Excerpt from On Economy of Fuel, Particularly With Reference to Reverberatory Furnaces for the Manufacture of Iron, and to Steam Boilers
1. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the part played by heat, both on a grand scale in the laboratory of nature, and on minor scale, in the domain of human art and science. In the former respect it is not only an essential condition to the existence of life on this planet, but also the prime agent in putting in motion most of the physical changes which take place at the earths surface. In the latter, it must be regarded not only as furnishing man with the chief means he possesses of imitating in miniature the processes of nature, and moulding and modifying natural productions to his wants; but also as bestowing on him the ability to generate and apply at pleasure, a force equally stupendous and easy of control.
2. Yes, it is to heat we are indebted for the aliment which nourishes the sinews of that all powerful giant, yet obedient slave, which the genius of a Watt subdued, and left as a legacy to all succeeding generations. That unwearied drudge of all work, which grinds our corn, weaves our clothing, forges our tools, drives our printing presses, twists a massive cable of iron, or spins a gossamer thread of cotton down, impels our steam ships on their ocean routes, defying wind and wave, or whirls us through space when we journey on land, with thrice the speed of the race horse. A slave more patient than Caliban, fleeter than Ariel, such an one as it never entered into the imaginations of our forefathers in their most sanguine dreams, to hope for the possession of.
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