Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 | Page 2

may be achieved with comparative ease and at no
great expense. Here is the way we shall go: London to Liverpool by rail;
Liverpool to Chagres by steamer; Chagres to Panama by rail; Panama
to Hong-Kong, touching at St Francisco; Hong-Kong to Sincapore,
whence, if you have a fancy, you can diverge to Borneo, Australia, and
New Zealand; Sincapore to Madras, Bombay, Aden, and Suez--the
whole of the run to this point from Panama being done by steamer;
Suez to Cairo, and Cairo to Alexandria (rail in preparation); lastly, by
steamer from Alexandria to England. It is deeply interesting to watch
the progress of intrusion on the Pacific. Already, within these few years,
its placid surface has been tracked with steam-navigation; of which
almost every day brings us accounts of the extension over that beautiful
ocean. Long secluded, by difficulty of access from Europe, it is now in
the course of being effectually opened up by the railway across the
Isthmus of Panama. And the grandeur of this invasion by steam is
beyond the reach of imagination. Thousands of islands, clothed in
gorgeous yet delicate vegetation, and enjoying the finest climate, lie
scattered like diamonds in a sea on which storms never rage--each in
itself an earthly paradise. When these islands can be reached at a
moderate outlay of time, money, and trouble, may we not expect to see
them visited by the curious, and flourishing as seats of civilised
existence? There is reason to believe, that the equable climate of many
of them would prove suitable for persons affected with the complaints
of northern regions; and therefore they may become the Sanatoria of
Europe. 'Gone to winter-quarters in the Pacific!'--a pleasant notice this
of a health-seeking trip twenty years hence.
It may be reasonably conjectured, that this great and varied extension
of journeying round the earth, and in all climates, will not be unaided
by new discoveries in motive power. At present, we speak of steam; but
there is every probability of new agents being brought into operation,
less bulky and less costly, before twenty years elapse. Even while we
write, men of science are painfully poring over the subject, and giving
indications that in chemistry or electricity reside powers which may be
advantageously pressed into the service of the traveller. Admitting,
however, that steam will be retained as the prevailing agent of

locomotion, we have grounds for anticipating improvements in its
application, which will materially cheapen its use. As regards safety to
life and limb, much will be done by better arrangements. In
steam-voyaging, we may expect that means will be adopted to avert, or
at least assuage, the terrible calamities of conflagration and
shipwreck--better acquaintance with the principles of spontaneous
combustion, and with the natural law of storms, being of itself a great
step towards this important result.
One of the latest wonders in practical science, is a plan for cooling the
air in dwellings in hot climates; by which persons residing in India, and
other oppressively warm countries, may live habitually in an
atmosphere cooled down to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, or the ordinary heat
of a pleasant day in England. The very ingenious yet simple means by
which this is to be effected, will form the subject of notice in our next
number. Meanwhile, we may observe that the discovery is due to Mr C.
Piazzi Smyth, astronomer-royal for Scotland; and if perfectly
successful in practice, of which there can be no reasonable doubt, it
will have a most important effect in extending European influence over
the globe.
The extension of the English language over the civilised world is a
curiosity of the age. French, German, Italian, and other continental
tongues, seem to have attained their limits as vernaculars. Each is
spoken in its own country, and by a few fashionables and scholars
beyond. But the language which pushes abroad is the English; and it
may be said to be rooting out colonised French and Spanish, and
becoming almost everywhere, beyond continental Europe, the spoken
and written tongue. Long the Spanish enjoyed the supremacy in Central
America; but it has followed the fate of the idle, proud, combative, and
good-for-nothing people who carried it across the Atlantic, and is
disappearing like snow before the sun of a genial spring. The sooner it
is extinct the better. Already the English is the vernacular from the
shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific, wherever civilised settlements are
formed. As large a population now speaks this nervous language in
America as in Great Britain; and this is only an indication of its
progress. By means of a rapidly-increasing population, the English

language will in twenty years be spoken by upwards of fifty million
Americans; and if to these we add all within the home and colonial
dominion, the number speaking it