That scientific research is a far greater source of wealth and wellbeing than our stores of coal is easily proved. At present we obtain in our best {62} steam-engines only about one-seventh (or less) of the mechanical power producible by the combustion of the coal, the remainder being lost in various ways. And this occurs simply because we have not yet discovered a method of wholly converting heat into mechanical power. In some other instances we are able to convert one force wholly into another without loss, as for example: the chemical action of a voltaic cell into electricity; and by means of research we shall probably be enabled to effect a similar complete conversion of other powers into each other. The effect of converting heat wholly into mechanical power would be equal to increasing our stock of coals for that purpose to seven times its present amount. This instance is only one of the many thousand possible ways in which research may yet prove of value to mankind. It is true that a very large amount of original research in physics and chemistry has been done in this country; the contents of our scientific journals and of the publications of our various Learned Societies prove this. It is also true that the English nation has been pre-eminently active in applying scientific knowledge to practical uses by means of inventions, and has been generally the first in carrying out inventions on a large scale. We have been either the first, or nearly so, in developing steam-engines, railways, locomotives, rapid trains, gas works, flour mills, blast-furnaces, cotton machinery, cheap postage, light-houses, electro-plating, lucifer-matches, {63} electric-telegraphs, submarine electric cables, great engineering establishments, iron ship-building, and many other important enterprises. Three out of four of all the great ocean steamers, and three-fourths of all the locomotives of the world were constructed in this country.[10] By means of our enterprise and capital also, the first railways, telegraphs, gas works, cotton mills, modern water works, suspension bridges, water wheels, harbours, lighthouses, &c., &c., in nearly all parts of the world were constructed; and foreign nations have been inducted into the practical methods of working our great manufacturing and technical applications of science.