But he goes further than that.

He ridicules the idea that it is beyond the resources of science to utilize thousands of millions of tons of water that are raised twenty-one feet twice in every twenty-four hours by the tides.

It is the skill to apply the force that is needed; not the force itself, which exceeds that of all the steam-engines in the nation.

And he says that the great scientific foible of the day is the neglect of natural forces, which are cheap and inexhaustible, and the mania for steam-engines and gas, which are expensive, and for coal, which is not to last forever.

He implores capital and science to work in this question.
His various schemes for using the tides in the creation of motive power will doubtless come before the world in a more appropriate channel than a work of fiction.