CORRESP ONDENCE. 



529 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



DR. LARDNER AND TRANSATLANTIC 

 STEAM-NAVIGATION. 



To tiie Editors of the Popular Science Monthly. 



GENTLEMEN : In your December num- 

 ber, under the heading " Editor's 

 Table," you Socratically repeat the state- 

 ment that Dr. Lardner declared that steam- 

 navigation across the Atlantic was imprac- 

 ticable. This statement you will find on 

 examination to be incorrect ; and, as I con- 

 sider that your publication is well adapted 

 to make known the fticts in the case, I 

 transmit them to you, in the hope that you 

 will publish them, and so contribute to their 

 becoming generally known. Scientific men, 

 as necessarily lovers of truth and exactness, 

 can not but desire that such a statement 

 should not be continued unless founded on 

 the basis to which it pretends. General 

 readers will soon adopt the correction of 

 the error if properly laid before them, not- 

 withstanding a possible bias toward enjoy- 

 ing what they at present regard as a dis- 

 proved fallacy advanced by a very able man. 

 The facts are as follows : 



In 1828 there was published in New 

 York, by Elara Bliss, 128 Broadway, an 

 edition of Dr. Lardner's " Popular Lectures 

 on the Steam-Engine, . . . with additions by 

 James Renwick, Professor of Natural Ex- 

 perimental Philosophy and Chemistry in 

 Columbia College, New York." Mr. Ren- 

 wick in his preface says : " A few additions 

 have been considered necessary. . . . They 

 may be distinguished from the original para- 

 graphs of the text from their being marked 

 , by letters instead of numbers, and their hav- 

 ing the initials A. E. subscribed to each of 

 them." 



At page 157 of the work I refer to, the 

 eleventh lecture of Dr. Lardner will be found 

 to commence with this proposition: "One 

 of the most interesting and important uses 

 of the steam-engine is its application to 

 nautical purposes. There are various ways 

 in which this machine may be used in pro- 

 pelling a vessel through the deep ; but that 

 which is now universally adopted is by giv- 

 ing, through its means, rotation to paddle- 

 wheels placed at the side of the vessel." 

 And Dr. Lardner further on says: "In 1812 

 steam-vessels were first introduced upon the 

 Clyde, and since that period steam-naviga- 

 tion has rapidly extended, so that at present 

 there is scarcely a part of the civilized globe 

 to which it has not found its way. 2'he 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have been trav- 

 ersed by its powers, and if the prolific results 



of human invention should suggest means 

 of diminishing the consumption of fuel, or 

 obtaining a supply of heat from materials 

 sufficiently small and light, it woidd be hard 

 to assign limits to the powers of this most won- 

 derful agent.'''' 



Now, we have here from Dr. Lardner 

 the broadest statement possible from so 

 careful and exact a man, that he rather 

 expected "the prolific results of human in- 

 vention," not only to render " steam-naviga- 

 tion across the Atlantic " practicable, but to 

 carry the uses of steam so far that he would 

 not venture to assign limits to them. And 

 the whole of his eleventh lecture is in this 

 sense and tone. 



But Mr. Renwick, at page 167 of the 

 quoted work, has this note : 



"(A:.) The steam-engine may compete 

 successfully with the wind as a propeller 

 of vessels, whenever certainty of conveyance 

 becomes important, as in the case of passage- 

 boats upon lakes and rivers. But there are 

 cases where steam becomes inapplicable to nav- 

 igation. Upon the open ocean, although the 

 safety of steamships has been fully tested, 

 the vast quantity of fuel necessary in a long 

 passage will prevent its use in distant voyages, 

 and it is besides far less economic than the 

 propulsion by means of sails. (A. E.) " 



I have italicized a few of the more im- 

 portant words in these extracts, which show 

 that it was not Dr. Lardner but Mr. Ren- 

 wick who has to take the responsibility of 

 having said that " steam-navigation across 

 the Atlantic was impracticable." 

 Respectfully, 



James Burns, M. D, 



New Orleans, December 7, 1878. 



INSECTS AND COLORED FLOWERS. 

 To the Editors of the Popular Science Monthly. 



DcRiNG the summer I have spent much 

 of my time in a porch surrounded by petu- 

 nias and morning-glories, of all shades of 

 color from white to bright purple and dark 

 violet. I first observed that the colored 

 petunias were torn to pieces every day be- 

 fore noon, while the white or pale ones es- 

 caped almost uninjured. I soon discovered 

 that the bees and butterflies were the mis- 

 chief-makers, and that the damage was done 

 with their sharp claws in struggling to get 

 to the bottom of the flower-cup, I kept a 

 close watch down to the present day — when 

 the bees and butterflies are gone, and a few 

 blossoms still remain, never molested — and 



