"The regularity, speed, and safety with which the voyages of these vessels were made, soon pointed them out as the best conveyance both for passengers and the mails.
"In 1821 they were employed on the latter service between Dublin and Holyhead, and between Calais and Dover; and now, with few exceptions, all the channel and ocean-work of the Post-Office is done by steamers, and all the passengers and much of the goods' traffic between the parts of Great Britain and Ireland, have been within the last quarter of a century transferred to them.
"After the steamboat had thus passed through the various stages of infancy and childhood—had tried its strength on English rivers, in the Irish Sea, and in the British Channel—men began to ask, was it not strong enough and old enough to do more? Could it not cross an ocean as well as a channel—take letters and men, and merchandise to America, India, and Australia, as well as to Ireland and France? In this question were involved considerations of the highest importance to all the world, but particularly to this country, for no other country has such extensive foreign possessions as Great Britain, or carries on such an extensive trade.
"With the exception of the United States, all the colonies planted by the British remain parts of the empire, while Spain and Portugal have lost nearly all those rich territories, extending over the fairest portion of the American continent, that at one time acknowledged the sway of the houses of Bourbon and Braganza. The foreign possessions of France are insignificant, and, of the other nations of Europe, the Dutch alone possess a territory abroad greater than they have at home.... The proud position of Britain among the nations, the necessities of her foreign trade, and the wants of her colonies and dependencies, apart from all other considerations, rendered it fitting and natural that she should lead the way in maritime enterprise, and teach the nations how to navigate the ocean by steam.
"Nor has she failed in this high task; for, within thirteen or fourteen years, since the question was first proposed, she has established lines of gigantic steam-vessels that are now traversing with regularity and safety every ocean, steaming altogether more than a million and a quarter miles every year, and distributing letters and newspapers all over the world, at a cost to the country of about £650,000 per annum."
The rapidity and ease with which thousands of troops were lately conveyed to the Crimea and India, together with all their stores, horses, &c., form one of the most wonderful feats of ocean navigation ever performed, and point out the beauty of those arrangements which enable man to traverse the whole earth, whether by land or by water, so that it may fairly be said that the civilisation of the world depended and still depends upon the waters.
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
ORGANIC KINGDOMS OF NATURE.
The foregoing descriptions refer to the great works of God as seen in those creations which possess not that most wonderful attribute—life. There is no limit in extent, in quality, or in number, to these works; their extension appears to be infinite; their magnitudes are large or small, just as we compare them one with the other. This earth is an enormous mass, contemplated in comparison with ourselves, but an insignificant speck when compared with the sun, and there are certain laws, chemical and mechanical, which govern them all—heat, light, and electricity permeate all the infinity of space—attraction exists everywhere. There are no individual existences among them; all are made up of matter combined according to certain definite chemical laws, and always obedient to them under the same conditions—moving according to certain mechanical laws, and always obedient to them. The Creator who made these lifeless masses made also the laws to regulate them; but, besides these, it has pleased Him to form certain other creatures not for an instant to be compared in size or quantity with the former, and made up also of certain chemical compounds obedient to the mechanical and chemical laws, with one more addition, that unknown, inexplicable attribute—life. This wonderful quality exists in all organic beings; they obtain by it individual identity; they are whole creatures—imperfect with any part taken away, also imperfect with any addition. Clay is clay, in any quality or form; iron is iron, whether a grain or a ton; but a tree is only a tree when it is complete. We cannot say "some tree," as we would "some clay," it must be a tree, or several trees, each a separate and complete existence—perfect in itself—made up of solids and fluids, and possessing certain attributes, namely, a constant circulation of its fluid parts, a constant appropriation of food and rejection of waste matters—growth thereby to a certain definite form, and in many a definite size, together with the production of germs, capable, under certain conditions, of producing beings exactly similar to themselves. This constitutes organic life, and is possessed by all vegetables. Animal life is exactly the same, with the super-addition of will or mind in its most perfect state, of instinct or some analogous function in its lower states, or in quite the lowest—a chemical and mechanical difference only, such as shall determine the choice of food and mode of assimilating it. This difference consists in the vegetable feeding upon inorganic food, and the animal on food which has received the stamp of organisation. Creatures possessing life, whether vegetable or animal, are called organisms. It is found that these organisms are made up of certain atoms united in larger multiples than in inorganic substances, which are either simple or compounded of but few atoms; thus water is composed (every atom of it) of one atom oxygen, united to two of hydrogen. Common salt (every atom of it) is composed of one atom of the metal sodium with one atom of chlorine. Chalk is compounded of one atom of calcium in union with one of oxygen, and this united to one atom of carbonic acid, itself composed of one atom of carbon with two of oxygen. But organic compounds are often made up of four or six elements, united in multiples of their usual combining quantities. Thus, grape-sugar is made up (every atom of it) of 24 atoms of carbon, 28 of hydrogen and 28 of oxygen; these 78 atoms unite and form one compound atom, of which the sugar is wholly compounded, and thus, from such a complex nature, it happens that most organic compounds are decomposed by even a moderate degree of heat—all by a heat equal to red-hot iron. From these facts, it may be therefore stated, that all organisms are complete in themselves, have definite lives or existences, appropriate certain matters to themselves, grow thereby, and are compounded of organic atoms.