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194 generations. Such a state of things could never last, nature could not stand it, vegetation would have been banished from the face of the earth. Fortunately the supply of smoke-producing fuel was exhausted, the engineers had to restrict their operations, and the exhaustion of nature's stores of fuel gave her time to regain strength. It appears to us now that these men were stupid to a degree to keep so religiously moving in the same groove, using a power that was detrimental to nature, while nature had provided an enormous supply of power ready to their hand, free from all nature-destroying objections. Of course it is easy for us of the present day to find fault with what was done by the ancients, and you are no doubt correct in saying that I judge harshly. Perhaps the inhabitants of this earth, three thousand years hence, may speak of us in the same strains as we now do of the people that existed three thousand years ago. Such is life, and the progress of science and intelligence, my Specimen. We must all try and do what little we can to improve the existing state of