s brought into
play where operations on the most common materials are to be performed,
because these are executed on the widest scale. This is the meaning of
the vast and astonishing prevalence of machine work in this country:
that the machine, with its million fingers, works for millions of
purchasers, while in remote countries, where magnificence and savagery
stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labours
for the rich alone; here she works for the poor no less. There the
multitude produce only to give splendour and grace to the despot or the
warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who
is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital, and machinery, uses them
to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and
thus becomes rich while he enriches others with his goods."--William
Whewell, D.D.

I was born at Scarborough in May, 1831, the sixth of a family of eight.
My father was a native of Rosedale, half-way between Whitby and
Pickering: his nurse was the sister of Captain Scoresby, celebrated as
an Arctic explorer. Arrived at manhood, he studied medicine, graduated
at Edinburgh, and practised in Scarborough until nearly his death in
1866. He was thrice Mayor and a Justice of the Peace for the borough.
Dr. Harland was a man of much force of character, and displayed great
originality in the treatment of disease. Besides exercising skill in
his profession, he had a great love for mechanical pursuits. He spent
his leisure time in inventions of many sorts; and, in conjunction with
the late Sir George Cayley of Brompton, he kept an excellent mechanic
constantly at work.

In 1827 he invented and patented a steam-carriage for running on common
roads. Before the adoption of railways, the old stage coaches were
found slow and insufficient for the traffic. A working model of the
steam-coach was perfected, embracing a multitubular boiler for quickly
raising high-pressure steam, with a revolving surface condenser for
reducing the steam to water again, by means of its exposure to the cold
draught of the atmosphere through the interstices of extremely thin
laminations of copper plates. The entire machinery, placed under the
bottom of the carriage, was borne on springs; the whole being of an
elegant form. This model steam-carriage ascended with perfect ease the
steepest roads. Its success was so complete that Dr. Harland designed
a full-sized carriage; but