It changed the industry of nations.
In its application, first to the navigation of rivers, and then to the navigation of the ocean, it more than quadrupled the speed that had heretofore been attained.

Instead of forty days being requisite for the passage, the Atlantic might now be crossed in eight.

But, in land transportation, its power was most strikingly displayed.

The admirable invention of the locomotive enabled men to travel farther in less than an hour than they formerly could have done in more than a day.
The locomotive has not only enlarged the field of human activity, but, by diminishing space, it has increased the capabilities of human life.
In the swift transportation of manufactured goods and agricultural products, it has become a most efficient incentive to human industry The perfection of ocean steam-navigation was greatly promoted by the invention of the chronometer, which rendered it possible to find with accuracy the place of a ship at sea.

The great drawback on the advancement of science in the Alexandrian School was the want of an instrument for the measurement of time, and one for the measurement of temperature--the chronometer and the thermometer; indeed, the invention of the latter is essential to that of the former.