Note 426 — Chapter XXIII · Closing Years of James Watt—His Death—Conclusion.

What the steam-engine has done for the West is well known. What is yet expected from it in the East may be gathered from the few pregnant words lately uttered by Hassan Ali Khan, Persian Ambassador at the Court of France, at the recent celebration in Paris of a national festival instituted nineteen centuries before the birth of Christ. Having recalled the minds of his hearers to the early fire worship of his country, which sprang from the primeval idolatry, he proceeded to say that it was still to Fire that he fondly looked for the regeneration of Persia. Fire had changed the face of Europe. In the steam-engine, the railroad, the electric spark, the screw or paddle ship, far more than in gunpowder or rifled cannon, fire was the great benefactor that would bless one day the land of his forefathers, who had instinctively worshipped that element in secret anticipation of what was to come.