Titusville, while New Bedford sits sadly by the sea, and thinks of
long absent crews to whom the cry has become strange.

I cannot but look upon this discovery of oil in the earth as one
of the most remarkable and instructive revelations of the age. It
has shown to me that, whenever human necessity demands any thing
of the world of matter, the demand will be honored. Whenever
animal life, or the muscle of man or brute, has shown itself
unequal to the wants of an age, Nature has always responded to the
cry for help. Inventors are only men who act as pioneers, and who
go forward to see what the human race will want next, and to make
the necessary provisions. An inventor has profound faith in the
exhaustless resources of nature. He knows that if he bores far
enough, and bores in the right direction, he will find that which
the world needs. He is often no more than the discoverer of a
secret which nature has kept for the satisfaction of the wants of
an age. A lake yoked to a coal-bed would generally be voted a slow
team, but the inventor of the steam engine saw how it could be
made a very fast and a very powerful one; and we who live now are
able to see that the discovery was made at the right time, and
that, for the emergencies of this latter day, it has really
quadrupled the power of civilized man.

Think how nature has risen grandly up to meet every occasion for
new resources. The revolution wrought by steam in the business of
the world created great wants, every one of which was filled as
soon, as felt. Quicker modes of communicating thought were needed
to give us all the advantages of the increased facility of
carriage, and Mr. Morse was permitted to uncover the telegraph.
More money was wanted for the increased business of the world, and