By means of English enterprise and skill the cities of Aix-la-Chapelle, Altona, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfort-on-Maine, Ghent, Haarlem, Hanover, Lille, Rotterdam, Stolberg, Toulouse, Vienna, and others were lighted with gas. We formed Water Companies or Waterworks in Amsterdam, Berlin, and other cities, and drained Naples. We utilized the falls of the Rhone at Bellegarde, and thus obtained 10,000 horse-power for the use of the French manufacturers. We also sent the first steam-boat to Coblentz in 1817, and the first to America. We laid the first Atlantic cables. And as a general truth, we have been foremost in invention, application and enterprise. {64} Recent International Exhibitions however, and the migration of various branches of our trade to the Continent and America, have shown that the degree of our relative superiority in manufacturing skill is diminishing. Other nations, especially the German and American, perceiving the dependence of invention upon research, and the enormous pecuniary and other advantages gained by us, by the application of scientific knowledge to manufacturing and other purposes, have within the last few years aroused themselves, and are now pursuing pure science much more energetically than ourselves. A few years ago the relative number of original researches made per annum in England, France, and Germany were in the proportion 127, 245, and 777. Many of those made in Germany were valuable ones, and were made by Students in order to obtain a degree. Other nations are rapidly gaining upon us in the application of science to industrial purposes, and have even surpassed us in the extent of some of their manufacturing and technical operations. Many persons who have visited Europe and America at intervals during the last twenty years have testified to this.