trating light. The night-prowling ghouls, Ignorance and Superstition, dare not encounter its glancing rays, and descend shrieking into the abyss, while Industry toils in the glare, and seems to acquire new vigour whenever the flame increases in brilliancy.
The attendant genii of this wonderful lamp are those powers of the material world which have been subjugated by man—the Aladdin of our story.
Among these genii the almost omnipotent agent Steam ranks first. The miracles wrought by this slave of the lamp transcend all the wonders conceived by the Oriental romancists. “By its agency,” says Dr. Lardner, “coal is made to minister in a variety of ways to the uses of society. By it coals are taught to spin, weave, dye, print, and dress silks, cottons, woollen and other cloths; to make paper, and print books on it when made; to convert corn into flour; to press oil from the olive and wine from the grape; to draw up metal from the bowels of the earth; to pound and smelt it, to melt and mould it, to forge it, to roll it, and to fashion it into every form that the most wayward caprice can desire. Do we traverse the deep, they lend wings to the ship, and bid defiance to the natural opponents, the winds and the tides! Does the windbound ship desire to get out of port to start on her voyage, steam throws its arms around her, and places her on the open sea! Do we traverse the
