8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



toward the establishment of medicine on a scientific basis. I need 

 hardly say they could not have been made except for the advance of 

 normal biology. 



There can be no question, then, as to the nature or the value of the 

 connection between medicine and the biological sciences. There can 

 be no doubt that the future of pathology and of therapeutics, and 

 therefore that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent to which 

 those who occupy themselves with these subjects are trained in the 

 methods and impregnated with the fundamental truths of biology. 



And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the collective sagacity 

 of this congress could occupy itself with no more important question 

 than with this : How is medical education to be arranged, so that, 

 without entangling the student in those details of the systematist 

 which are valueless to him, he may be enabled to obtain a firm grasp 

 of the great truths respecting animal and vegetable life, without which, 

 notwithstanding all the progress of scientific medicine, he will still find 

 himself an empiric ? 



PEOGEESS m THE MANUFACTUEE OF STEEL.* 



By Professor A. K. HUNTINGTON. 



IMPEOYEMEXTS in the arts and sciences have gradually modified 

 the methods of producing iron and steel, and, in their turn, the 

 arts and sciences have felt the reaction ; for all improvements in the 

 manufacture of iron and steel have consisted, not so much in the pro- 

 duction of a better quality of the article, as in the cheapening of pro- 

 duction by the application of the principles indicated by the progress 

 of science, and by the use of superior machinery. The direct result 

 of this cheapening has been to extend the applications of the products 

 in the arts. 



The discovery of steel appears to have naturally followed that of 

 the means of reducing iron from its ore. In all primitive methods of 

 iron-smelting, steel, in more or less quantity, is inevitably produced. 

 Such methods have been carried on in India and Africa from time im- 

 memorial to the present day. A furnace of a similar primitive charac- 

 ter has, for several centuries, been employed in Catalonia, in Spain. 



In working this furnace, the ore is crushed by the hammer, and 

 divided by sifting into lumps [nvme) and very coarse powder [greil- 

 lade). The furnace being still red-hot from the last operation, it 

 is filled with charcoal nearly to the tuyh^e, the hearth is then di- 

 vided at a point about two thirds distance from the tuyere into two 

 parts by a broad shovel ; on the blast-side a further quantity of char- 



* Abridged from an address delivered before the London Society of Arts. 



