ECONOMY OF NITEOGEX. 



171 



we are justly revolted on these occasions by his 

 hypocritical observance of forms, is very true ; 

 nevertheless, their general action and the lan- 

 guage of their natioual critics in these cases 

 prove the existence of at least a rudimentary 

 conscience. No compunction for breach of in- 

 ternational law or justice, we may be sure, ever 

 visited the heart of Tiglath-pileser. Cicero's let- 

 ter of advice to his brother on the government 

 of a province may seem a tissue of truisms now, 

 though Warren Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey 

 would hardly have found it so, but it is a land- 

 mark in the history of civilization. That the 

 Roman Republic should die, and that a colossal 

 and heterogeneous empire should fall under the 

 rule of a military despot, was perhaps a fatal ne- 



cessity ; but the despotism long continued to be 

 tempered, elevated, and rendered more beneficent 

 by the lingering spirit of the republic : the liber- 

 alism of Trajan and the Antonines was distinctly 

 republican ; nor did sultanism finally establish 

 itself before Diocletian. Perhaps we may num- 

 ber among the proofs of the Roman's superiority 

 the capacity — shown, so far as we know, first by 

 him — of being touched by the ruin of a rival. 

 We may be sure that no Assyrian conqueror even 

 affected to weep over the fall of a hostile city, 

 however magnificent and historic. On the whole, 

 it must be allowed that physical influences have 

 seldom done better for humanity than they did 

 in shaping the imperial character and destinies 

 of Rome. — Contemporary Review. 



ECONOMY OF NITEOGEK 



"TT7"E have repeatedly heard the observation 

 V V that chemists, in complaining of " waste," 

 are guilty of inconsistency. If matter, it was 

 argued, is indestructible, and if no element can 

 be converted — whether designedly or accidental- 

 ly — into another, waste is simply an impossibility. 

 Such censures are the natural result of an educa- 

 tion based rather upon literature than upon sci- 

 ence, and are in themselves of no moment. Still, 

 as in England — unlike Germany — a man of gen- 

 eral " culture" is considered entitled to lay down 

 the law upon any subject whatsoever, and is often 

 listened to with more attention than the specialist 

 or the man of original research, it may be useful 

 to point out the fallacy involved. 



Waste, from a chemico-technical point of 

 view, depends not on the fancied destruction of 

 some element, nor on its transmutation into some 

 other simple body, but on useful matter being 

 thrown into a state where it is no longer immedi- 

 ately available for our purposes. It is thus, so 

 to speak, locked up ; withdrawn, for a longer or 

 shorter time, from circulation, just like specie 

 buried by a miser of the old school. Such trans- 

 mutations may take place in various manners. 

 A useful substance, whether simple or compound, 

 may be brought into the state of a highly-dilute 

 solution, or may be mixed with solid matter in so 

 minute a proportion as to be practically irrecov- 

 erable. Nature presents us with many instances 

 of bodies valuable, indeed, in themselves, but 

 rendered useless by admixture with a vast excess 



of alien substances. We need only mention, as 

 cases in point, the silver and iodine, whose pres- 

 ence has been demonstrated in sea-water, the gold 

 in many varieties of quartz and pyrites, and the 

 sulphur in coal. To obtain a shilling's worth of 

 silver from sea-water costs more than a shilling, 

 and the amount of precious metal thus dissolved 

 in the ocean — immense as it doubtless is — may 

 be, in our present state of knowledge, pronounced 

 practically non-existent. 



Now, art is constantly engaged in reducing 

 useful substances into a similar condition. Every 

 time a sovereign is handled in the course of busi- 

 ness, or shaken against other coins in the purse 

 or the cash-box, some small trace of gold is 

 abraded. The quantity lost may be too trifling 

 to be visible, and might even elude spectroscopic 

 detection ; but that loss does constantly take 

 place we know, since by the mere continuance of 

 such ordinary wear and tear the current coin of 

 the realm ultimately becomes " light." The sil- 

 ver fork or spoon, the brass-work of the micro- 

 scope and the balance, the leaden gutter or spout, 

 the iron key, spade, or wheel-tire, are all, in like 

 manner, gradually wearing away, losing their sub- 

 stance in particles so minute as to elude observa- 

 tion, and becoming thus distributed no one can 

 say where. Nothing is indeed destroyed, but 

 everything is becoming mixed. There may be 

 natural processes by which all these microscopic 

 films and fragments of metals, and other useful 

 substances, are being sorted out and collected 



