Knowledge Is Not Absolutely Necessary To
Enable A Considerable Portion Of The Community To Live; And, Till It
Is, I Fear It Never Becomes General.
In this country, where minerals abound, there is not one collection;
and, in all probability, I venture a conjecture, the want of
mechanical and chemical knowledge renders the silver mines
unproductive, for the quantity of silver obtained every year is not
sufficient to defray the expenses.
It has been urged that the
employment of such a number of hands is very beneficial. But a
positive loss is never to be done away; and the men, thus employed,
would naturally find some other means of living, instead of being
thus a dead weight on Government, or rather on the community from
whom its revenue is drawn.
About three English miles from Tonsberg there is a salt work,
belonging, like all their establishments, to Government, in which
they employ above a hundred and fifty men, and maintain nearly five
hundred people, who earn their living. The clear profit, an
increasing one, amounts to two thousand pounds sterling. And as the
eldest son of the inspector, an ingenious young man, has been sent
by the Government to travel, and acquire some mathematical and
chemical knowledge in Germany, it has a chance of being improved.
He is the only person I have met with here who appears to have a
scientific turn of mind. I do not mean to assert that I have not
met with others who have a spirit of inquiry.
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