53 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



TVe live in an age of progress. The additions to our knowledge 

 made during the last fifty years seem to excel in utility and lasting 

 benefits the knowledge acquired in centuries. Popular belief is that 

 the possibilities of progress in all directions are unlimited. Those who 

 should know, think that in mechanics we have nearly reached the limit 

 which theory, well established, places before us. The steam-engine, 

 using but one tenth of the power to be obtained from the coal, is 

 nearer its limit than most people imagine. 



The science of the future is undoubtedly in chemistry, and our great 

 discoveries and greatest progress will be in that science. Mechanics 

 may hereafter expect to take a secondary part. In the iron industry 

 chemistry and mechanics have stood side by side ; chemistry gener- 

 ally propounds the problems, pointing the way to the chemical solu- 

 tion, and calling upon mechanics to devise means for carrying out the 

 undertaking. 



One of the most notable features of modern industrial progress is 

 the utilization of what has always been considered waste material. 

 This is done by devising and constructing special machinery to meet 

 the case. Sometimes costly experiments are necessary ; but, in this 

 age of speculation, those who gain the prizes offered in legitimate busi- 

 ness are those who are willing to accept ventures involving large risks. 

 There is no limit to human wants, and the industrial expansion we are 

 engaged in will not be restricted except by the impossible. 



Photography and the electric sciences are two arts of which nothing 

 was known fifty years ago : what a gap the removal of one of these 

 would make in our civilization to-day ! 



Sir Henry Bessemer's steel process has had a very marked influence 

 on the mechanical advancement of the last half-century. Yet so 

 closely allied are all the great steps in progress, that one can not be 

 taken without the other, and Sir Henry was himself compelled to seek 

 or invent numerous devices before his original steel process merited 

 the name. 



We daily complete engineering works which, in the amount of 

 human labor they represent, far exceed the labor represented by the 

 great Pyramid of Cheops. Undoubtedly the progress of the age, which 

 is so largely engineering progress, does greatly increase the welfare of 

 man. The forces of Nature now do the hard work, and the labor of 

 the toiling millions is lightened many fold. The laboring-man now 

 works with brain and eye, and his occupation is to direct and apply 

 some principle of science. He now has time for improvement, comfort, 

 and refinement ; the forces of Nature having become obedient to the 

 will of man, are made to produce for him not only plenty, but con- 

 veniences and luxuries formerly undreamed of. 



