too perfectly from decay the surface of the copper, or by
rendering it negative, it allowed marine animals and vegetables
to accumulate on its surface, and thus impede the progress of the
vessel.]

Other instances might, if necessary, be adduced, to show that
long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new
principles in science and their practical application: nor ought
this at all to surprise us. Those intellectual qualifications,
which give birth to new principles or to new methods, are of
quite a different order from those which are necessary for their
practical application.

At the time of the discovery of the beautiful theorem of Huygens,
it required in its author not merely a complete knowledge of the
mathematical science of his age, but a genius to enlarge its
boundaries by new creations of his own. Such talents are not
always united with a quick perception of the details, and of the
practical applications of the principles they have developed,
nor is it for the interest of mankind that minds of this high
order should lavish their powers on subjects unsuited to their
grasp.

In mathematical science, more than in all others, it happens that
truths which are at one period the most abstract, and apparently
the most remote from all useful application, become in the next
age the bases of profound physical inquiries, and in the
succeeding one, perhaps, by proper simplification and reduction
to tables, furnish their ready and daily aid to the artist and
the sailor.