30 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 



the mntter ovpr with him. sponred the interest of the philosopher, af=-ked 

 hiui some (piestions. nnd F;ir:id.v recpiested that some iiiue be given him 

 ill (ir;.'er tliat lie might coriectlv answer tlieni. AVhen Field returned 

 Faradv said to him: "It can be done, but you will not get an instantane- 

 ous message." "How long will it take," ask'td Mr, Field. "I'erhaps a 

 second," responded Mr. Fara.dy. The magneto electric light, which was 

 one of Farady's discoveries, has for years been utilized in lighthouses 

 and has been des-^ignated as "Sentinels of peaceful progress." 



I have often wondered what must have been P'arady's feelings when 

 as a member of the commttee appointed by the lighthouse board of 

 England he was called upon to pass judgment ujion the utility of liis own 

 discovery, which had been adapted to practical ends by Holmes. IHs 

 report sliows that he still carried with him the syiirit of scientific caution 

 which characterized all his works. 1 must be permitted to make the fol- 

 lowing quotation, which shows his cautious s])irit most admirably. He 

 states: "The light is so intense, so abuntlant, so concentrated and focal, 

 so free from under-shadows (caused in the common lamj) by the burner), 

 so free from flickering that one cannot but desire it should succeed; but 

 it would recpiiie very careful progressive introduction. — men with pe<*u- 

 liar knowie ge and skill to attend it, and the means of instantaneously 

 substituting one lamp for another in case of accident. The common lamp 

 is so simple both in principle and practice that its linbility to failure is 

 very small. There is no doubt that the magneto electric lamj) involves a 

 great number of circumstances tending to make its aT)])lication more re- 

 fined and delicj'te; but I would feign hone that none of these would 

 prove a barrier to its introduction. Nevertheless it must pass into prac- 

 tice only through the ordeal of a full searching and prolonged trial.". 



We are all aware of the great benefit which the discovery of vaccination 

 for smallpox by Edward Jenner has been to the world, but possibly few 

 of us krow that nearly twenty-five yeais of most j);)tient and careful in- 

 vestigation preceded this discovery. The researclies of Count Kumford 

 which led to the subsequent discovery of the mechanical ecjuivalent of 

 heat by Joule is another illustration of the great benefit that pure science 

 has been to the world. Dalton's law of definite and multi])le yirojiortions, 

 and Avogadro's st-temert that under the same conditions of heat and 

 pressure etjual volumes of all substances both simitle and combined in 

 the gaseous state eontain the same number of molecules, hnve made of 

 nioilern chemistry a science no less exact than that of mathematics; or, 

 in other words, the^^ have resulted in the application of mathematical 

 exnctne«s to the study of chemistry. 1 would not have you understand 

 from, the ^-fiitements that T hnve made that T would restrict scientific 

 investigation to the phvsical. chemical, and biological studies. As T have 

 already stated, scientific research may concern it'-'elf with any depart- 

 ment of human knowledge, and certainly some of the discoveries which 

 have been of great force in improving the condition of mankind lie out- 

 side of the jihyslcal and biological sciences. The comparative study of 

 the Arvan liTT>-na"'es, inaugurated by Hott in ISIH. has £>-ivpn us freater 

 knowledge of th'^ develonment of the most important branch of the human 

 family than we could h-^ve obtained in any other wav. T,ikewi«e the 

 comparative method of invest'eatinn' socinl ru«'toris nnd humnn institn- 

 tions has shown us how the different groups of mankind in various part» 



