tanner being obliged to wait all this time for a return of his capital.
By the modern process, the hides are placed in a close pit, with a
solution of the tannin matter, and the air being exhausted, the liquid
penetrates through every pore and fiber of the skin, and the whole
process is completed in a few days.

The bleaching of cloth, which used to be effected in the open air, and
in exposed situations where temptation to theft was offered, and in
England hundreds and probably thousands of men have yielded and
forfeited their lives, is now performed in an unexposed situation, and
in a manner so expeditious, that cloth is bleached as much more rapidly
than it formerly was as hides are tanned.

It is stated by Lord Brougham, in his beautiful Discourse on the
Advantages of Science, that the inventor of the new mode of refining
sugar made more money in a shorter time, and with less risk and trouble,
than perhaps was ever realized from any previous invention.

Intelligence also _prevents loss_ as well as _makes profits_. How much
time and money have been squandered in repeated attempts to invent
machinery, after a principle had been once tested and had failed through
some defect inherent and natural, and therefore insuperable! Within
thirty years not less than five patents have been taken out, in England
and the United States, for a certain construction of paddle-wheels for a
steamboat, which construction was tested and condemned as early as
1810.[42] A case once came within my own knowledge, says Mr. Mann, of a
person who spent a fortune in mining for coal, when a work on geology,
which would have cost but a dollar, and might have been read in a week,
would have informed him that the stratum where he began to excavate
belonged to a formation lower down in the natural series than coal ever
is, or, according to the constitution of things, ever can be found. He
therefore worked into a stratum which must have been formed before a
particle of coal, or even a tree, or a vegetable existed on the planet.
Numerous similar and equally striking illustrations might be cited, but
this is not necessary.

[42] This statement was made eight years ago. More such patents may have
been taken out within this time.

These are a few specimens, on familiar subjects, taken almost at random,
for the purpose of showing the inherent superiority of any association
or community, whether small or great, where _mind_ is a member of the
par