Will it please you, my lords, this way!" and he motioned so commandingly to the room in which he had left the Eureka, that his audience rose by a common impulse, and in another minute stood grouped round the model in the adjoining chamber.

This really wonderful invention--so wonderful, indeed, that it will surpass the faith of those who do not pause to consider what vast forestallments of modern science have been made and lost in the darkness of ages not fitted to receive them--was, doubtless, in many important details not yet adapted for the practical uses to which Adam designed its application.

But as a mere model, as a marvellous essay, for the suggestion of gigantic results, it was, perhaps, to the full as effective as the ingenuity of a mechanic of our own day could construct.

It is true that it was crowded with unnecessary cylinders, slides, cocks, and wheals--hideous and clumsy to the eye--but through this intricacy the great simple design accomplished its main object.

It contrived to show what force and skill man can obtain from the alliance of nature; the more clearly, inasmuch as the mechanism affixed to it, still more ingenious than itself, was well calculated to illustrate practically one of the many uses to which the principle was destined to be applied.
Adam had not yet fathomed the secret by which to supply the miniature cylinder with sufficient steam for any prolonged effect,--the great truth of latent heat was unknown to him; but he had contrived to regulate the supply of water so as to make the engine discharge its duties sufficiently for the satisfaction of curiosity and the explanation of its objects.