STEAM.
How wonderful are the revolutions which steam has wrought in the world! The diamond, we are told, is but pure carbon; and the dream of the alchymist has long been to disentomb the gem in its translucent purity from the sooty mass dug up from the coal-field. But if the visionary has failed to extricate the fair spirit from its earthly cerements, the practical philosopher has produced from the grimy lump a gem, in comparison to which the diamond is valueless—has evoked a Titanic power, before which the gods of ancient fable could not hold their heaven for an hour; a power wielding the thunderbolt of Jove, the sledge of Vulcan, the club of Hercules; which takes to itself the talaria of Mercury, the speed of Iris, and the hundred arms of Briareus. Ay, the carbon gives us, indeed, the diamond after all; the white and feathery vapor that hisses from the panting tube, is the priceless pearl of the modern utilitarian. Without steam man is nothing—a mere zoological specimen—Lord Monboddo's ape, without the caudal elongation of the vertebræ. With steam, man is every thing. A creature that unites in himself the nature and the power of every animal; more wonderful than the ornithorhynchus—he is fish, flesh, and fowl. He can traverse the illimitable ocean with the gambolings of the porpoise, and the snort of the whale; rove through the regions of the earth with the speed of the antelope, and the patient strength of the camel; he essays to fly through the air with the steam-wing of the aeronauticon, though as yet his pinions are not well fledged, and his efforts have been somewhat Icarian. And, albeit our own steam aeronavigation is chiefly confined to those involuntary gambols (as Sterne happily called Sancho's blanket tossing), which we now and then take at the instance of an exploding boiler, yet may we have good hope that our grandchildren will be able to "take the wings of the morning," and sip their cup of tea genuine at Pekin. He is more than human, and little less than Divinity. Were Aristotle alive, he would define the genus "homo"—neither as "animal ridens," nor yet "animal sentiens," but "Animal Vaporans." True it is, doubtless, that man alone can enjoy his joke. He hath his laugh, when the monkey can but grin and the ape jabber—his thinking he shares with the dog and the elephant; but who is there that can "get up the steam" but man? "Man," say we, "is an animal that vaporeth!" and we will wager one of Stephenson's patent high-pressure engines again our cook's potato-steamer, that Dr. Whately will affirm our definition.—Dublin University Magazine.