268 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Of course, the ratio of growth decreases, 

 but the size of the head increases in most 

 persons up to the twentieth year, and usually 

 until about the twenty-fifth. 

 Sincerely yours, 



Hklen II. Gardener. 



A NATIONAL EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly: 



Dear Sir: Whatever the influence has 

 been that has been brought to bear for the 

 past five or six years or more, it certainly 

 has had the effect of moving Congress to 

 appropriate money toward the building of 

 some new war-vessels for our navy, and im- 

 proving our coast-defenses. No doubt all 

 this was very necessary ; but do you know 

 that the signs of the times prompt me to 

 suggest that there are other things that our 

 navy might be doing during these long days 

 of peace, which would reflect far more credit 

 upon us as a nation than if we had the most 

 powerful fleet of war-vessels afloat in the 

 world ? Civilized nations are rapidly com- 

 ing to that chapter in their history wherein 

 it will be plainly shown that those states 

 which will command the greatest measure 

 of respect among us will be the ones which 

 have best advanced the progress of science, 

 art, and learning, and developed the culture 

 that accrues therefrom, and not those who 

 can cast the biggest cannon, and invent en- 

 gines which will kill the greatest number of 

 human beings in the shortest space of time. 

 Even aside from this, it would almost seem 

 as if our people overlook the fact sometimes 

 that were Congress to appropriate to-day suf- 

 ficient money to build a navy for this coun- 

 try which would be equal to the navies of 

 such nations as England, France, or Italy, 

 before we would have the opportunity to use 

 it in actual warfare it would be thoroughly 

 outstripped again by the marvelous rapidity 

 of the improvement that is constantly go- 

 ing on in naval architecture. The nations I 

 have mentioned have to be constantly re- 

 newing their war-vessels in order to keep 

 up with the advance in such matters, and 

 are continually selling their old patterns to 

 the lesser powers. We have not the com- 

 petition in the United States to excite any 

 such movement as this, and the men-of-war 

 we build to-day will in all probability be as 

 absolutely powerless to compete with the 

 massive floating steel and iron fortresses of 

 France and England of the future, as if we 

 were to build them as invulnerable as those 

 vessels now are, and attempt to engage with 

 what the same nations will surely possess 

 twenty-five years hence. 



One of the great outcries made by the 

 officers of our navy is, that " we are not 

 held in the proper respect on foreign sta- 

 tions," or, in other words, our puny little 



fishing-smacks do not favorably compare 

 with the ponderous ironclad hulks that rep- 

 resent the naval powers of the world, and 

 tower over them. 



Now, I have a notion that the United 

 States would gain an enormous amount of 

 respect in the eyes of foreign nations, if 

 not in the eyes of foreign navies, had she 

 upon any foreign station one of her very best 

 men-of-war and two corvettes, completely re- 

 modeled and thoroughly equipped both as 

 regards men, officers, and scientific staff, 

 and the necessary appliances to properly 

 prosecute an exploring expedition around 

 the world. It would seem to me that the 

 commander of such a little fleet, were it 

 anchored in the harbor of Shanghai or Rio 

 Janeiro to-day, would feel a far greater 

 pride in his country than were he in com- 

 mand of a scventccnth-rale gunboat, compar- 

 atively speaking, and there should steam in, 

 with flying colors, such an infernal engine 

 of destruction as the French man-of-war the 

 Foudroyant or the Devastation. With all 

 the iron and steel we could rivet on to 

 some of our best war-vessels to-day, they 

 could not be made sufficiently effective to 

 engage, with the slightest hope of success, 

 such vessels as the two I have mentioned. 

 Yet a very moderate expenditure on the part 

 of Congress would splendidly refit them for 

 exploring vessels in every sense of the word, 

 and render them creditable institutions of 

 the nation. 



I am convinced that the day will come 

 in the history of the world, whether we hold 

 together as one country or not, when all the 

 exploits of our navy during the war of the 

 rebellion will pale, so far as the credit to 

 humanity is concerned, by what was accom- 

 plished by the Wilkes Exploring Expedi- 

 tion ; and England will blush when she com- 

 pares the victories of her Nelson with the 

 results obtained by the Challenger Expedi- 

 tion, and confesses to humanity which was 

 the more important to the progress of the 

 world. 



Smile if you will, but I believe the day 

 is coming for us in our race when national 

 disputes will be settled without costing a 

 million lives, and the breaking a million 

 hearts when war between countries will 

 be as much a thing of the past as the duel 

 is now between individuals ; and finally, 

 when the functions of our brain will pre- 

 vail over the inherited instincts that came 

 down, or perhaps I had better said passed 

 up with us, along with our canine teeth. 



Let us repeat, at as early a day as possi- 

 ble, the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, and 

 sec whether we do not gain credit, respect, 

 and power by the movement, to say nothing 

 of all that is sure to accrue from it in other 

 particulars. Very respectfully, 



R. W. Srtfeldt. 

 Foet "Winoate, New Mexico, March 7, 1887. 



