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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Hamas and alpacas of Peru, the abori- 

 gines of America in the fifteenth century 

 had no cattle whatever, and the domestic 

 sheep and the wheat have been introduced 

 by the Europeans in America. 



" Was the skeleton in the Utah mound 

 of the Indian red race ? Then it must be 

 more recent than the European invasion 

 which brought wheat and cattle to Ameri- 

 ca. Or is it possible that the Colorado 

 ruins and the Utah mounds relate to an 

 Asiatic iuvasion which brought iron, wheat, 



horses, and sheep, into America before the 

 European invasion, but was exterminated, 

 with its wheat and cattle, by the Indians 

 long before Columbus. Elephants' heads, 

 represented on the walls of Palenque and 

 other Mexican ruins, would support a simi- 

 lar view, if they do not belong to extinct 

 species, which would prove an enormous 

 age for these ruins. However this may be, 

 it cannot be doubted that in 1492 the na- 

 tives of America knew neither elephants, 

 nor horses, nor sheep, nor wheat." 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ELEC- 

 TRICAL SCIENCE. 



THE story of electricity forms the 

 most romantic chapter in the his- 

 tory of science. The curious thing 

 about it is, that it has been a progress 

 from utter and absolute ignorance to the 

 most familiar and extensive practical 

 results. In all the other sciences- 

 mechanics, optics, physiology, astron- 

 omy there was a basis of common 

 knowledge, consisting of many familiar 

 facts to start with, and there is ever 

 a rudiment of science in the loose ob- 

 servations of uninstructed people con- 

 cerning things that fall within the range 

 of ordinary experience. But elec- 

 trical science had no such starting- 

 point nothing was known by common 

 people of any such agent. Lightning 

 was hardly regarded as a terrestrial 

 thing. It was the bolt of Jove, a min- 

 ister of God's wrath, or a malign agen- 

 cy of the prince of the powers of the 

 air, a kind of preternatural phenome- 

 non ; and, when amber was rubbed and 

 found to attract light bodies in a mys- 

 terious way, it was assumed to have a 

 soul and to be a sacred thing. This 

 little seed of the science did not germi- 

 nate for thousands of years. It was 

 an instructive test of the culture of the 

 human mind, and shows what an enor- 

 mous amount of preliminary mental 

 activity had to be expended before 

 men were prepared to engage in the 

 study of Nature. The natural world 



was filled with this force which we 

 now call electrical; all things were per- 

 vaded by it, but it was beneath the sur- 

 face ; it did not strike the senses, and 

 compel attention; it could be discov- 

 ered only by thought, and the investi- 

 gation could not commence until the 

 human intellect had been turned in a 

 systematic way upon natural things. 

 But when experimental inquiries in 

 electricity were once begun, their re- 

 sults were so curious and peculiar that 

 they exerted a powerful fascination 

 over the wonder-loving, and by this 

 stimulus the science grew rapidly. It 

 has given rise to a brilliant series of 

 electrical and magnetic discoveries, in- 

 ventions, and useful applications, of 

 the widest range and the highest utility 

 to civilization, such as no other science 

 has afforded. The intellectual move- 

 ment has here been from the zero of 

 total ignorance, through long observa- 

 tion and experiment, up to the richest 

 harvest of wonderful works. 



It is interesting to note how fully 

 this science belongs in its development 

 to civilization, and how widely its dis- 

 coveries are to be apportioned among 

 different nations, and it is not to be 

 overlooked that the New World shares, 

 these honors conspicuously with the 

 Old. The Englishmen Gilbert and 

 Gray were prominent in laying its 

 foundations ; the German Guericke 

 contributed essentially to the work, 

 and Du Fay, the Frenchman, gave ear- 



