Extra Credit Questions

[Anita]

Yes Michael, you are close enough!

Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions
On April 6, 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave his first lecture on "Discoveries and Inventions" before the Young Men's Association of Bloomington, Illinois. In 1859 he delivered it in Jacksonville, Illinois. He repeated the lecture in Decatur, Springfield, and Pontiac, but turned down future requests, saying, "I am not a professional lecturer. Have never got up but one lecture; and that I think, a rather poor one."
You can read the lecture here http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...veries.htm

While Lincoln's lecture tour wasn't a success, this is the section that of the talk where he predicts the future of wind power. Lincoln would have loved today's windfarm technology.

"Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power -- that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth's surface -- for instance, Illinois --; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world's history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few wind-mills, and pumps, and you have about all. That, as yet, no very successful mode of controlling, and directing the wind, has been discovered; and that, naturally, it moves by fits and starts -- now so gently as to scarcely stir a leaf, and now so roughly as to level a forest -- doubtless have been the insurmountable difficulties. As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of the wind. That the difficulties of controlling this power are very great is quite evident by the fact that they have already been perceived, and struggled with more than three thousand years; for that power was applied to sail-vessels, at least as early as the time of the prophet Isaiah."