which agricultural improvement may now most hopefully direct
her course--yet with this opinion the greater part of practical
men are still far from sympathizing. Some voices even--becoming
every day more feeble, however, and recurring at more distant
intervals--continue to be raised against the utility and the
applications of science; as if practice with _stationary_ knowledge
were omnipotent in developing the resources of nature; as if a man,
in a rugged and partially explored country, could have too much
light to guide his steps.

In the history of maritime intercourse there was a time when the
timid seaman crept from port to port, feeling his cautious and wary
way from headland to headland, and daring no distant voyage where
seas, and winds, and rocks, unknown to him, increased the dangers of
his uncertain life. Then a bolder race sprung up--tall ships danced
proudly upon the waves, and many brave hearts manned and guided them;
yet still they rarely ventured from sight of land. Men became
bewildered still, perplexed, and full of fear, when sea and sky
alone presented themselves. But a third period arose--and in the same
circumstances, men not more brave appeared collected, fearless, and
full of hope. Faith in a trembling needle gave confidence to the
most timorous, and neither the rough Atlantic nor the wide Pacific
could deter the bold adventurer, or the curious investigator of
nature.

And yet it was not till this comparatively advanced stage of the
nautical art--when man had obtained a faithful guide in his most
devious and trackless wanderings--when he was apparently set free
from the unsteady dominion of the seas and of the fickle winds--and
amid his labyrinthine course could ever and at once turn his face