chapter in the history of the human intelligence, the history of

steam from its beginning as a fact in humanconsciousness to the

perfection of the great turbine engines that preceded the

utilisation of intra-molecular power. Nearly every humanbeing

must haveseen steam,seen it incuriously for many thousands of

years; the women in particular were always heating water, boiling

it,seeing it boil away,seeing the lids of vessels dance with

its fury; millions of people at different times must have watched

steam pitching rocks out of volcanoes like cricket balls and

blowing pumice into foam, and yet you may search the whole human

record through, letters, books, inscriptions, pictures, for any

glimmer of a realisation that here was force, here was strength

to borrow and use… Then suddenly manwoke up to it, the

railways spread like a network over the globe, the ever enlarging

iron steamships began their staggering fight against wind and

wave.

Steam was the first-comer in the new powers, it was the beginning

of the Age of Energy that was to close the long history of the

Warring States.

But for a long time men did not realise the importance of this

novelty. They would not recognise, they were not able to

recognise that anything fundamental had happened to their

immemorial necessities. They called the steam-engine the 'iron

horse' and pretended that they had made the most partial of

substitutions. Steam machinery and factory production were

visibly revolutionising theconditions of industrial production,

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