insects we know little, of ani- 
 malcula and the small occupants of the ocean still less. 
 The microscope is constantly revealing new worlds of 
 forms ; and it will continue to do so, since there is a uni- 
 verse of them to employ it. What a deep and wide line 
 of distinction there is between vegetable and animal 
 figures, and how inexpressibly diversified are the outlines
 
 j56 FOUR BOOKS OF PATTERNS COLORS. 
 
 of each ! It has seemed to many, and would seem to all 
 who gave the subject serious attention, an impossibility 
 for a new type to be added, so completely does the 
 ground seem covered ; and yet the instant we turn to the 
 mineral kingdom, we find it also has one of its own, with 
 forms varied, till the imagination faints in following them. 
 See the symmetrical figures of which even flakes of snow 
 are composed. It might be inferred that dealers in fancy 
 and ornate goods could not use up the earth's three great 
 books of patterns, if they lived and worked for ever, and 
 took a fresh pattern every day. 
 
 But a fourth book has been given us, and it contains as 
 many pages as each of the others. While they are made 
 up of definite and regular configurations, its elements 
 consist of apparently purposeless and amorphous shapes, 
 of random and unmeaning patches, as the streaks and 
 spots on skins of animals, sea-shells, marble, clouds, and 
 flowers ; yet in her hands how attractive they are made ! 
 Arrangement is the kaleidoscope that makes them all 
 symmetrical. Out of twisted, distorted, abnormal ele- 
 ments, it produces figures of perfect forms, while its 
 changes of them eternity cannot exhaust. 
 
 Such is the Divine Proprietor's love of the Beautiful, 
 and his desire to cultivate it in us, that he has introduced 
 an adjunct to it in colors. With these he has embellished 
 everything on earth, in air, and in water. We tread on a 
 carpet of tapestry the richness of which we do not appre- 
 ciate, while the canopy over us is an ever changing series 
 of paintings. What pleasures, physical, moral, and intel- 
 lectual, we had never known if the earth and sky, and all 
 objects between them, had been of a uniform hue ! But
 
 USES OF COLORS SOUND MUSIC. 157 
 
 colors serve more purposes than to please the eye. There 
 shines not a tint on the breast of a thrush, nor a gleam 
 of iridescence on a humming-bird's throat, nor a golden 
 spot on a common trout's body, nor a feather of flame in 
 a flamingo's wing, but has its uses, although naturalists 
 have not yet divined what they are. The summer dresses 
 of arctic animals and birds are regularly thrown off, and 
 winter ones put on ; but as yet little progress has been 
 made in the investigation of such matters, and of the laws 
 by which colors are developed and defined, notwithstand- 
 ing the pleasures and profit the knowledge must bring. 
 To some classes of manufacturers more than to others the 
 study of colors and of symmetrical figures belongs : and 
 what a school of instruction has been opened for them ! 
 
 Another source of pleasure and of art is opened in 
 sounds. A mercurial workman whistles and sings to 
 break the monotony of toil, and to lighten it, while the 
 phlegmatic diverts himself with scenes in his mental 
 phantasmagoria. What attractive forms are to the eye, 
 modulations and combinations of sounds are to the ear. 
 To vocal, instrumental music succeeded, and became a 
 distinct and popular branch of invention, in which instru- 
 ment makers have principles and applications of principles 
 in nature to guide them to as great an extent as workmen 
 in other departments of art.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PROFESSIONS ALLIED TO THE ELABORATION OF MATTER. 
 
 PROFESSIONS seemingly not allied to the manipulating of 
 matter, arise from, and are dependent on it. The diver- 
 sity of habits and tastes so wisely designed to facilitate 
 the work, is not intended to isolate its parts, hut to bring 
 all to bear on each other. Nothing is insulatable in na- 
 ture or in art. If therefore the great task of man is to 
 imprint knowledge on matter, the labors of scientific as 
 well as of other classes must have reference to it ; and 
 they have they contribute essentially to it. Learned 
 professions are as leaves of a tree ; they hang in clusters 
 from kindred twigs and branches that shoot from the ma- 
 nipulating bole, and they aid in the development and 
 ripening of the fruit. The subjects of science are not 
 given to us as pleasing abstractions, but to lead to sub- 
 stantial good. They are charged with practical lessons ; 
 and it is the actual employment of the principles they il- 
 lustrate that is required of us, not fruitless meditation on 
 the wisdom of the Creator, nor barren praises of him. 
 At present, human knowledge exists in scattered frag- 
 ments. Like uncollected materials for a public edifice, 
 they have to be brought together, dressed, and put in 
 their appropriate places, to form the exterior, and adorn the 
 interior ; and not till this is to some extent done, can the 
 true value of each, and the influence of the whole be felt.
 
 CONNEXION OF ASTRONOMY WITH THE ARTS. 159 
 
 Is it asked what scientific men do 1 Let us see. Phy- 
 sics, in its widest sense, embraces the phenomena of the 
 material creation, and therefore the whole wisdom of 
 God represented in matter. Co-extensive with matter, 
 the science of external things must for ever exercise the 
 investigating powers of intelligences. It is limited in its 
 range on each orb to the phases in which matter exists 
 on each, but, what is very observable, it cannot be prose- 
 cuted on one without reference to others, thus reminding 
 us of the unity of creation ; that no limb, or member of 
 it, any more than of a plant or insect, exists of or for 
 itself, and consequently that the occupants of all worlds 
 are members of one family, to whom different parts of 
 the family estate have been committed ; that all are pu- 
 pils of one school, though receiving instruction in sepa- 
 rate classes. 
 
 Astronomers pursue inquiries which some persons ima- 
 gine have no bearing on human affairs. They are mis- 
 taken ; so far from being isolated, we should never have 
 so much as seen what our planet is made of, but for the 
 light that streams on it, from one star by day, and from 
 others by night. We should have had no measure for 
 time ; and then there is the potent fact, that terrestrial 
 location is only determined by celestial observation, so 
 that we cannot traverse our own earth, know in what di- 
 rection we may be going, or tell on what part of it we 
 at any time are, without looking to other worlds for the 
 information. Without astronomy there had been no na- 
 vigation ; the seaman deduces the position of his ship 
 from the altitudes and occultations, not only of members 
 of our solar group, but of the fixed stars. Nearly all
 
 160 LABORS OF CHEMISTS AND NATURALISTS. 
 
 arts are affected by ocean commerce, while the chemical 
 influences of the sun affect all substances, and almost all 
 processes. Astronomy, then, has a direct bearing on ma- 
 nufactures, from the smallest to the most important arti- 
 cles enumerated in ships' bills of lading. 
 
 Terrestrial physics may be comprised in two divisions 
 one treating of the constituent ingredients of all bodies, 
 the other of their forms, motions, forces, and properties, 
 Chemistry and Mechanics ; the latter including organic, 
 inorganic, and artificial mechanisms, or those made by God 
 and those formed by man. 
 
 Chemists have more richly contributed to the arts than 
 other savants, because more intimately employed on mat- 
 ter. For one great fact we are indebted to them, viz. 
 the compound nature of all bodies that minerals and 
 vegetables, solids, liquids, and the air itself are all alloys 
 that forms, qualities, and colors are results of propor- 
 tions of composing elements. It is extremely probable 
 that no simple form, or true element of matter, has yet 
 been ascertained. In furnishing new compounds, chemis- 
 try has marked the present times as an era in the mani- 
 pulating arts : while many depend wholly upon it, its 
 influence extends through all there are no imaginable 
 limits to the number and value of its contributions. The 
 next popular prime-mover is certainly to come from it. 
 
 Naturalists, so called, divide themselves into classes 
 corresponding with the objects they study, as plants, 
 fishes, reptiles, insects, birds, mammalia, &c., in which the 
 Great Artificer has given examples of every variety of 
 motion, of transmitting and compensating mechanisms, of 
 adaptations of parts to a whole, of form to speed, and
 
 LESSONS IN ENGINEERING FROM NATURE. 161 
 
 other results ; of harmoniously working and absolutely 
 perfect machines. Human arts have at length arrived 
 at a point where consulting with those of nature has 
 become more than ever necessary. In the contours and 
 movements of organs of locomotion, in the feet and wings 
 of insects and birds, of reptiles and fish, much has to be 
 observed, more than the highest order of minds can ex- 
 haust in any age. In the structures raised by insects, 
 birds, and some quadrupeds, and in the fabrics many of 
 them make, the most perfect application of mechanical 
 principles, with economy of material, is displayed. So 
 also in their manipulating apparatus and processes, in 
 their weapons of attack and defence, devices for ensnar- 
 ing game, &c., &c. All is literal chemistry and mechanics, 
 and will be full of instruction to artificers for ever. 
 
 When marine engineers, for example, comprehend the 
 principles that govern the movements and velocity of 
 water animals, from the jelly-fish, progressing by col- 
 lapsing and expanding itself, to the gambolling flying-fish, 
 and the meteor-flight of the sword-fish, they will no longer 
 be at a loss respecting the figures and action of their pro- 
 pelling blades. The prolific provision, the wonderful 
 varieties of principles and processes for the locomotion 
 of marine bodies, and bodies of every form, from the 
 gangliated medusae to the dolphin or other swift swimmers, 
 and for movements in every possible direction that neces- 
 sity, pleasure, or even sport requires, is enough to fill 
 every soul with delight. Besides mechanical, there are 
 chemical lessons for boat -builders, e. g. Instead of cover- 
 ing the bottoms of their fast vessels with grease that repels 
 water, and thereby retards their progress, they would seek
 
 162 MAN CREATED TO EXCEL AS AN ARTIFICER. 
 
 for a coating analogous to that of fishes, which, while 
 impervious to, coalesces with the fluid, and consequently 
 enables them to move more readily through it. 
 
 As with the vegetable and animal, so with the inorganic 
 world : all the operations going on in it are solutions of 
 mechanical, engineering, and chemical problems. Natural 
 philosophers amuse themselves in the kingdoms of nature, 
 without apparently being aware, and certainly without 
 being fully 'aware, that everything they see is or will be 
 applicable to devices which progressive civilization will 
 demand. But our age, like lower epochs of geologists, is 
 preliminary to and prophetic of a superior future. 
 
 From the foregoing rapid views of the earth, her mate- 
 rials and forces, and of man's organization and achieve- 
 ments, it is impossible not to acknowledge the adaptation 
 of one to the other, and not to feel that all things accord 
 with his duties as an artificer; that he was created to 
 excel as one that the business of his race was and is to 
 take the products of nature's mills, and, by further ela- 
 borating them in his own, to bring out in endless suc- 
 cession beneficial results that he was to collect natural 
 motors, contrive artificially excited ones, and make each 
 the centre of moving mechanisms for shaping matter into 
 newer and newer forms of utility and beauty to cover 
 the earth with barns, workshops and dwellings, roads and 
 canals, and the seas and rivers with his ships to produce 
 goods and merchandise for universal commerce to banish 
 idleness and want with their concomitants, by diffusing 
 industry, intelligence, and competence through every com- 
 munity in a word, to become in its widest sense a manu- 
 facturer.
 
 FAITH IN HUMAN POWER. 163 
 
 It is, however, true that as Lord of the earth, man as 
 yet has no adequate conception of his high destiny. A 
 little light flickers here and there, and it is spreading, but 
 nothing compared to a general illumination. The con- 
 viction is not fastened in him that he is placed here in 
 charge of an establishment teeming with treasure, to add 
 to a capital that can only cease to increase by his ceasing 
 to employ it, and that if he suffer it to lie idle, no power 
 on earth or heaven can use it for him ; that it is in nature 
 as in grace to him that makes the most of what he has 
 more shall be given, and he shall have abundance, while 
 from the indolent shall be taken that which he hath a 
 civil, political, and moral principle, of which the history 
 of nations is, and ever will be, a running commentary. 
 No useful and productive thought should be confined to 
 the mind that conceives it, nor can it be, without incur- 
 ring the guilt of Achan. 
 
 The truth, however, is dawning ; advanced ideas are 
 obtaining ; ancient boundaries of thought are giving way, 
 and new views of man's capacities and powers arising in the 
 widening horizon. To one great lesson the world is be- 
 ginning to listen : Faith in human power. The truth it 
 enforces is all potent for good. Before it, every obstacle 
 must eventually give way, and to it every element and 
 influence in nature will be subject. As a cloud is the 
 " mother of rain," so is this faith charged with more re- 
 freshing showers than have yet fallen on our species. 
 Emerging from dark times, it is but recently that the 
 power in man has been suspected. The subjugation of 
 steam, electricity, and other agents, points to the divinity 
 within him, and fortifies the doctrine that " all power" on
 
 164 MAN CAN MAKE THE WORLD WHAT HE PLEASES. 
 
 earth is committed to him that on himself alone it de- 
 pends whether he be omnipotent here or an imbecile. 
 Hence, where this fundamental truth is not taught, men 
 are children ; where received, increasing elevation of cha- 
 racter becomes manifest. And what is there, with reli- 
 ance on himself, that man cannot do ] Till modern times, 
 he has been struggling in uncertainty, scarcely knowing 
 what to hope for, nor what was lawful to attempt ; but 
 now, with a little faith, he is achieving the greatest things 
 and successfully wielding nature's mightiest forces. Ex- 
 cept interfering with its movements in the fields of space 
 he can make this orb pretty much what he pleases. 
 Here are none to trouble him, no interference from with- 
 out or within. Shut up in his floating homestead, he has 
 ample means to improve it, and make both it and him- 
 self what both were created to be. Its climates and 
 aspects he is changing, and it is certain that whatever he 
 makes it, it will be a type of himself of the range and 
 vigor of his energie?, or of intellect impoverished and 
 matted with weeds. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 
 
 THERE are two objections, or what may be construed 
 into objections, to the theory of man's earthly business 
 being that of an enlightened elaborator. 1. It may be
 
 ADVANTAGES OF DIVISION INTO NATIONS. 165 
 
 urged that if the theory be true, more and better work 
 would have been done, had men been united under one 
 civil and political rule, instead of being divided into mul- 
 titudes of unequal and jarring communities. A central 
 power could have drawn forth and profitably directed the 
 energies of the whole, in place of their being frittered 
 away in isolated efforts. The answer to this is, that the 
 scheme is impossible, physically and morally ; and further, 
 if it were practicable it would be productive of no good, 
 as long as the earth retains her present organization and 
 the human family is made up of such diverse progenies. 
 People of the tropics can never be the same in tempera- 
 ment, tastes, habits of thought and feeling with those of 
 the middle zones, nor these with occupants of the coldest 
 circles. All men could not be included in one civil polity. 
 E pluribus unum is nature's motto, but not in all the 
 senses some would have it. 
 
 "We are sure, whether the causes are obvious or not, 
 that the progress of science and art is furthered by the 
 separation of men into national groups, and that to com- 
 press the dissimilar materials into one mould would be 
 fatal to all. As observable in peoples who shut them- 
 selves up from the rest of the world, individual activities 
 would settle down and be merged in universal heaviness, 
 if not torpor ; the general mind would become stationary, 
 and advancement be impossible. The species would form 
 one family, but it would be a family of Chinamen ; and 
 it would remain one, since there would be no outside 
 Fanquis to break up its stereotyped ideas and put them, 
 with others, into new and better combinations. The law 
 that elicits light by the collision of mind with mind is as
 
 166 LANGUAGES NOT PERMANENT, 
 
 necessary to prevent mental and material stagnation in 
 nations as in individuals. 
 
 2. The second objection is based on what certainly does 
 retard progress, since it obstructs both the freedom and 
 cordiality of intercourse, viz. the complexities and mul- 
 tiplicities of language. How did this grave impediment 
 to the interchange of thought arise, and how long and to 
 what extent is it to endure ? Is it the expression of an 
 organic law, or is it due to local and fleeting causes, and 
 fated to diminish or disappear with them 1 It is reason- 
 able to infer that if the earth was designed for a manu- 
 factory, and a mart for exchange, provision would have 
 been made for facile communion by both oral and written 
 language ; and that if obstacles were unavoidable in the 
 early days of the establishment, from the operatives be- 
 ing scattered over the earth's great provinces, yet as the 
 knowledge of its resources became general, and man every- 
 where sought to correspond with his brother man, the 
 confusion of tongues would in a great measure cease. We 
 believe it will. 
 
 Language and its origin have been descanted on as 
 miraculous and mysterious. So they are, but not more so 
 than other natural phenomena : e. g. the languages, if 
 they may be so called, of the lower tribes. Of these, 
 every species has its own mode of communing with its 
 kind, and hosts of them by articulate sounds which in 
 birds apparently exhibit as great a variety of tones and 
 inflexions as is within the compass of the human voice. 
 But animals make no additions to their speech ! True, 
 because they make none to their arts. Their means of 
 communication are commensurate with these, and hence
 
 THEY ARE NATURALLY DEVELOPED. 167 
 
 more would have been superfluous. Had the inferior 
 tribes been ordained to evolve novel processes of elabora- 
 tion, and new forms into which to work matter, their per- 
 ceptive and expressive organs had necessarily been ex- 
 panded. Every man's language is confined within the 
 circle of his knowledge, but then he is intended to enlarge 
 that circle. 
 
 This distinguishing feature between man and the crea- 
 tures below him has led many writers to contend that a 
 progressive order of beings differs so much from those that 
 are stationary, that while the laws which governed the 
 creation of the latter sufficed from the beginning to meet 
 all subsequent exigences, those of the former were in- 
 sufficient ; and hence, by a series of special interpositions 
 of the Creator, man is thought to have been instructed 
 in the elements of language and of the arts. These 
 teachings are supposed to have been continued down to 
 the erection of the tower of Babel. Speaking of that 
 structure, a recent writer observes : " We have now 
 reached the point where human civilization in its collective 
 form ceases to depend on the direct interposition of 
 Omnipotence, and where the elements bestowed by the 
 Creator are left for their development to human ingenuity 
 and human industry."* 
 
 Readiness to recognise the Creator in his works is the 
 characteristic of every enlightened mind. He is blind 
 and deserving of pity who does not perceive the All-Per- 
 vading Intelligence, Beneficence, and Power ; but it does 
 not follow that he is a sceptic, or undevout, because he 
 
 * The Natural History of Society, by W. C. Taylor, LL.D., of 
 Trinity College, Dublin. New York. 1841. Vol. j., p. 305.
 
 168 PRINCIPLES THAT ORIGINATED LANGUAGE 
 
 does not see those special interferences or the necessity 
 for them. If he acknowledges the Creator as accom- 
 plishing all things by laws enacted by Him, he is as 
 faithful, and, as we believe, acceptable a believer as any 
 who advocate particular interpositions, and therefore ad- 
 mit imperfections of those laws. One is devout without 
 philosophy, the other with it. 
 
 Primordial influences imparted to animate and inanimate 
 matter are as impressive and active as ever they were. 
 As regards speech, oral and written language consists of 
 words, and the invention of words goes on now as at the 
 beginning, and as it will go on to the end, for there can 
 no more be a language than an art that is not capable of 
 expansion. Whenever a strange animal, bird, mineral, or 
 aught else, occurs to an Indian of America or Australia, 
 he gives a name to it ; one more or less characteristic, 
 and serving to distinguish it to himself and his people. 
 Just so it is with civilized man : the arts have called and 
 are daily calling for new words to designate novel mate- 
 rials, forms, colors, and qualities, while naturalists, che- 
 mists, and others are coining them by scores to represent 
 and express new discoveries. 
 
 Indeed, it appears as obvious as any analogous matter 
 can be, that man was as well qualified at his creation to 
 develop and work out the earthly destiny for which his 
 organization expressly fitted him as animals were to work 
 out theirs. If either stood in need of extraordinary direc- 
 tion, one would suppose it would be the least intelligent. 
 But supposing particular instruction was necessary to in- 
 duct him in the first form of speech, which from the pau- 
 city of his ideas (the case wherever the arts are not) must
 
 ARE AS ACTIVE AS EVER THEY WERE. 169 
 
 have been exceedingly limited in its scope and applica- 
 tion, was not an equal or greater amount of aid requisite 
 to originate and matxire among his descendants a thousand 
 forms more comprehensive and expressive ? It is as won- 
 derful indefinitely to diversify and extend a principle as 
 to unfold it to construct a steam-engine as first to raise 
 steam in a skillet. 
 
 The same principles that originated language and arts 
 led to their varieties, and it did this whether mankind 
 was originally of one family or not. If they were one, 
 their speech was confined to what they knew while they 
 remained together, and assuredly their knowledge then 
 was almost nothing, compared to that which the species 
 was to attain. As therefore the largest portion of man's 
 ideas, and of words to express them,, had to be acquired 
 after his dispersion over the earth, the process of their 
 development would be the same, or about the same, as if 
 there had been several original centres of populations. 
 Things peculiar to one climate were named by those who 
 became familiar with them, but neither the names nor 
 the things could be apprehended by those who never 
 heard of either. Thus, a succession of new objects, im- 
 pressions, and perceptions arose, as men passed from one 
 latitude to another, and unavoidably gave birth to local 
 languages, which time rendered more and more distinct. 
 Inhabitants of islands and sea-shores had one, necessa- 
 rily unintelligible to people that never saw the ocean, or 
 a fish. Moreover, things common to distant countries 
 could rarely be called by the same name, because they 
 do not make the same impression on all minds. 
 
 Languages are unstable. They are ever changing.
 
 170 THE NUMBER OF LANGUAGES DIMINISHING. 
 
 Most of those spoken in the first ages are wholly lost, 
 and of such as are now spoken, numbers are dying out. 
 The legions of aboriginal tongues of this hemisphere, 
 and of Australia, Oceanica, of large portions of Asia and 
 Africa, are being slowly but surely superseded by those 
 of the French and English chiefly. Why is this ? Be- 
 cause language is the instrument or exponent of the arts. 
 If it is the prime business of man to cultivate them, it is 
 one of the chief purposes of language to circulate the 
 knowledge of them. Hence, where they progress it 
 flourisheth, and where they wither it deteriorates. Past 
 history sufficiently pointed out, but modern annals pro- 
 claim aloud the truth, that henceforth nations, kindred, 
 tongues, and people, can endure only as long as they are 
 identified with the expansion of the arts. We therefore 
 hold that the embarrassments to the circulation of know- 
 ledge arising from the multiplicity of tongues, belong to 
 an incipient condition of man's career, and will, in a 
 great measure, disappear as he advances.
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 MISTAKEN VIEWS OF MATTER, AND OF MAN AS AN 
 
 ARTISAN; WITH THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 UNIVERSE OF MATTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ENEMIES OF MATERIAL AND MORAL PROGRESS. 
 
 THERE are two classes whose mistaken views have 
 tended to retard material and consequently moral pro- 
 gress ; one, influenced by sickly and depreciating notions 
 of the material world, for with them spiritual things are 
 all in all ; the other by conventional standards of genti- 
 lity. The former think they please heaven by casting 
 matter behind them ; the latter please themselves by 
 treading on it in preference to working in it. A principle 
 of vanity governs both, and leads them to violate, as far 
 as they can, a fundamental law of their being. Happily 
 the influence of both is waning. 
 
 In assigning this earthly establishment to the charge of 
 man, God inserted in the " Deed of Trust," a condition 
 on the part of the lessee, which defined the character he 
 was to put on, and the career he was to run a condition
 
 172 GOD PROVIDES MATERIALS AND MAN LABOR. 
 
 which he was abundantly able and specially qualified to 
 meet. It was this : Materials were to be found him, but 
 he was to find LABOR. This was to be his portion of the 
 working capital. On the other hand, no restrictions were 
 laid on his undertakings, and the entire profits were to be 
 his own, so that prosperity and every degree of it were 
 to rest with himself. No natural truth is more luminous 
 and patent than this. It is written on every leaf of cre- 
 ation, and stamped on every human faculty, that man 
 was to be " a child of labor " that for it he was made, 
 and sent hither. 
 
 Hence there is nothing here to encourage the absorp- 
 tion of life in spiritual thought. The mind is to be 
 active, and active on something else than itself and for 
 itself. Those who have no sympathy with things here, 
 have no business here. It is in vain to create and deco- 
 rate worlds for them. To float in some dreary corner of 
 the abyss, out of sight of any orb, would answer their 
 purposes better, since no object would then be near to 
 break their meditations. The idea of this sphere being 
 an inn to give a few nights' lodgings to travellers passing 
 hastily over it, the object of whose journeying is too 
 high and urgent to allow them to examine or care for its 
 conveniences whence could it have proceeded, but 
 from the weakness that leads men to magnify their voca- 
 tions, and infer thence their own importance 1 Such are 
 the absurdities into which those fall who attempt to sepa- 
 rate what God hath everywhere united matter and 
 mind ; who insanely dream of pleasing him, by debasing 
 one and exalting the other. 
 
 Man is to be no spectral recluse, dozing away life over
 
 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OP MATTER AND OP LABOR. 173 
 
 legends and relics ; soddening his soul to the condition of 
 a mollusk, and limiting his views of the world, like those 
 of an oyster, to his cell ; leaving the earth to grow up a 
 jungle, and his thews and sinews to wither for want of 
 employment. No ! He is to be no dreamer in-doors, 
 but an active, vigorous, and refreshing thinker and worker 
 without. How awful, then, is the delusion, which from 
 the earliest period has made the finest portions of the 
 earth mental deserts and the scenes of recurring famines ! 
 Monasticism has flooded them with "Palmer-worms," 
 and wherever these have been, and wherever they are, to 
 use the words of a prophet, " the land mourneth." 
 
 In Protestant countries the pagan delusion, where not 
 eradicated, is held in check, but in them much of the old 
 leaven of mysticism remains. The true dignity of labor 
 and its influence on morals and religion are but partially 
 felt. Doubts and fears prevail as to the degree of estima- 
 tion in which science and arts should be held. With 
 some to magnify matter, to anticipate the highest phases 
 of civilization from its developments, is making far too 
 much of it, rendering men too earthly-minded, and in- 
 ducing indifference to the things of a better life ! As if 
 the fervent improvement of an earthly homestead was 
 incompatible with the appreciation of a heavenly one. 
 They concede that working in matter was to be a feature 
 in man's character, but not the most marked one, not 
 THE one for which he and the earth were made precisely 
 what they are. That God had no higher purpose in our 
 physical formation than to make us artisans, some cannot 
 endure. Their ideas of and reverence for him are 
 offended at it. "With them matter is an encumbrance on
 
 174 THE NATURE OF MATTER UNKNOWN. 
 
 the spirit, and evil associated with it ; hence they deem 
 it a duty to hold themselves as loosely connected with it 
 as possible. 
 
 Such are the views and feelings of sincere, but minute- 
 ly devout persons. They have not the remotest idea 
 that profound knowledge and therefore profound love of 
 the works of the Creator, with increasing applications of 
 science to the arts, must be combined with true religion 
 and form an important element of it that the natural 
 eye must be kept wide open as the eye of faith. All who 
 seriously suppose the association of man's immortal pow- 
 ers with perishing matter derogatory, should tell us by 
 what else the soul can be instructed. They long for 
 something better, something purer, something they know 
 not what, and which they certainly cannot have; be- 
 cause there can be nothing, imaginable or unimaginable, 
 so well adapted to discipline the highest faculties of our 
 nature. If there had been, it had been given us. 
 
 There wants an angel's shriek in the ears of these men 
 to startle them from their dreamings and awaken them to 
 the value of the privileges of looking on, studying, and 
 handling that of which God has moulded the heavens and 
 the earth, by which he educates the intelligences of all 
 worlds, and through which he proclaims his universal 
 purposes and power. What is matter ? Who can tell ? 
 No finite beings can say what its nature is. We only 
 know that it is prolific of wonders. It is the mirror of 
 the Creator's attributes, the seed of his beneficence, the 
 agent of his providence ; the visible, tangible, and grandest 
 proof of his existence. 
 
 The study of it exalts and adorns every Christian vir-
 
 SUPERSTITION RIFE WHERE THE ARTS ARE DESPISED. 175 
 
 tue. It expands all minds, and as they expand fills them 
 to overflowing with the sublimest views of the Author of 
 the universe. It draws them into communion with him 
 and moves them to pity those who, from mistaken ideas 
 of him, pass through life regardless of his works. And 
 it makes them shudder at the grossness of much of the 
 worship offered him as if He were to be complimented, 
 like a weak-minded mortal, with paeans of professional 
 songsters, histrionic costumes, and genuflexions, bijouterie, 
 and baubles. All past and not a little of current history 
 presents a picture of intellect thus smothered, and of phy- 
 sical energies thus shackled. We need look no further 
 than this hemisphere. In the southern half, it has been, 
 and still is, made the chief business of the people to carry 
 on what they are taught to believe is a holy war ; and 
 with the view of prosecuting it successfully, to keep up 
 a perpetual series of verbal flatteries, and requests ad- 
 dressed to swarms of dead men and women, who when 
 living never heard of either them or their country. Now 
 what have been the attainments of one of the finest 
 branches of the human family under such a regime ? 
 Where are their arts, literature, and science ? Have they 
 for three centuries contributed aught towards human pro- 
 gress ? Verily, man has something else to do here than 
 fighting under sacerdotal leaders for church systems and 
 formulas. 
 
 The souls of nations wither in philosophical and reli- 
 gious dogmas and abstractions. The visions of Indian 
 and other Fakirs have entailed mental and material des- 
 titution and imbecility on a large part of the earth. But 
 a change has to come, and will come, over men's mindg
 
 176 AGRICULTURAL LABOR. 
 
 respecting the relationship of matter to the intellect and 
 morals. Every day is adding force to the doctrine that 
 the emancipation of the soul is inseparably connected 
 with progress in the arts, and that it never has and never 
 can outrun them. 
 
 But arrogance is not confined to one class. There are 
 other classes those who also imagine themselves the 
 earth's caryatides who think it is their heads and hands 
 that keep the heavens from falling. Of these are many 
 who despise manual labor, and hold themselves superior 
 to those that practise it. With them society should al- 
 ways retain its past resemblance to a living pyramid 
 one class standing on the shoulders of another, each 
 lighter and less numerous, up to one or two posture- 
 makers at the top, the largest class at the base being 
 the least regarded, although the entire superstructure 
 rests on them, and its stability too. 
 
 But in spite of the general discredit, not to say odium, 
 attached to manipulating labor, necessity led to an excep- 
 tion in favor of agriculture. A powerful element bearing 
 on their interests, old statesmen wisely magnified it, and 
 thus it has continued to be a staple theme for orators and 
 poets to descant on. Great men applaud it, and it is 
 honorable ; while other departments of industry, imply- 
 ing, to say the least, equal knowledge and skill, not hav- 
 ing been thus patronized, are still associated with ideas 
 of something low and vulgar. But for this it had always 
 been deemed as respectable to invent a plough as to use 
 it, to construct a carriage as to ride in one. There is per- 
 haps nothing more strongly indicative of the present 
 being an early stage of man's career, than the prevalence
 
 FATAL ERROR OF ANCIENT NATIONS. 177 
 
 of the barbarous sentiment that associates meanness with 
 labor, that holds it inconsistent with dignity, and even 
 respectability. Hence the doctrine that man was cre- 
 ated a manufacturer scandalizes those " respectable fami- 
 lies " who pride themselves on being something better, 
 and distresses small-minded individuals, who, accidentally 
 elevated to high places, twinge at the remembrance of 
 having once labored for a living with their hands. 
 
 Ashamed to work in matter ! Why, if we may specu- 
 late on the future, it may well be that few things will 
 afford greater surprise to other orders of intelligences, 
 than that we, minikin occupants of a globule, compared 
 to some orbs, should, in our transcendent pride and im- 
 pertinence, have deemed manipulating in it disreputable ! 
 ind some rejoicing in the hope of death releasing them 
 rom further contact with it from that which is every- 
 where showing forth the glory of God, and everywhere 
 obeying him ! To such minds it would be blasphemous 
 to describe the material universe as a host of locomotive 
 carriages, of which suns are furnaces and engines, and 
 planets passenger-cars and tenders. 
 
 The sentiment may now be passed over as a harmless 
 error; but it is in fact one which has been the great 
 bane of human progress in all ages. The old Greeks 
 and Romans have not been surpassed, if equalled, in 
 poetry, painting, sculpture, and other " fine" arts ; had 
 they cultivated with equal ardor the useful arts, they 
 might have realized steamers, railroads, gas-lights, and 
 all the great modern agents of civilization, and continued 
 down to our times with increasing power and glory. But 
 they committed the fatal error of older people, of classing 
 
 3*
 
 178 MAN NOT DESIGNED TO BE A DRUDGE. 
 
 mechanical professions under the general designation of 
 " servile" and consigning them to slaves thus adopting 
 the most infallible means to arrest improvement, and in- 
 sure their own national decadence and death. That the 
 prosperity and duration of nations depend on the in- 
 creasing applications of science to the arts, is the lesson, 
 which, above all others, history teaches ; and strange to 
 say, most nations have yet to learn it. There is not one, 
 and there cannot be one, more vital to humanity ; nor is 
 there one, the neglect of which has been so uniformly 
 and so fearfully punished. 
 
 Prevailing ideas of labor are necessarily crude, because 
 it is viewed only in its earliest and hence in its coarsest 
 aspects. We live at too early a period of its development 
 to witness, or perhaps to appreciate, its highest phases of 
 refinement and results. When it becomes everywhere 
 combined with a knowledge of the principles it is designed 
 to invoke and apply, it will be prosecuted with pleasure 
 and impart a healthful vigor to both body and mind. 
 As man progresses the lowering clouds now hanging over 
 it will, one by one, break away, and let in light and radi- 
 ance. A chief means by which this will be brought 
 about is already observable in the effect produced by 
 inorganic motors. To the energy in these there are no 
 assignable limits : they are incontestable proofs that 
 man is not designed for a drudge, for as they are increased 
 he exercises his mental powers more, and those of his 
 muscles less, while the amount of work and its products 
 are indefinitely augmented.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DIVINE CHARACTER DISPLAYED IN NATURAL 
 MECHANISM. 
 
 LEADING traits of character are discernible in the labors 
 of animals. We discover what may be called the turn of 
 thought of the beaver in the construction of his dam, of 
 the bee in its cell, of the spider in its web, and the bent 
 of human genius in human arts. So it is with the works 
 of the Creator. It has pleased him to display his attri- 
 butes in material mechanism ; to fill the heavens with it, 
 and to furnish us with specimens in this earth. We find 
 everything in it and on it made up of the same elements 
 that carpenters, smiths, and other artificers work in, and 
 its motions and forces literal as those of a water-wheel or 
 steam-engine. It is, moreover, prepared as a special thea- 
 tre for artificial mechanisms, on the development of which 
 the welfare of our species is made to depend. His charac- 
 ter as a mechanician is therefore pre-eminently in accord 
 with his works, and in his making it the first and last 
 duty of man to excel as one i. e. to imitate him. 
 "Architect" and "Architecture of the Heavens " are terms 
 mostly used because more in unisoii with current ideas of 
 respectability ; but they are improper, since the impression 
 they convey is not a correct one. With the works of 
 architects, as a house, a bridge, &c., we necessarily asso- 
 ciate ideas of fixedness and immobility, while motion and
 
 180 INFLUENCE OF THE ARTS ON MIND AND MORALS. 
 
 change of place are essential characteristics of the universe. 
 It is a display of forces and motions there is nothing in 
 it at rest. 
 
 The idea that there is neither as much nor as high an 
 order of thought expended in the operative arts as in law, 
 medicine, divinity, and other " professions," and that its 
 effects on the intellectual and moral world are less and less 
 beneficial, is erroneous in every particular. Examine it 
 thoroughly, and the converse of the proposition will be 
 found unmistakably true. Glance over both land and 
 water, and behold what manipulators have done, and for 
 a summary of present results visit the " Exhibition of the 
 Industry of all Nations," and observe there how physical 
 become moral blessings ; how the understanding and the 
 heart improve with the cultivation of matter ; what 
 health-giving, soul-elevating, and heaven-inspiring proper- 
 ties it has, and then say, as some do, " where the hands 
 work the brain is dormant." 
 
 The " fine arts " were worshipped of old, and modern 
 amateurs are at a loss for language to express the depth 
 of their devotion to what they call the product of the 
 imagination and taste, in contradistinction to the " indus- 
 trial arts," which are said to depend more on the hand 
 than the head. The sentiment belongs to an incipient 
 rather than to an advanced stage in human education, for 
 as science progresses the artificer originates and embodies 
 more thrilling and sublime conceptions than were evfcr 
 portrayed by the crayon. Then some of these, at least, 
 are to be absorbed by the mechanic arts. Embroidery, 
 the employment of ladies of taste from the time of Pene- 
 lope of Ithaca to ours, is now done by machinery. The
 
 THE POWER OF THOUGHT THE TRUE PRIME MOVER. 181 
 
 painter's brush and engraver's burin are being superseded 
 by chemical manipulations. Books will soon be illustrated, 
 as portfolios are being enriched, with photographic pic- 
 tures, which, for correctness and fulness of outline, .depth 
 and delicacy of shading, minuteness of finish, and effect, 
 no artist can begin to rival. The great problem of En- 
 graving by the agency of light is also solved, so that the 
 graver, like the needle, will become in a great degree 
 a thing of the past. 
 
 But does not this exaltation of matter tend to resolve 
 life and consciousness into it ? No. There may be mind 
 without matter, but there can be no matter without mind, 
 neither form, color, quality, nor quantity. We view na- 
 tural productions as the immediate result of influences in 
 active operation in nature, and the achievements of man 
 in the arts as the effect of forces upon inert substances ; 
 but these forces, whether organic or inorganic, are value- 
 less as motors unless subject to another kind of power 
 THE POWER OF THOUGHT. This, in truth, is the only 
 Prime Mover. From it all creations, hilman'and divine, 
 proceed, and hence the material everywhere refers to the 
 immaterial. It is thus we learn that not only knowledge 
 is power, but that there can be no power no physical 
 power without it ; that all material are resolvable into 
 mental forces ; that worlds were made for the cultivation 
 of intellect ; and that the streams of knowledge circulating 
 through them flow from the mind of Him whose hands 
 formed them all. A ship is not a stronger proof of the 
 existence and intelligence of man than is an animal or a 
 plant of those of God. 
 
 Matter is the day-book in which man's accounts are re-
 
 182 ALL KNOWLEDGE WRITTEN ON MATTER. 
 
 corded : all knowledge is directly or indirectly written on 
 it. There is in fact a mathematical relationship, or some- 
 thing like it, between elaborated matter and mind, so that 
 the amount of the latter can be deduced from the former ; 
 for every object of art is the repository or representative 
 of a certain amount of thought, and so is every crop a 
 planter reaps, and everything else on which mind has 
 been expended. The industry of an age or of a people 
 is as the vegetable and animal products they grow and 
 minerals they raise, while their position on the scale of 
 progress is marked by the elaboration they give to those 
 substances, and the uses they make of them. Had we 
 statistics of the Past to compare with those of the Pre- 
 sent, a constant relationship would be found to subsist 
 between the mass of matter manipulated in any given 
 period and the sum of contemporaneous knowledge. 
 
 Those who depreciate matter know not what they owe 
 it. They view it regardless of the mind, the infinity of 
 mind, that pervades it. They forget that it is the agent 
 of thought ; that every object in nature is a visible, ste- 
 reotyped truth, just as in the world of art a saw, a nail, 
 or a printing-press is another ; that man, like his Creator, 
 makes matter not only the recipient of thoughts, but sends 
 it forth a missionary to circulate them. Take away all 
 our ideas that emanate from and are allied to matter, and 
 how few would be left ! Our minds would be nearly 
 blanks. This is not a world for the cultivation of thought 
 in the abstract, i. e. of purely intellectual conceptions. 
 There are few such, and few minds to pursue them, while 
 those flowing from outward things are exhaustless in va- 
 riety, attraction, and value. Matter is the universal
 
 GREAT SERMONS IN TRADES. 133 
 
 teacher and preacher. It has broken no laws, it sanctions 
 no disputes, but silently exhibits its doctrines, which no 
 one can interpolate or cornipt, with illustrations infinitely 
 diversified from day to day. All its manifestations, from 
 a snowdrop to a world, exclaim, " The hand that made 
 us is Divine." 
 
 There are great sermons in occupations and trades 
 (but few are preached), based as they are on the physical 
 embodiments of Divine wisdom, and embracing all the 
 miracles of science and art. They show how the original 
 precept given to the head of our race, to bend the things 
 of nature to the purposes of improvement, strengthens, 
 when carried out, every social, moral, and religious senti- 
 ment. Why, then, not teach that there is a Divinity in 
 every particle of matter, in the commonest ; that laboring 
 in it, so far from being profane, is a sacred work ; that 
 those who draw active forces from it are not simply doing 
 the will of God, but are engaged in one of the noblest 
 tasks enjoined by him on our species. Why not enforce 
 more, the first and great commandment in the midst of 
 such prevailing heresies respecting it, and strive to anni- 
 hilate the spirit of lay sect, or caste, that has so long 
 marred the old gospel presuming that God, like some of 
 us, smiles more on some divisions of laborers than on 
 others, and most of all on men who labor not at all. 
 
 The popular absurdity that labor was imposed as a 
 punishment receives no sanction from the Scriptures not 
 a particle. The original and all-comprehending injunc- 
 tion, " replenish the earth and subdue it," was given before 
 " the fall." In it, the true relationship of man to the 
 earth, and the business of his life, are compressed in half-
 
 184 SUPPOSED VISIT OF TWO STRANGERS TO THE EARTH. 
 
 a-dozen words. On agrictilture and the arts his powers, 
 menial and physical, were to be concentrated. No inti- 
 mation of limits to his progress in them is conveyed. They 
 were the germs from which his prosperity was to arise, 
 and from their ever-growing developments the ripest fruits 
 were to be gathered. Nothing else is mentioned, because 
 all things else were to arise from and centre in them. 
 
 To work, in one way or another, for a living, is a ne- 
 cessity with all creatures, but then it is associated with 
 and made conducive to pleasure. To renew their ex- 
 hausted strength, food and rest are requisite ; and these 
 the Creator has, in his benevolence, made sources of en- 
 joyment. Then, relaxation is essential ; and who has not 
 observed how conspicuous is the enlivening of labor with 
 recreations and diversions ! Birds interrupt the toil of 
 building nests and collecting food with their carols ; and 
 all animated tribes have their seasons of buoyancy and 
 
 joy- 
 Were two strangers from another planet to take a 
 stand outside of our globe and contemplate, as it tiimed 
 on its axis before them, the operations kept up on its sur- 
 face by battalions of working men, the changes matter 
 undergoes in their hands, the employment it affords for 
 every variety of mental and physical organization, the 
 diversity of talents and tastes it elicits, the learning and 
 science it fosters ; the individual, social, national, and 
 mundane blessings it confers and leads to ; and were they 
 to observe how earnest and constant nature is in bringing 
 it into conditions suitable for those artists to take it up ; 
 could they resist the conviction that the earth is a divine- 
 ly appointed school for manipulating in matter, and that
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ARTS ON THE FUTURE LIFE. 185 
 
 man's highest destinies must depend on the expenditure 
 of deep thought and intelligent labor upon it? After 
 noting the divisions of labor current with us, and the con- 
 tributions of each of the great classes into which society 
 is divided, would they be led to award honor according 
 to the rules of court heralds ? 
 
 Suppose they came as delegates from a newly formed 
 orb, to make themselves acquainted with the progress we 
 had made and the manner of it, and to engage a class of 
 men to introduce our best things to their people, they 
 would of course be invited to step into the Crystal Pa- 
 lace, and there see how far we had succeeded in rivalling 
 nature in the diversity, elegance, utility, and beneficence 
 of our productions. Would they, after consulting toge- 
 ther, ask for a corps of statesmen to return with them, or of 
 warriors, lawyers, or poets ; or would they not ask for a 
 company of scientific artificers of men who not only study 
 principles, but fulfil the purpose of the Creator in ordain- 
 ing principles by applying them to the prime elements of 
 mental and material elevation ? 
 
 Whatever may be the nature and occupations of a 
 future existence, or the influence of the present life upon 
 it, the professional character of man here, as drawn from 
 his general employment, and the general result of that 
 employment, is, and must always be, that which has been 
 named. To work in matter, to put up his sleeves, handle 
 and elaborate it, to bring all the powers of his mind to 
 bear on it, is his earthly business ; and we may be very 
 sure that it cannot conflict with his future employments 
 nay, that it must be eminently conducive to them. To 
 be satisfied of this we need only look at the acquisitions
 
 186 NEW TEACHINGS ON MATTER. 
 
 he has made in it, and compare them with those of non- 
 working, non-inventing tribes, and observe their effects 
 on society that where they are, men are more kind, 
 charitable, forbearing, intelligent, and religious than where 
 they are not. And how can it be otherwise ! Should 
 not those who study and employ themselves on that which 
 God has adopted for the universal manifestation of Him- 
 self that on which he imprints his thoughts, and every- 
 where clothes his conceptions be wiser and better than 
 those who disdain it. Forming the first course of studies 
 and discipline of immortals, it may, for aught we know, be 
 the subject of all succeeding courses. There are doubt- 
 less mysteries in it which eternity will not suffice to re- 
 veal. Its properties are probably as numerous as the per- 
 mutation of its atoms. Were not everlasting good to be 
 derived from it, the universe had not been made of it, nor 
 the occupants of the universe been put apprentices to 
 work in it. Neither philosophy nor the scriptures affirm 
 that any intelligences exist who have not acquired their 
 knowledge through it. 
 
 When the value of the lessons laid up in matter begins 
 to be understood, and the supremacy of labor to be ac- 
 knowledged, there will no longer be a shrinking from 
 dilating upon them. Christian ministers and moralists 
 will dwell, and delightedly dwell, on the character of 
 THE MECHANICIAN which the Creator has chosen not 
 in one, but in all orbs to appear in. They will perceive 
 divine revelations in principles of science, and enforce 
 their applications in the arts as essential to spiritual ele- 
 vation. They will recognise in the " Mechanical Pow- 
 ers" a table of laws written by the finger of God, and
 
 NO DISCOVERER LIVES TO HIMSELF. 187 
 
 admit the inspiration of modern as of ancient engineers. 
 They will teach that God is as near to us, communes as 
 directly with us, in the doctrines of physics as in disputed 
 creeds, ceremonies, and forms of faith ; that in science 
 and art no discoverer lives to himself ; and that as every 
 one is to be rewarded according to his works, those who 
 have been useful in advancing the arts of industry and 
 peace will not he overlooked ; nay, that God will welcome 
 them, and hid those who passively or proudly floated on 
 the tides and currents of life to stand aside and make 
 way for them. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE UNIVERSE OF MATTER AND OF MECHANISM. 
 
 IT is marvellous that any created being should be 
 able to study its own organization, and reason on the 
 causes and modes of its existence ; that man, a piece of 
 animated matter, should pry into his own structure, and, 
 by dissecting the bodies of his fellows, find out the rea- 
 sons that determined the forms and proportions of his own 
 organs ; and that he should then turn from himself and in- 
 quire into the nature and attributes of the Author of his 
 being ! The wonder is not greater than if balls of clay 
 in the hands of a potter should ask " What doest thoul" 
 or if spinning-jennies and power-looms were to pause in 
 their movements to inquire why they were made. Man
 
 188 HUMAN ASPIRATIONS ILLIMITABLE. 
 
 is a tissue of marvels ; Ins little seething brain, as if a 
 part of the Godhead were located in it, spurns at boun- 
 daries to his thoughts. He neither confines them to the 
 world he occupies nor to the visible heavens, but urges 
 them through the invisible depths of space to learn, if 
 possible, what is doing there. Nor is this all : not con- 
 tent with employing them on things of the present, he 
 sends them into the future, and exercises them on the 
 past. He is told, that in the beginning God created the 
 heavens and the earth ; but he longs to know hoAv they 
 were produced by what principles and processes they 
 were developed and are sustained. 
 
 That this amazing faculty is given for the great pur- 
 poses of his education, it were a truism to assert ; more 
 than anything else it shows how illimitable are the soul's 
 aspirations. As for imaginings of what was before the 
 sidereal heavens appeared, they can hardly be carried 
 further than a supposed condition of things, which may 
 be illustrated by a discovery made some years ago of a 
 subterranean structure, of unknown origin and antiquity. 
 The proprietor entered with a light ; his voice reverbe- 
 rated along the arches, and the dark and silent chambers 
 were instantly charged with clouds of dancing atoms 
 awakened into motion by his presence. So, it has been 
 suggested, was the cold and boundless abyss first charged 
 by the voice of God with the dust of which stars are 
 made. 
 
 Wherever matter is, it proclaims the Builder of the 
 universe, and discloses more or less of his plans. But 
 why W8S it produced at all, since he requires for himself 
 no visible or tangible manifestations of his ideas, nor any
 
 FOR WHAT MATTER WAS CREATED. 189 
 
 such moans to record or peruse them 1 It arose then for 
 some other purpose, and what was thai ? Surely, that it 
 might be an arena for sensitive beings. From pure bene- 
 ficence creation came ; beneficence, whose essence is ex- 
 pansion ; which ceases to be when it ceases to dilate, 
 which cannot be confined in the breast even of the Deity. 
 Through it the universe is working out the divinest of 
 problems the diffusion of the largest amount and diver- 
 sity of enjoyment among the greatest variety of recipi- 
 ents. Hence, every form that matter here puts on, every 
 condition and change of condition in it, is made an occa- 
 sion to introduce fresh beings to disport themselves in 
 the varying media. In this view, how admirable is the 
 principle of limiting life, that legions enjoying it may be 
 multiplied till they equal or surpass the atoms of which 
 worlds are composed ! Every particle of matter is the 
 agent and symbol of enjoyment. 
 
 Is it any wonder, then, that space is swarming with 
 worlds ; and that vast as our field of view is, it takes up 
 no more room compared to the whole, than does an insect 
 in our atmosphere '? Suppose the universe had been alto- 
 gether inorganic, without a pulse beating in it, or an eye 
 to glance over it, would it not have been a fruitless dis- 
 play of Almighty power 1 But how different the reality ! 
 Instead of existing alone, wrapped up in his own felicity 
 and perfections, He has made matter the agent of eter- 
 nally diffusing both. 
 
 What the future destiny of the myriads of floating 
 worlds and their populations is to be, no one can tell, nor 
 why the Almighty adopted the existing plan of the uni- 
 verse. It is enough for us to know that he created mat-
 
 190 WHY ALL MATTER IS NOT GATHERED INTO ONE ORB. 
 
 ter, and everywhere appears as The Great Artificer in it ; 
 that he has ordained an essential intimacy between it and 
 finite intelligences ; commences their being with it ; makes 
 it the medium for the development, expansion, and em- 
 ployment of thought, by transfusing his wisdom through 
 it, and making it their duty to seek that wisdom out i. e. 
 to discover the laws impressed on it, and by acting in ac- 
 cordance with them, to evolve from it all sciences and 
 arts. 
 
 Is it asked why He has not gathered matter into a sin- 
 gle orb, and made it the ONE abode of physical beings, 
 instead of dividing it into innumerable and varying vo- 
 lumes, and so widely separating them as to exclude all 
 intercourse between their occupants 1 1. Perhaps, be- 
 cause all matter would then have subsisted under the 
 same conditions, while its developments would have 
 been confined to those conditions. Creation would have 
 been after one pattern. 2. Because only a very superfi- 
 cial portion of matter could have been brought under ob- 
 servation and control ; almost the whole would have been 
 locked up in subterranean depths, which no finite minds 
 could fathom, and out of which no finite powers could 
 withdraw it. Were physical intelligences not created to 
 be elaborators of matter, the plan might have been 
 adopted ; but if they were everywhere to grow up with it, 
 if their duties and destinies were inseparably associated 
 with it, then it was necessary that it should be made ac- 
 cessible ; and how beautifully this is accomplished by 
 breaking it up into large and small bodies, arranging them 
 in groups, launching them into the utmost boundaries of 
 space, lighting up the whole, and thronging all with ope-
 
 NO ADVANTAGE FROM VISITING OTHER WORLDS. 191 
 
 ratives adapted to the work to be done on each ! By this 
 plan the conditions under which the material of the uni- 
 verse subsists, are infinitely more diversified than if col- 
 lected in one orb, and consequently its developments 
 also. 
 
 How wise, then, and how good in thus spreading abroad 
 this most miraculous, and eternally incomprehensible 
 agent of Himself in portions suitable for finite intelli- 
 gences to explore ! And then is it not well that the occu- 
 pants are confined to their respective locations ? Were 
 they at liberty to pass from one orb to another their 
 physical organization would be unequal to the change, 
 while, from the widely different conditions under which 
 matter exists, what they found new abroad would be 
 inapplicable at home. Though an interchange of ideas 
 with operatives of other planets would be of surpassing 
 interest, it could lead to no very marked advance of the 
 arts in any of them, for the reason just named. As with 
 our cosmical neighbors so with us there can be no materi- 
 als more desirable than those we have ; while for attain- 
 ing the knowledge of turning them to account there can 
 be no better place than the one to which they are indige- 
 nous. 
 
 No sufficient reason can be given why this portion of 
 the heavens which we occupy should not rival others in 
 the intelligence of its denizens, because the source of that 
 intelligence, the wisdom of the Great Teacher, though 
 differently manifested according to the constitution of 
 each world, is as perfectly displayed here as elsewhere. 
 
 The notion that the numerous small orbs between 
 Mars and Jupiter are fragments of a large one, which by
 
 192 PLANETOIDS NOT FRAGMENTS OF A RUPTURED PLANET 
 
 some catastrophe became exploded, is repugnant to the 
 laws of harmony and conservatism that pervade the 
 heavens. The planetoids are said to break the symmetry 
 of the system which requires them to be gathered into 
 one body a mere conjecture. If one of the purposes of 
 the Creator in the production of worlds be to furnish 
 matter for intelligences to act on, that purpose may 
 require it to vary in its volumes to a greater extent than 
 is yet observable, every orb in that respect being adapt- 
 ed to the capacities and wants of those located on it ; in 
 other words, the dimensions of each homestead are deter- 
 mined by the size of the family and the character of its 
 members. The materials of the small planets referred to, 
 assuredly serve as wise a purpose as if they had been 
 rolled into one. 
 
 We associate magnificence with magnitude and mean- 
 ness with minuteness, but God does not. With him 
 nothing is little or large. Dimension ! what is it ! an 
 adjunct. Our home is quite a small one compared with 
 many ; had it been less, we might have been less pugna- 
 cious and not have dishonored it with wars of races and 
 nations. There is no occasion for us to volunteer pity 
 for people on worlds smaller than our own ; the happiness 
 of land proprietors does not swell with the expansion of 
 their estates. Knowledge and its best fruits depend not 
 on extent of territory here, nor have we any reason to 
 suppose they do anywhere. There may be Pitcairn- 
 Islanders in the heavens, perfectly happy in their little 
 domicils, who could not be benefited by living on wider 
 spheres ; with them knowledge may be further advanced 
 and more condensed than with us. Let the idea be re-
 
 DIVERSE FORMS OF WORLDS. 193 
 
 ceived that the volume of matter in each orb is adapted 
 for those that dwell on it, and there will be no more diffi- 
 culty in accounting for small than for large ones. 
 
 But in the grand panorama might not diversity in 
 the form of worlds be expected, as well as in their dimen- 
 sions ? The human mind could never of itself have sug- 
 gested any suitable figure, and now that science has 
 shown our heavens to be radiant with spheres, the imagi- 
 nation is at a loss to conceive any other outline possible ; 
 but as infinite wisdom is infinitely varied, it cannot be 
 confined to one form, even of worlds. We can readily 
 imagine conditions which a globe could not meet : spheres 
 contain the most matter within the least extent of sur- 
 face ; but suppose the largest surface with the least material 
 were required how realize that 1 Why, by flattening 
 orbs into plates : their surfaces would then be immensely 
 extended, and multiplied room be afforded for occupants. 
 
 The wonderful problem is solved in the rings of Sa- 
 turn. In them matter is spread into flat, wide, and thin 
 sheets, presenting an area for living beings nearly as ex- 
 tensive as that of all the rest of the planets. One of the 
 magnificent plateaus exceeds twenty-one, and the other 
 thirty-four thousand miles in width, with an average dia- 
 meter of over one hundred and sixty thousand miles : 
 their estimated thickness being only one hundred miles ! 
 What a proof of the resources of mechanical science, as 
 displayed in the heavens, is this ! And we may be very 
 sure that those resources in the modelling of worlds are 
 not exhausted here. The interval between a sphere and 
 a plate may be filled up with every degree of variation. 
 Most of oxir neighboring worlds are oblate spheroids, and
 
 194 RINGS OF SATI'KX. 
 
 why not other forms, starting in other directions from the 
 spherical ? Unique in our system as discs are, they .may 
 be supposed to prevail elsewhere, on account of the eco- 
 nomy of material and the dense populations they can ac- 
 commodate. Travelling over both sides and the edges, 
 the inhabitants find materials for their chemical, mechani- 
 cal, and decorative arts, with little trouble. 
 
 As in such worlds subterranean and mountain mining 
 would be nearly or wholly superseded, there could be 
 no need, as in fact there could be no development, of a 
 central upheaving power, so indispensable in spheres. 
 The rings of Saturn present the fairest of conceivable 
 fields of locomotive engineering. Had ancient poets 
 heard of them, they would have made them race-courses 
 for the gods. If the smaller one were cut through and 
 opened out, to serve as a plank -bridge to the moon, it 
 would reach as far beyond her as she is from us. As the 
 outer planets are thought to be the oldest, practical 
 science may possibly be further advanced on them than 
 with us. The form of the asteroids has not been deter- 
 mined. 
 
 Wherever the idea of worlds being created for factories 
 and their inhabitants for artificers is distasteful, it must 
 be so for want of reflection nothing else. We all too 
 much confine ourselves, like tethered animals, to small 
 circles of thought. We seldom raise our eyes above the 
 ground, and when we do, we are apt to overlook the fact, 
 that the heavens in their details, and as a whole, are 
 purely mechanical ; that celestial are the same as terres- 
 trial mechanics ; that our orb is as purely celestial as any 
 other ; that all are working parts of one literal, veritable,
 
 MALLEALLU IUO.N I,\ THE HEAVENS. 195 
 
 material machine ; that all are of the same original sub- 
 stance, and all moved by one and the same force. 
 
 That other orbs are like ours in the physical employ- 
 ments of their occupants, who can doubt ? So far as 
 science has progressed, the same elements of light and 
 heat, and the cardinal law of gravitation, are found to 
 pervade all those in our vicinity and those most distant. 
 Then we are pretty sure that some at least of the chief 
 agents of the arts with us are not confined to us, since, as 
 every one knows, cosmical masses of iron are repeatedly 
 caught on the earth's surface, as she whirls onwards 
 through space. 
 
 It is conceded that the composition of aerolites proves 
 them foreign bodies, though their common ingredients 
 silex, sulphur, magnesia, and the two magnetic metals, 
 nickel and iron are known to us. That iron is em- 
 ployed in the heavens, meteoritic messengers all but tell 
 us, and they tell us something more. The metal is not 
 found here in a pure state, but has to be laboriously 
 smelted out of stone bearing little resemblance to it ; 
 hence the fact of its appearing in its malleable state, is a 
 significant one, indicating, if it indicates anything, that 
 the precious material exists in its purity in other orbs, 
 though not in this ; and leading us to infer that the peo- 
 ple there have probably not the means of reducing it 
 from ores. Had the means been wanting here, it had 
 been a native metal also here. Let us not do injustice in 
 our thoughts to the Creator, by supposing these speci- 
 mens come from uninhabited establishments, or that it is 
 stored up where none are benefited by it. lie wastes 
 no material makes not an atom of matter in vain.
 
 196 AEROLITES GOD EVER ACTING ON MATTER. 
 
 Moreover, of metals native in the heavens, iron and 
 nickel are not the only ones. Aerolites furnish traces of 
 copper, cobalt, manganese, and even of tin. Is it then 
 presumptuous to conclude that these substances are ele- 
 ments in the arts of w,orlds they come from ? What 
 other conclusions can be arrived at ? To what other con- 
 ceivable purpose can metals be put in worlds in which 
 they are ? Of the functions assigned to meteoric couriers 
 one surely is to inform those upon whose territories they 
 alight, that a community of staple occupations unites 
 them to the occupants of other planets, if not of other 
 systems ; and to prove this, they bring specimens of sta- 
 ple materials with them. In the samples left with us, 
 iron vastly abounds ; an intimation that it plays as im- 
 portant parts in other orbs as it plays on this. Strange, 
 that information of such intense interest, and so wonder- 
 fully brought home to us, is not more dwelt on. But 
 many are afraid, and others ashamed, to accept a theory 
 which makes it the business of people in the stars to 
 multiply their comforts and conveniences somewhat as 
 we do i. e. to work in the same materials in which God 
 works. 
 
 But if finite beings are through eternity to be engaged 
 in making fresh discoveries, and finding fresh sources of 
 enjoyment in matter, are we to suppose the Creator has 
 ceased from His works ; that his wisdom in it and power 
 over it are exhausted ? No, indeed. On the contrary, 
 we may safely conclude that he is, and for ever will be, 
 as much occupied with it as he has been. Gathering it 
 where dispersed into new worlds, new forms of worlds ; 
 placing it under new conditions, imparting to it new pro-
 
 TWO LESSONS DERIVED FROM THE SUBJECT. 197 
 
 perties, and evolving new products from it ; stocking it 
 with new faunas and floras, and peopling it with new 
 orders of intelligences. Thus will God pour out his 
 thoughts, and imprint them in that glorious Book of Re 
 velation the repository of all his conceptions which is 
 open to sentient beings everywhere, and hy which they 
 everywhere become acquainted with him. How else, in- 
 deed, can he he so well known as the Author of all 
 things, but in his works, which the more they are studied 
 the more utterance fails, and must for ever fail, to say 
 how great and good they are ! 
 
 To conclude : Two lessons one addressed to nations, 
 the other to classes and individuals, may be learned from 
 the preceding pages. First, that the stone of offence 
 against which ancient nations stumbled and fell, was the 
 rock upon which their prosperity and perpetuity should 
 have been based. (See Chap. I. Section III.) The 
 second is a corollary of the first ; but enough has been 
 advanced to induce artificers to hold their professions in- 
 ferior to none, and to urge them to excel in them, remem- 
 bering that in no character does the Creator so promi- 
 nently, constantly, and universally appear as in that of 
 THE MECHANICIAN. And if hereafter the parable of the 
 talents is to be literally fulfilled, enlightened elaborators 
 will be counted among the most profitable of servants, 
 because of their activity in discovering and applying for 
 the good of their kind, the great productive agencies lo- 
 cated in the orbs on which they dwelt. 
 
 THE END.

 
 31 
 
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