Reader, enter some store-yard,--on one side you see a beap of coals, near is a brook, and in a corner lies a quantity of iron; hast thou skill to shape that iron, use that water, and so arrange those coals, that from them a power shall arise able to carry thee and all thy townspeople round the globe in five weeks? You are not much startled at the question; you have not, it may be, such mechanical knowledge, but feel quite assured that it is in the world,-that some whom you could name possess the power. Let us then trace the road by which this discovery has been gained.

For fifteen hundred years after the commencement of our era, men saw not the energies hidden in steam, and a whole academy of philosophers might have walked into the store-yard, and gazed upon the coal, iron, and water, without a thought of the steam-engine. During this long interval, however, a glance was taken by one man at steam as a moving power; it was but a recognition, for the force was not yet pressed into man's service.

The philosopher who first detected the applicability of steam to promote machine movement was an Egyptian mathematician and mechanist (engineer we should call him), Hero of Alexandria, about two hundred years before Christ, who, in one of his treatises entitled "Pneumatic Machines," describes a circular motion given to a wheel by steam rushing through the spokes. This, though but a sort of mechanical toy, might have led others, even Hero himself, to dwell on the powers of steam, but his treatise remained unnoticed, and his experiment pointed in vain toward the road of further discovery. The schoolmen debated, the crusaders shook Europe and Asia, artillery filled statesmen and archers with forebodings, and a new world had been found beyond the Atlantic; yet, amidst all this work of busy nations, steam power remained a hidden thing. At length, a singular revelation is made in 1543, and exhibited before thousands, but finds the world unprepared, and retires to its hiding place. In that year the inhabitants of Barcelona were startled by the announcement that a Spanish captain, named Blasco de Garay, had offered to navigate a ship without sails or oars, and that the government had deemed the plan worthy of a trial in the harbour of the city. The day arrived, one in the bright month of June, well fitted to enable the Catalonians to see the new wonder cut the waters. Commissioners were appointed to watch the experiment, and report the results to the authorities. A vessel of two hundred tons burden, called the Trinity, was actually moved by steam, acting upon wheels, before the astonished city. Now the reader might expect that the management of steam power then began to excite the attention of men, especially of all who were aiming at the development of human resources. A strange disappointment is felt when we see the Spanish government rewarding Garay, and hear the majority of the commissioners report in favour of his invention, whilst no further results follow. What was the cause of this? Prejudice against the novelty, and ignorance of the machine, for de Garay kept his plan a secret,-may have prevented success. All that was known was that he used a boiler, and that wheels were turned by its agency. Is it possible, some one may ask, that a Spanish captain should invent the steam-engine, and unaided advance it to such perfection that a ship was moved through the waters by its action; and that such a discovery should be neglected by so ambitious a power as Spain? These things are stated as facts, and must be received as true, however extraordinary. machinery may have been clumsy, the working bad, and the power small, but that Blasco de Garay navigated a vessel by steam in 1543, cannot be reasonably denied. The experiment had little or no influence on the subsequent history of the steam-engine, and must be regarded as one of those bold movements which fail from unsuitableness to the age or the nations in which made. The attention of Europe had, however, been aroused;

The

men began to feel that steam contained within it some element of mighty force, and thus the hitherto neglected power attracted the watching eyes of philosophers. During the next hundred years some notices appear indicating this altered feeling.

An engineer of Louis XIII. who became clerk of the works to the Prince of Wales in the time of James I. paid some attention to the subject; and an Italian mechanist, named Giovanni Bianca, proposed to turn mills by steam. Thus, at the beginning of the seventeenth century men seemed watching for the birth of the new power. Amid the fury of theological strife, and the rancour of political warfare, whilst England was distracted by civil commotions, and battles raged by sea and land; the element destined to unite distant nations, and form the world into one great household, was slowly rising from its concealment of many ages. We now approach the period when the notion of steam power assumed a clear and distinct form, and took its place among the reasonable speculations and experiments of thoughtful men.

Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, had engaged with ardour on the side of the unfortunate Charles I. and found himself at last in the Tower of London, his friends dead or exiled, his property in other hands, and the cause for which he had fought and suffered trampled to the dust.

What now occupied the thoughts of the Royalist noble? Some have enlivened the solitude of a dungeon by watching the habits of a spider, or observing the growth of a flower in their prison window; he turned his active mind to the unexplored realms of science, and gazed inquiringly along those paths at the entrance of which Bacon had raised the clear sign-posts, with the finger of true philosophy pointing the stranger in the direction which the world had so often groped for, and so often missed. To this imprisoned nobleman is ascribed the first well-digested idea of the steamengine. How did the thought reach him? By what is commonly called an accident, or more properly by the happy observation of a simple and most common occurrence, and by just reasoning upon the fact noticed. We must imagine the marquis seated in his small prison-room; on the fire is a pot, in which his dinner is preparing, his thoughts are not upon the meal, but flitting to and fro, across the numerous battle-fields, where the Stuart banner had drooped, or picturing the solemn and mournful circumstances of that 30th of January, 1649, when a king died by the headsman's hand. These reflections have, however, too often before occupied his mind, which is, therefore, easily drawn from such gloomy reminiscences to the events close at hand. What is that upon which Edward Somerset, gazes so fixedly? That fire is not the alchemist's furnace, nor that pot a Rosicrucian crucible, and yet his eyes refuse to move therefrom. Nought is visible, save the hissing steam rushing from the pot, and the sharp risings and fallings of the lid, forced up by the expanded vapour. He has heard of men who regarded steam as capable of becoming a strong and untiring servant of mankind, and now sees those feeble heavings of its infantine energies with some strange fluttering anticipations. New thoughts crowd upon him, from which he, closely interrogating, sees other, and still more startling, ideas rise. The quietude of a prison enabled him calmly to follow out and test his opinions, which were published after the Restoration, in a book entitled "The Scantling of One Hundred Inventions." Those who can obtain access to the work may read in the sixty-eighth invention the theory of the Marquis of Worcester, and discern the point in the line of discovery to which he reached. The production of steam in one vessel or boiler, and its passage to another, in which its force should act upon the machinery, were included in his theory, and this is still the principle of action in our modern engines. Thus the Marquis of Worcester first marked out the plan of this mighty machine.

A great step was now made in the discovery; the notion of the boiler in which the steam was raised from the water by heat, and the cylinder in which the expansive vapour is kept ready for action, were now exhibited to the active speculations of men. Let us mark the second great stage in the progress. This is also due to an Englishman, Sir Samuel Morland, who was master of the works to Charles II. and of such fame as an engineer, that Louis XIV. sought his assistance in some of the great works which distinguished his reign. When the powers treasured in steam became known, by the experiments of the author of "The Hundred Inventions," Morland began to examine the capabilities of heated water to produce a certain amount of steam. This was walking in the right path, avoiding all useless speculations and blind experiments for the road of patient investigation. To ascertain the volume of steam produced from a given quantity of water, was of the highest importance to the successful working of the new power. To use so dangerous a force without being able to calculate its effects, would have only resulted in disappointments, which might have led men to abandon the discovery already made, and thus have retarded the progress of the great machine. To prevent the new auxiliary from becoming the master instead of the servant of men, it was necessary to calculate its powers, observe its workings, and note, with a nice discrimination, its various developments. In this work Morland succeeded so well, that his results differ but little from those derived from the experience of our times. He drew up tables, exhibiting the expansions of certain volumes of water into steam, and thus supplied future engineers with a guide for their operations.

Two points were now gained, a knowledge of the manner in which the steam should be collected for its appropriate action, and of its probable force when obtained. The boiler, the cylinder, the steam, were now prepared; who made the next advance, and what was its character? Denis Papin, a Frenchman, was driven from his native country by the .cruelty and folly of Louis XIV. who, by revoking the edict of Nantes, compelled vast numbers of his Protestant subjects to leave France, and carry their ingenuity and industry to England. Papin became an intimate friend of Boyle, the scientific chemist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Some gourmands only know him as the inventor of a machine for extracting soup from bones, which apparatus is called "Papin's Digester," wherein, by the heat of steam, the largest bones are made to yield nutritious matter. Papin's studies, however, conducted him to objects of far greater importance than the preparation of soups, or the development of culinary arts. The reader is supposed to know, that, in order to communicate motion to a machine by steam, a bar, called a piston, must be moved to and fro by the force of the vapour. It is easily seen that a jet of steam rushing against one end of the piston will move it forwards; but how can it be brought back again? Only by the withdrawal of the steam, or by its reduction to water, in which case the piston will again be forced down by the mere weight of the atmosphere, acting with a pressure of 15lbs. on each square inch of surface. But how reduce the steam to the water whence it rose? By letting water flow upon the expanded vapour, which will then be instantly condensed to hot water, and permit the piston to fall through the vacuum thus produced. By such a succession of steam-jets pushing forwards the lever, and the condensation allowing of its return, is the whole movement of the steam-engine effected. The easy and ready production of the vacuum under the piston may be ascribed to Papin, who thus presented the steam-engine to the world, ready for all work, either upon the surface, or beneath the earth in deep mines. But much was yet required ere the power of the machine could be usefully developed; it might at that stage be likened to a strong-bodied, but rude and

awkward man, summoned to act as a soldier. The drill-sergeant looks at the raw recruit, and sees with pleasure the store of rough power lying in those bones and muscles, but also thinks of the drilling necessary to reduce that clumsy form to soldier-like activity and facility of movement.

The steam-engine was now fairly in the world, but as yet rude and cumbrous in its workings. But Science has taken it under her charge, and issues her commands to various teachers, who shall bring it to a beautiful precision and hair-breadth accuracy in its gigantic movements.

Captain Savery now begins his experiments, and, by various devices, advances the steam-engine to greater efficiency; he invents gauge-pipes, to indicate both the consumption of water and the production of steam, by which the chances of accidents are lessened, and further control obtained over the grant which men had set to work. Additional command was acquired by the introduction of the safety-valve to Savery's engine by Dr. Desaguliers, a clergyman, and lecturer on science in London; until this improvement was introduced, the engineworker felt in constant dread of sudden explosions. The draining of deep mines was the great object to which these steam-engines were devoted; but they were unable to raise water more than ninety feet, a second or a third engine being used in the case of greater depths. Thus, if it were required to raise water from the depth of 270 feet, the first engine raised the water to a reservoir ninety feet from the bottom; from this reservoir the second engine raised it ninety feet more; making in all 180 feet; when the third engine began its operation, and raised the water to the surface. A vast expenditure of force was therefore necessary in these machines, and an immense outlay of fuel became requisite, all of which were serious drawbacks to the efficiency of the engines.

Thus, much was yet required to bring the steam-engine to its present high point as a moving force. Some improvements were effected by Newcomen, an ironfounder of Dartmouth, who took out a patent, and introduced his engines into extensive use; but these details need not detain us from the great inventions of the far-famed James Watt, who may be called the creator of the modern steam-engine, so numerous were his inventions, and so beneficial their results. To give an outline of his life is not our present object, but rather to describe the steps by which he perfected the machine, and reduced its once irregular and dangerous movements to a beautiful precision and security.

Watt's attention was first called to the defects of the existing engines by the examination of one made by Newcomen, and he soon perceived the rich harvest of fame and profit in store for the man who should develop the full powers of the steam-engine. He saw the mode in which this might be effected, and beheld the path leading to the temple of glory; but his instruments were too feeble to carry out his vast designs, and for a period many a bright idea was secluded in his thoughtful, scientific mind. At length, Boulton of Birmingham became the partner of Watt, placing a part of his foundry at the disposal of his friend, upon which the progress of Watt began.

The production of improved machinery was absolutely requisite to produce that smoothness of motion essential to the easy working of gigantic beams, rods, and pistons, which should combine the easiest motion with the utmost tightness in the cylinder, in order to confine the highly expanded steam. Mechanists could not be found to execute such delicate works: workmen were therefore to be trained ere Watt could exhibit his clear conceptions in operation. Many pages would scarcely suffice to describe fully the severe and simple logic, the subtle contrivances, and brilliant theorizing, by which he developed many of his improvements; we must content ourselves, therefore, with a statement of results only. Many of these consist of former disco

Whether this power of modern times shall continue its progress, or be laid aside for some combination of mightier forces, we know not; but, whilst we revere the divines, moralists, and poets, who have formed our earliest thoughts, let us also honour those who have disclosed a means of uniting remotest nations in one bond of fellowship, and carrying civilization to distant lands. The discoverers in physical science must not be deemed mere caterers for our bodily pleasures, but men commissioned to aid in extending the noblest interests of mankind.

overcome.

One of the most beautiful conceptions of Watt is shown in the arrangement called the "parallel motion," the object of which was to secure the steady and upright working of the piston; for in such rapid movements the slightest twisting of the works would soon shatter the machine. The production of such a direct motion may appear a simple matter, but it required all the mechanical skill of Watt's well-trained intellect to solve the delicate problem. The reader must remember, that a rod, suspended perpendicularly to one end of a moving beam, will not rise and fall in a straight line, but in a peculiar curve. This divergency of motion must shake and loosen the works, so as to destroy their airtight character. The problem proposed was to find a point, in the rod which, notwithstanding its oscillatory movements, should always remain in the same straight line; could this be discovered, the whole of the action might be kept free from undue vibrations. Such a point was found, and Watt enabled to apply all those improvements which depended upon the movement just Another step now made gave additional security to the steam-engine, and illustrated the skill of Watt in overcoming difficulties. A valve, called the "throttle," regulated the supply of steam from the boiler; but the care required for its management was more than could be obtained from any save the most attentive workmen. Watt resolved, therefore, to make his engine its own regulator; and, after a train of hard thinking, invented the machine called "the governor." The principle was, to secure some means of making the increased velocity of the engine the means of checking the in-rush of the steam, and so reducing the undue rapidity of motion; whilst a too slow movement increased the supply of vapour and accelerated the action. Thus the most perfect regularity was secured by methods which excite the admiration of all who are able to appreciate the

described.

beauties of scientific mechanism.

These instances are sufficient to indicate the nature of the numerous improvements introduced by Watt, whose efforts excited the emulation of a host of followers, who have carried the powers of the steam-engine to a degree beyond the most sanguine expectations of Watt; so that whilst he could only promise a force sufficient to raise 500,000lbs., others have furnished engines capable of lifting 125,000,000 lbs.; thus giving an increase of power in the proportion of 250 to 1. To these subsequent steps Watt, however, pointed the way; and since his time every part of the engine has been made a study, and various improvements in boilers, pistons, valves, wheels, furnaces, and smoke-tubes, have rewarded the perseverance of the engineer. Every day fresh discoveries may be expected to arise, by which a more excellent construction and simpler working shall be obtained. Since the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway, fresh facts have been accumulating for the guidance of our land-steamers, and from the time when Fulton cut the waters of the Hudson, divers ex

SPRATT AND FORBES'S LYCIA.

(SECOND NOTICE.)

THE second volume of this work will prove more attractive to the generality of readers than its predecessor, inasmuch as it contains less antiquarian detail, and is valuable to those who are seeking to improve their knowledge of the natural history, botany, and geology, &c. of Lycia. It opens with the account of the embarkation of the party for Rhodes; and details the views and melancholy end of Mr. Daniell. It is gratifying to find, from the last written documents of this gentleman, that much that he saw in his last journey corroborated the accounts given us by Captain Beaufort, one of the earliest explorers of those regions. The doubtful point in philology is mooted, as to whether the rock tombs are the construction of the normal Lycians or the Persians; in philology, so tombs that we are enabled to come to any conto speak, as it is by the, inscriptions on these clusion. It seems, judging from the evidence here adduced, in addition to the previous observations and opinions of Mr. Sharpe, who has given great attention to the subject, that these monuments were the work of the Persians, and erected by them soon after their settlement in the country. The leech merchants collect their prey in a curious fashion.

"In the fountains on the yailahs, where we found the little Paludina, a Planaria abounds, identical with our common British Planaria fusca; and, in the marshes and lakes, such as Caralitis, the medicinal leech is plentiful. It is equally abundant in the marshes of the low country. In those near Xanthus, the leeches are gathered all the year round; but in the highlands, only in summer. To collect them, people go into the water, wading about stick to their skin. They then scrape them off, and with their legs and thighs bare, so that the leeches may put them into a bag. The leech-merchants carry them away in linen bags, which they soak in every stream or pool they came to. Each carries many of these bags suspended in a basket, and kept apart by twigs. Every day, such of the leeches as may have died are separated from the living, and thrown away. Smyrna is their usual destination, whence they are forwarded to the ports of France and Italy. The leeches are farmed by the Agas, but there is a profitable contraband trade driven. They are sold by the gatherers for about one hundred and twenty piastres the oke; which, even though a great many die, gives a large profit to the merchant. Sometimes, however, all die. There is a leech-bazaar held at Caisabar."-Vol. ii. pp. 76, 77.

There is a species of spider, the Mygale, "that lives in a tube of earth, closed at its aperture by an earthy door, which opens and shuts for the entrance and exit of the animal, being suspended by a kind of hinge, constructed out of the silky web." It is presumed, this little Diogenes encloses many

an unwary victim in his den, whose power of escape must be small indeed, when once he enters the black hole. The "lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate," should be the motto of this dismal abode.

Aristotle's observations, in his History of Animals, are entirely borne out by the investigations of the Lycian tourists. It is something to the credit of ancient writers, that that which was written ages ago is in commercial phraseology the staple commodity of our times. It has been often insisted on, that the work of the great naturalist should be more generally read than it is.

"The traveller who, when treading the shores of the coasts and islands of the Egean, observes, as he can scarcely fail to do, the innumerable remains of the hard parts of cuttle-fishes, piled literally in heaps along the sands, or, when watching the Greek fishermen draw their nets, marks the number of these creatures mixed up with the abundance of true fishes taken, and equally prized as articles of food by the captors, can at once understand why the naturalists of ancient Greece should have treated so fully of the history of the Cephalopoda, and its poets have made allusions to them as familiar objects. In an English drama, such allusions would be out of place, and misunderstood. To a Greek audience herring among ourselves. The mob above the diazoma would appreciate the former, as the gods in our galleries would recognize the latter, as part and parcel of their household furniture. One of the most striking spectacles at night, on the shores of the Egean, is to see the numerous torches glancing along the shores, and reflected by the still and clear sea, borne by poor fishermen, paddling as silently as possible over the rocky shallows, in search of the cuttle-fish, which, when seen lying beneath the waters, in wait for his prey, they dexterously spear, ere the creature has time to dart, with the rapidity of an arrow, from the weapon about to transfix his soft but firm body. As in ancient times, these mollusks constitute now a valuable part of the food of the poor, by whom they are chiefly used. The imprecation of the chorus, who, calling down upon their victim the extremity of ill fortune, desired that he might be reduced to a single cuttle-fish, and that a dog might come and snatch this last poor morsel from him, would be as well appreciated in a modern Greek coffee-house, where curses, deep and lengthy, are now liberally bestowed by enraged gamblers on their successful opponents, as among the original admirers of Aristophanes. The Romans, if we may judge from the culinary receipts of Apicius, regarded a cooked cuttle-fish with more respect. We can ourselves bear testimony to its excellence. When well beaten, to render the flesh tender before being dressed, and then cut up into morsels, and served in a savoury brown stew, it makes a dish by no means to be despised, excellent in both substance and flavour A modern Lycian dinner, in which stewed cuttle-fish formed the first, and roast porcupine the second. course, would scarcely fail to be relished by an unprejudiced epicure in search of novelty.

the mention of a cuttle fish was as the mention of a

"Granting, however, all the facilities of observing cuttle-fishes, which the Egean pre-eminently affords, the account of the habits and structure of these animals, in the writings of Aristotle, must ever remain among the most admirable natural history essays ever written. If we bring together all that he records of these creatures in the several books of the History of Animals, we cannot fail to appreciate the position of the Stagyrite, as the greatest of naturalists, past and present; for none among them all ever combined such extraordinary powers of observing equally the structure of the individual and the habits of the species, with the highest capacity for generalization. Each fact narrated

(1) In the Acharnes of Aristophanes.

by Aristotle seems always to be told with reference to some law, floating, as it were, before his mind's eye, and to be fixed through the determination of the instance. Every- " thing, too, is told in perfect good faith; hearsay narrations are related as such, and carefully distinguished from personal obvervations; a feature which places the natural history writings of Aristotle on a par with the highest productions of modern science. This cannot be said of any other ancient author who has treated of similar subjects. The philosophical spirit which pervades the History of Animals, distinguishes it from, and elevates it above, the great majority of the natural history writings of the moderns, and renders the study of that great work a sound course of reading in the education of the student of natural history. Or rather, such should be; for, unfortunately, the acquaintance of too many modern naturalists, with the writings of the Stagyrite, is confined to the bare knowledge of the existence of his memorable History."-Vol. ii. pp. 91-95.

In that very clever novel, "The Falcon Family," the history and habits of the human Sponge are detailed with capital humour and effect. We have here an account of the Sponge of Commerce.

in various depths between three fathoms and thirty. "The sponge of commerce is found attached to rocks When alive it is of a dull bluish black above, and of a dirty white beneath. There are several qualities, possibly indicating as many distinct species. The best are taken among people from the islands of the Carian coast; from Cathe Cyclades. The sponge divers, however, are mostly lymnos, and the islands between Calymnos and Rhodes. They go in little fleets of caiques, each of six or seven tons burden, and manned by six or eight men. The season for the fishery lasts from May until September. All the men dive in turn. They remain under water from one to three minutes. They descend to the bottom at various depths, between five fathoms and twenty, or divers can descend so deep as the last-named depth, even, though rarely, thirty. Very few of the Archipelago and it is doubtful whether they can work, in such ease, when down. Some years ago a diver asserted he had in thirty fathoms water off Scio. Mr. Love, when enbent a rope round the beam of a Turkish frigate, sunk gaged in raising the guns of some of the sunken ships, round the beam. In deep water, a rope weighed by a confirmed his statement, by finding the rope still bent have gathered the sponges. They carry nothing about stone is let down, by which the divers ascend when they their persons except a netted bag, which is attached to a hoop suspended round their necks; in this they place the sponges. fifty okes of sponges in a day. A very large sponge may In a good locality a diver may bring up weigh two okes. The weight is calculated from the sponges when they are dried. A sponge is dried in the it and turns it black. The slimy or animal matter is sun, after being cleaned in sea-water; fresh-water rots When dried, the stamped out by the diver's feet. five drachmas an oke. The chief markets for them are sponges are strung in circles. They are sold at twentySmyrna, Rhodes, and Napoli.

Hence,

"The sponge fisheries were probably conducted information being obtainable with facility, we find a full among the ancient Greeks as they are now. account of the sponge in the writings of Aristotle. He appears to have been deeply interested in its history, on account of the link it seemed to present between the animal and vegetable natures. Therefore the question, whether sponges possessed sensation, is discussed by him more than once, and left undecided; the statements for and against their capacity of feeling are, however, fairly put forward. The same question is debated among naturalists at the present day, and, as anciently, totle distinguishes sponges under two heads, those that there are not wanting advocates for either view. might be cleaned, and those which could not. Of the last he states that their substance was compact, but

Aris

1