nius. Their results are seen in the numerous improvements by
which human labor is abridged.

Without going into details, it may be sufficient to say, that many of
the applications of steam to locomotion and manufactures, of electricity
and magnetism to the production of mechanical motion, the electrical
telegraph, the registration of astronomical phenomena, the art of
multiplying engravings, the introduction and improvement among us of all
the important inventions of the Old World, are striking indications of
the progress of this country in the useful arts. The net-work of
railroads and telegraphic lines by which this vast country is
reticulated have not only developed its resources, but united
emphatically, in metallic bands, all parts of the Union. The hydraulic
works of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston surpass in extent and
importance those of ancient Rome.

But we have not confined our attention to the immediate application of
science to the useful arts. We have entered the field of original
research, and have enlarged the bounds of scientific knowledge.

Sixty years ago, besides the brilliant discoveries of Franklin in
electricity, scarcely any thing had been done among us in the way of
original discovery. Our men of science were content with repeating the
experiments and diffusing a knowledge of the discoveries of the learned
of the Old World, without attempting to add a single new fact or
principle to the existing stock. Within the last twenty-five or thirty
years a remarkable improvement has taken place in this respect. Our
natural history has been explored in all its branches; our geology has
been investigated with results of the highest interest to practical and
theoretical science. Discoveries have been made in pure chemistry and
electricity, which have received the approbation of the world. The
advance which has been made in meteorology in this country, within the
last twenty years, is equal to that made during the same period in all
the world besides.

In 1793 there was not in the United States an instrument with which a
good observation of the heavenly bodies could be made. There are now
instruments at Washington, Cambridge, and Cincinnati equal to those at
the best European observatories, and the original discoveries in
astronomy within the last five years, in this country, are among the
most brilliant of the age. I can hardly refrain from saying, in this
connection, that the "Celestial Mechanics" o