and expectant home;--it was not till this period
that science began to lend her most useful and most extensive aids,
and that her value in the advancement of the sailor's art began to
be justly appreciated. The astronomer forthwith taught him more
accurately to observe the heavens, and compiled laborious tables for
his daily use. Geography and hydrography obtained higher estimation,
and harbour-engineering and ship-building were elevated into more
important separate arts, chiefly from their applications to his use.
Nautical schools and nautical surveys, and lighthouse boards, with
all their attendant scientific researches, and magnetic observations,
and voyages of discovery all sprung up--at once the causes and the
consequences of the advancement of his art towards perfection; and
latest, though yet far from being the last, all the new knowledge
that belongs to steam-navigation has been incorporated in the vast
body of nautical science. _The further an art advances, the more
necessary does science become to it_.

Thus it is with agriculture. It cannot be denied that the tillage of
the soil, with almost every other branch of husbandry, has made
large strides among us--that we have more productive and better
cultivated provinces, and more skilful farmers, than are to be found
in any other part of the world in which equal disadvantages of
climate prevail. Any one will readily satisfy himself of this, who,
with an agricultural eye, shall visit the other parts of Europe to
which the same northern sky is common with ourselves. And it is
because we have reached this pitch of improvement--at which many
think we ought to be content to stop--because we have dismissed our
frail and diminutive boats, and sail now in majestic and decorated
ships, provided with such abundant stores that we need not, night by
night, to seek the harbour for new supplies--that we begin to feel
the want of some directing principle--to look about for some
favouring star to guide our wanderings upon the deep. To the
tremblirg needle of science we must now turn to point our way.
Feeble and uncertain it may itself appear--wavering as it directs
us--and therefore by many may be depreciated and despised--yet it
will surely lead us right if we have faith in its indications. Let
the practical man then build his ships skilfully and well after the
best models, and of the soundest oak--let their timbers be Kyanized,
their cables of iron, their cordage and sails o