"Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car.
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air."
The slow barge now traverses the wide Atlantic as fast as even fast-living America can desire. The rapid car whirls across England in a few brief hours. With what half-envious astonishment, might Dr. Johnson have computed the arrowy flight of these iron creations over land or water;—with what sententious wisdom might he not have dilated on the uncontrolled dissemination, Sir, of books, knowledge, and civility;—to say nothing of vile whiggism or possible rebellion!
No wide-waving wings have as yet wafted us over rivers and mountains. But some inventors still cherish a hope of applying steam steerage, and perhaps steam propulsion, to very large balloons.
It is curious to think of the many centuries, during which men saw elastic vapour lifting their kettle lids, without catching the idea of steam power, or reflecting on the movement it produced. Curious, too, to remember how slowly the idea grew, after the Marquis of Worcester had explained the relation between the power and its movement-producing function. His "fire-water-work" (as he called it), "drove up water by fire," at a rate of 1250 lbs. through one foot, to the consumption of 1 lb. of coal. This is about 200 times the waste of a good modern engine. But the principle was there. Water flowed without intermission, at a height of forty feet, driven only by the elastic force of steam. The introduction of atmospheric pressure half obscured the original conception; steam-power seemed in danger of losing its proper functions. Passing by Papin and Savery,[182] the descent of Newcomen's piston depended on the production of a vacuum beneath it; at much cost of heat and labour, much waste of fuel and force. Strange, that for so many years nobody thought of introducing steam-power above the piston, as well as below it.
The retrograde path which science sometimes treads, is also clearly shewn in the long-delayed invention of the paddlewheel steam-boat. The first patent was taken out by Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and his rare pamphlet may be seen at the British Museum, or in Mr. Partington's reprint.[183] Strange, that so good a thing should have continued so long neglected;—up to the days of the first Napoleon, and, (fortunately perhaps for civilization,) under the Conqueror's imperial rule. The same fate, however, befel Trevithick's "walking engine" made in 1802. He applied high-pressure steam-power to a railway locomotive which really travelled (1805) at Merthyr Tydvil. Every one knows how slowly this invention has grown up into the useful goods-train or the luxurious roll of the express.
The relation between a power so well tested, and propulsion, was thus long in being fitted with perfect mechanism, and presented to the eyes of mankind as a familiar every day phenomenon. But the idea of propelling carriages by other means than animal sinews, had been working the reverse way; and a desirable end suggested a search for means. Men tried to fit other powers to the function; the problem gave rise to wind-driven chariots, and other curious contrivances for travelling by land, which are graphically described by Lovell Edgeworth and several of his contemporaries. Then, too, came the desire to sail against the wind, and independently of water currents. A vignette in the first Edition of Bewick's Birds (vol. 1, p. 257), published in 1797, shews us a ferry-boat crossing a river by means of a windmill which turns paddle wheels.[184] The engraver has marked by a ripple at the vessel's bows the strength and swiftness with which she stems the stream.
The history of these machines carries with it a very useful moral. It furnishes an apt similitude to the delays and retrogressions which are found in the onward march of mankind, in the gains and triumphs of civilization. These sometimes occur to nations through error, violence, and wrong. Compulsory celibacy, forced upon the most cultured men, was, according to Mr. Darwin, one cause why Spain, notwithstanding her great generals, navigators, and inventors,[185] has been distanced by freer nations. Then, too, as he adds, "the holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in order to burn or imprison them.—In Spain alone, some of the best men ... were eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year.[186] The streams of both invention and human improvement resemble, in this respect, the current of a mighty river. We always encounter—and always ought to expect—whirlpools, back-waters, and other sinuosities, as we descend the flowing tide.