Part 115

III.

It has armed the feeble hand of (S. 3, N. 2) man, in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned; completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter, and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power which are to aid and reward the labours of after generations. It is to the genius of one man, too, that all this is mainly owing! And certainly no man ever bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and the loom, who were deified by their rude contemporaries, conferred less important benefits (App. § 5) on mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engine.

This will be the fame of Watt with future generations, and it is sufficient for his race and his country.—LORD JEFFREY.

Commence the period with ‘In short’.

to assign limits to a thing, +einer Sache Grenzen stecken+.

Say ‘it has completed’, etc.

+Materie+, f.

+zu+.

Say ‘which are destined (+zu etwas bestimmt sein+, Comp. S. 87, N. 6) to assist and to reward the labours of (= of the) future generations’.

It — owing = All this we owe mainly to the genius of a single man.

+Geschlecht+, n.; use the verb in the Perfect; ever, +je vorher+.

+sondern auch.+

+sagenhaft.+

rude = inexperienced.

+bei+, with the def. art.

+dieser.+

Section 145.

MANUFACTURES OF ENGLAND.

The principal branches of the industrial pursuits are the manufactures of cotton, woollen, and worsted goods, iron and hardware, earthenware, hosiery, mining, and shipbuilding. The geographical distribution of the manufacturing population is dependent partly on natural, partly on accidental circumstances. The proximity of a coal-field decides the point in many instances; for, even where the raw material is bulky, it is generally more practicable to bring it to the coal (+Kohlen+), than the coal to it, an instance of which is furnished by the copper-ore of Cornwall being taken to Swansea to be smelted. The iron manufacture is carried on generally at the coal-fields, the chief seats being south Wales, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire. The cotton manufacture has been located in Lancashire and Cheshire for the last three centuries; but it has attained its present dimensions very much through those counties being readily furnished with the raw material from America, as well as from the abundance of coal outside those counties; Manchester, Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, and Macclesfield are the chief seats of the manufacture.—BEVAN, “THE STUDENT’S MANUAL OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY.”

+Die englische Industrie.+

of — pursuits, +der Industrie+.

+Fabrikation+, f.

The preposition ‘of’ is best repeated in this enumeration; worsted, +aus Kammwolle gefertigt+; ‘goods’, here +Stoffe+.

+irdenes Geschirr+ or +Töpferwaren+.

+Berg- und Schiffsbau.+

manufacturing = industrial.

+Kohlenlager+, n.

the point, +darüber+, which place last.