The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1860-06-07
The Age of steam.

The eras OF gold ana silver ana bronze nc
longer exists with the lapse Of centuries
and the progress of time, they and their bar
barism have passed away, and a new age
and period holds sway. Steam-the agent and
servant of man--represents it and to its in.
huence and through its might the desert be.
comes populous, the wilderness smiles and
is busy with the hum ola new generation,
with new thoughts and strong purposes, who
carve its very stones into habitations and
shelters, and wrest from the bowels of the
earth an abundant and a ger erous support.
If we take stand in mental point of
view, and look backward upon the years
which are irrecoverably gone; If we regect
through hat convulsions and changesthe po-
litical and social world has PASSED, from a
state of ignorance and commercial stagnation
to one ofthe most prosperous and peaceful,
we must see among the most prominent and
eficent causes of this reformation-Steam.-
Without it, at this present day, if it were
abolished and utterly unknown, on the face
Of the earth, darkness would reign again as
it formely did. The development of the art
and sciences in their highest perfection tend
inevitably to moral and social advantage, If it
be only in the Insignificant cause of the les
sen ing the severity of labor through the use
ola powerful motor leaving more leisure
for the workman and the operative to search
out the causes which produce certain effects
and which lead him, as stated before insen-
sibIy t. the cultivation of thoughtful mind
and the improvement and stimulation of the
brain, within proper bounds, is the very base
and foundation of a national and commercial
greatness.
The rulest minds and the'most unrefect-
ing persons who are by chance or necessari-
| iy, brought up to its use, cannot fail to won
der and feel awe-stricken, at times, in the
presence of this awful force. Escaping from
its bons, and sending all bcfore'it, as it does
sometimes through carelessncss or misman-
agreement, itexemplilies it IN a literal sense, and
demonstrates in post practical manner,
the strength of its sinews and the llimitable
rang, of then, VINO can form any accurate
estimation Of what power is exerted against
the piStons and cranks, Of ste amer moving
so maiestically aud surely in the teeth and
front of the hurricane and tides, until, some
parts having given out, it lays bent and
! twisted into a hundred fantastic shapes p
F., Rods and links, six or eight inches in diam
eter, Of the best wrought iron, bent at right
angles as a boy would bend wire; and iron
castings, ribbed and strengthened with bra
ces and rad;i, snapped into fragments as if
they were the fraest glass. When he sees
all this then may he form some conception
of that noble servant who, at this moment as
we write, is driving thousand busy wheels
and wairlinr heavy masses in mid air, to the
increaSa Of wealth and the general prosperi-
| ty. There is not mechanical force in ope-
ration at the present day, nor machine
! turning out work by the 100 per cent better
and faster than by manpal labor, but what
o yes its origin, in some form or other, to
/ the steam. If we take the pick of the min.
er (who plies his calling in subteranean
! darkness, and who burrows like mole), even
50 small tool as that is the son aud off
/ spring of steam, either in smelling the ore
/ from which it was made or in forging it
! Upon the banks of busy streams, and in
/ the solituies of the prineval forests. the
1 song and chrps ofthe agent, steam, is loudly
I heard. Even the water wheel, which dis
| putes little part in the list of motors, owes
| its increased efficiency and its greater power
| to the better facilities for manufacturing
through the employment Of steam.
| There is no corner or quarter of the globe.
known to man, where it has not penetrated.
| The icebergs of the Pole have overlooked its
! toll, and cast their shadows athwart its fun
mel, whtened by the salt air and furnace
| heat, the waters of the northern seas have
/ lent their drops and globules to be evapora-
ted and aid man in penetrating into un-
known solitudes, and the fierce heat of the
tropics has heated the bearings and dried
| out the oil from the steam engine until they
have screamed again. Everywhere-in all
lands and habitabe places-:ts wreaths are
seen twinng and coiling in the air, and final
ly disappearing entirely; and lately, in ia
pan, through the exertion of Commodore
Perry, a litsie locomotive carried upon Cir
cular railroada throng of wondering and
pleased Japanese. It's an assertion that
cannot be disputed to say that it is the very
emblem and symbol ofpeace and prosperity.
When the steam engines are the most rapid
in their revolutions, and when their number
and sum increase in quick succession, then
do the papers team with joyous accounts of
prosperous harvests, sroaning warehouses,
ana full freights then are all man busy,
then are all men busy, and the voice of com
plaint and the piteous cry of want are un-
| known in the land In all its various ope-
rations, whether in swinging the ponderous
beam of the steamer slowly and steadily to-
and-fro, whether heaving the piston regularly
up-and-down through all the wrath and tu-
multi of the eliment, urging the vessel on,
and trampling even the might of the seas
beneath its resolute beat and stroke, it is
still the object of unh.gging aud neyer-ceas.
ing interests. In careful and experienced
/ hands.-careful, bayouna every other con-