Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/54

44 purified by water, and even by heat, and at last raised to within the reach of man by subterranean movements. From this reservoir of labor, man now draws rapidly, driving away the frost of today with the sunshine of a million years ago, and thrashing this year's harvest with the power that came to our earth before corn grew upon it.

Such are the processes by which the sun's power is collected and stored up by the vegetable kingdom in a form sufficiently condensed to be available for working the machinery of the bodies of men and beasts, and also to assist man in vaster expenditures of labor. It is most interesting to trace such processes, and not only interesting, but also instructive, for it shows us in what direction we are to look for our sources of labor, and will at once expose many common delusions. One hears, perhaps, that something will be found to supplant steam. Galvanism may be named; yet galvanism is generated by certain decompositions—of metal, for instance—and this metal had first to be prepared by the agency of coal, and in its decomposition can give out no more labor than the coal before invested in it. It is as if one should buy a steam engine to pump up water to keep his mill wheel going. The source of all labor is the sun. We cannot immediately make much use of his rays for the purposes of work; they are not intense enough; they must be condensed. The vegetable world alone at present seems capable of doing this; and its past results of coal, peat, petroleum, etc., and present results of wood and food, are ultimately all we have to look to.

To say that man will ever be dependent upon the vegetable world for all his work, may be considered bold, but there is certainly great reason to believe it. The sun's labor being supplied in such a diluted form, each small quantity continually supplied must be packed in a very small space. Now, man can only subject matter to influences in the mass. The little particle of carbon that the plant frees each instant is beyond his ken. The machinery he could make would not be fine enough: it would be like trying to tie an artery with the biggest cable on board the Great Eastern. Organized existence possesses machinery fine enough to effect these small results, and to avail itself of these little instalmentsinstallments [sic] of labor. At present, this machinery is beyond our comprehension, and possibly will ever remain so. Nature prefers that her children should keep out of the kitchen, and not pry into her pots and pans, but eat in thankfulness the meal she provides.

Some interesting results follow from what has been stated above One is, that we are consuming not only our present allowance of the sun's labor, but also a great deal more, unless the formation of coal in our age equals its consumption, which is not probable. Mother Earth will certainly, so far as we can see, some day be bankrupt. Such a consummation is pointed to, however, in other quarters. The sun's heat, unless miraculously replenished, must gradually be dissipated through space. There are reasons for thinking that the planets must