ONE:In no other branch of machinery has so much research and experiment been made during eighty years past as in steam machinery, and, strange to say, the greater part of this research has been directed to the details of engines; yet there has been no improvement made during the time which has effected any considerable saving of heat or expense. The steam-engines of fifty years ago, considered as steam-using machines, utilised nearly the same proportion of the energy or power developed by the boiler as the most improved engines of modern constructiona fact that in itself indicates that an engine is not the vital part of steam machinery. There is not the least doubt that if the efforts to improve steam-engines had been mainly directed to economising heat and increasing the evaporative power of boilers, much more would have been accomplished with the same amount of research. This remark, however, does not apply to the present day, when the principles of steam-power are so well understood, and when heat is recognised as the proper element to deal with in attempts to diminish the expense of power. There is, of course, various degrees of economy in steam-using as well as in steam-generating machinery; but so long as the best steam machinery does not utilise but one-tenth or one-fifteenth part of the heat represented in the fuel burned, there need be no question as to the point where improvements in such machinery should be mainly directed.Even M. Vacherot, with all his anxiety to discover an Oriental origin for Neo-Platonism, cannot help seeing that this attack on the Gnostics was inspired by an indignant reaction of Greek philosophy against the inroads of Oriental superstition, and that the same character belongs more or less to the whole system of its author. But, so far as we are aware, Kirchner is the only critic who has fully worked out this idea, and exhibited the philosophy of Plotinus in its true character as a part of the great classical revival, which after producing the literature of the second century reached its consummation in a return to the idealism of Plato and Aristotle.522
FORE:"The destruction took place from August 21st to the 25th.
FORE:Charlton's heavy breathing ceased for a moment.
