members, the first paper ever written on this subject.  On that day not a surgeon in the world, out of a little New-England circle, made any profession of knowing how to render a patient quickly, completely, pleasantly, safely insensible to pain for a limited period.  In a few weeks every surgeon in the world knew how to do it, and the atmosphere of the planet smelt strong of sulphuric ether.  The discovery started from the Massachusetts General Hospital, just as definitely as the cholera started from Jessore, to travel round the globe.

The advance of our civilization is still more strongly marked by the number and excellence of musical instruments, especially pianos, which are made in this country.  It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the piano keeps pace with the plough, as our population advances.  More striking evidence than even this is found in the fact that the highest grade of the highest instruments used for scientific research is produced by our artisans.  One of the two largest telescope-lenses in the world is that made by Mr. Clark, of Cambridge, whose reputation is not confined to our own country.  The microscopes of Mr. Spencer, which threw those of the Continent into the shade at once, and challenged competition with the work of the three great London opticians, were made in a half-cleared district of Central New York, where, in our pilgrimages to that Mecca of microscopists, Canastota, we found the shrine we sought in the midst of the charred stumps of the primeval forest.  While Mr. Quekett was quoting Andrew Ross, the most famous of the three opticians referred to, as calling “135 deg. the largest angular pencil that can be passed through a microscopic object-glass,” Mr. Spencer was actually making twelfths with an angle of more than 170 deg..  Those who remember the manner in which the record of his extraordinary success was deliberately omitted from the second edition of a work which records the minutest contrivance of any English amateur,—­the first edition having already mentioned the “young artist living in the backwoods,”—­will recognize in it something of the old style in which the mother-country used to treat the Colonists.

It may be fairly claimed that the alert and inventive spirit of the American has lightened the cumbrous awkwardness of Old-World implements, has simplified their traditional complexity, has systematized methods of manufacture, and has shown a certain audacity in its innovations which might be expected from a community where every mechanic is a voter, and a maker of lawgivers, if not of laws.  We are deficient principally in patience of detail, and the skill which springs from minute subdivision of labor and from hereditary training.  All this will come by-and-by,—­all the sooner, if our ports are closed by foreign war.  No natural incapacity prevents us from making as good broadcloth, as fine linen, as rich silks, as pure porcelain, as the Old World can send us.  If England wishes to hasten our complete industrial independence, she has only to quarrel with us.  We should miss many things at first which we owe to her longer training, but they are mostly products of that kind of industry which furnishes whatever the market calls for.