lliance of nature; the more clearly, inasmuch as the mechanism
affixed to it, still more ingenious than itself, was well calculated to
illustrate practically one of the many uses to which the principle was
destined to be applied.

Adam had not yet fathomed the secret by which to supply the miniature
cylinder with sufficient steam for any prolonged effect,--the great
truth of latent heat was unknown to him; but he had contrived to
regulate the supply of water so as to make the engine discharge
its duties sufficiently for the satisfaction of curiosity and the
explanation of its objects. And now this strange thing of iron was in
full life. From its serpent chimney issued the thick rapid smoke, and
the groan of its travail was heard within.

"And what propose you to yourself and to the kingdom in all this, Master
Adam?" asked Edward, curiously bending his tall person over the tortured
iron.

"I propose to make Nature the labourer of man," answered Warner. "When I
was a child of some eight years old, I observed that water swelleth into
vapour when fire is applied to it. Twelve years afterwards, at the age
of twenty, I observed that while undergoing this change it exerts a
mighty mechanical force. At twenty-five, constantly musing, I said, 'Why
should not that force become subject to man's art?' I then began the
first rude model, of which this is the descendant. I noticed that the
vapour so produced is elastic,--that is, that as it expands, it presses
against what opposes it; it has a force applicable everywhere force is
needed by man's labour. Behold a second agency of gigantic resources!
And then, still studying this, I perceived that the vapour thus
produced can be reconverted into water, shrinking necessarily, while
so retransformed, from the space it filled as vapour, and leaving that
space a vacuum. But Nature abhors a vacuum; produce a vacuum, and
the bodies that surround rush into it. Thus, the vapour again, while
changing back into water, becomes also a force,--our agent. And all the
while these truths were shaping themselves to my mind, I was devising
and improving also the material form by which I might render them useful
to man; so at last, out of these truths, arose this invention!"

"Pardie," said Edward, with the haste natural to royalty, "what in
common there can be between thy jargon of smoke and water and this huge
ugliness of iron passeth all understanding. But spare us thy speeches,
and on to thy puppe