“One thing!” I said; “there’s so much to notice that I don’t know what to look at first.”
“I’ll tell you what I mean,” he said. “You can hear the rush and rumble of machinery, can’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “like wheels whizzing and stones rolling, as if giant tinkers were grinding enormous scissors.”
“Exactly,” he said; “but you very seldom hear the hiss of steam out here.”
“No. Have they a different kind of engines?”
“Yes, a very different kind. Your steam-engine goes because the water is made hot: these machines go with the water kept cold.”
“Oh, I see! By hydraulic presses.”
“No, not by hydraulic presses, Cob; by hydraulic power. Look here.”
We were getting quite in the outskirts now, and on rising ground, and, drawing me on one side, he showed me that the works we were by were dependent on water-power alone.
“Why, it’s like one of those old flour-mills up the country rivers,” I exclaimed, “with their mill-dam, and water-wheel.”