looked forward. His interest in the mechanical arts and in
scientific progress seems never to have abated. He writes in
October, 1787, to a friend in France, describing his experience
with lightning conductors and referring to the work of David
Rittenhouse, the celebrated astronomer of Philadelphia. On the
31st of May in the following year he is writing to the Reverend
John Lathrop of Boston:

"I have long been impressed with the same sentiments you so well
express, of the growing felicity of mankind, from the improvement
in philosophy, morals, politics, and even the conveniences of
common living, and the invention of new and useful utensils and
instruments; so that I have sometimes wished it had been my
destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention
and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The
present progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now
unthought of, will, before that period, be produced."

Thus the old philosopher felt the thrill of dawn and knew that
the day of great mechanical inventions was at hand. He had read
the meaning of the puffing of the young steam engine of James
Watt and he had heard of a marvelous series of British inventions
for spinning and weaving. He saw that his own countrymen were
astir, trying to substitute the power of steam for the strength
of muscles and the fitful wind. John Fitch on the Delaware and
James Rumsey on the Potomac were already moving vessels by steam.
John Stevens of New York and Hoboken had set up a machine shop
that was to mean much to mechanical progress in America. Oliver
Evans, a mechanical genius of Delaware, was dreaming of the
application of high-pressure steam to both road and water