Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/60

38 man has thus far employed but a small portion. Even earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are the result of heat.

From this immense reservoir we may draw the moving force necessary for our purposes. Nature, in providing us with combustibles on all sides, has given us the power to produce, at all times and in all places, heat and the impelling power which is the result of it. To develop this power, to appropriate it to our uses, is the object of heat-engines.

The study of these engines is of the greatest interest, their importance is enormous, their use is continually increasing, and they seem destined to produce a great revolution in the civilized world.

Already the steam-engine works our mines, impels our ships, excavates our ports and our rivers, forges iron, fashions wood, grinds grains, spins and weaves our cloths, transports the heaviest burdens, etc. It appears that it must some day serve as a universal motor, and be substituted for animal power, waterfalls, and air currents.

Over the first of these motors it has the advantage of economy, over the two others the inestimable advantage that it can be used at all times and places without interruption.

If, some day, the steam-engine shall be so