"The first step in the invention of the steam engine was the experimental researches and the discoveries of the properties of steam by Hooke, Boyle, and Papin. . . . Had not the steam engine been developed, it is clear that railways, steamships, machinery, and all the other numerous uses to which that instrument is now applied, would have been almost unknown. The introduction of the steam engine enabled abandoned Cornish mines to be relieved of water, and to be worked to much greater depths. The discoveries of nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, oil o vitriol, and washing soda, by the alchemists and early chemists in their researches, led to the erection of the numerous great manufactories of these substances which now exist in England and in other civilized countries. There is probably not an art, manufacture, or process which is not largely due to scientific discovery; and if we trace these back to their source, we nearly always find them originate in scientific research.

"Suppose that Guy Lussac, in 1815, had not discovered cyanide of potassium, and that it had never been discovered; it is highly probable that the manufacturing returns of Birmingham and Sheffield would be much less in amount at the present time than they are, simply because there is no other known substance with which the electro-plating of base metals with silver can be satisfactorily effected. Or, suppose that sal-ammonia, chloride of zinc, or other soldering agents, had not been discovered; the extensive and so-called 'galvanizing' process could not have been effected, because without these substances the iron articles immersed in the melted zinc would not have received an adhesive metallic coating. . . . The pecuniary benefits of calico printing, bleaching, dyeing; of the great manufactures of cotton, iron, pottery, beer, sugar, glass, spirits, vinegar, gutta-percha, India-rubber, gun cotton, the numerous metals, machinery, electro-plate, washing soda, German silver, brass, phosphorus,