ke to be the Metropolitan
Company, and we proceed to a narrative of the attacks it has sustained,
and the struggles it has gone through.

So long ago as July 1839, the inventor explained to a large public
meeting of noblemen and men of science, presided over by the Duke of
Sussex, the principle of his discovery. It consisted in a division of
the cube, or, as he called it, the stereotomy of the cube. After
observing, that "although the cube was the most regular of all solid
bodies, and the most learned men amongst the Greeks and other nations
had occupied themselves to ascertain and measure its proportions, he
said it had never hitherto been regarded as a body, to be anatomized or
explored in its internal parts. Some years ago, it had occurred to a
French mathematician that the cube was divisible into six pyramidical
forms; and it therefore had struck him, the inventor, that the natural
formation of that figure was by a combination of those forms. Having
detailed to his audience a number of experiments, and shown how the
results thereby obtained accorded with mathematical principles, he
proceeded to explain the various purposes to which diagonal portions of
the cube might be applied. By cutting the body in half, and then
dividing the half in a diagonal direction, he obtained a figure--namely,
a quarter of the cube--in which, he observed, the whole strength or
power of resistance of the entire body resided; and he showed the
application of these sections of the cube to the purposes of paving by
wood." Such is the first meagre report of the broaching of a scientific
system of paving; and, with the patronage of such men of rank and
eminence as took an interest in the subject, the progress was sure and
rapid.

In December 1839, about 1100 square yards were laid down in Whitehall,
and a triumph was never more complete; for since that period it has
continued as smooth and level as when first it displaced the Macadam; it
has never required repair, and has been a small basis of peace and
quietness, amidst a desert of confusion and turmoil. Since that time,
about sixty thousand yards in various parts of London, being about
three-fourths of all the pavement hitherto introduced, attest the public
appreciation of the Metropolitan Company's system. It may be interesting
to those who watch the progress of great changes, to particularize the
operations (amounting in the aggregate to forty thousand yards) that
were carried out upon th