APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE I 



MONTHLY. 



PROSPECTUS FOR 1900. 



FOR a magazine whose field has no limitations except those of science, it is 

 quite impossible to make a comprehensive announcement of its contents a 

 year ahead. Our purpose is primarily to keep its readers in touch with the most 

 recent advances and discoveries as they are applicable to the promotion of human 

 welfare and social progress. We believe that science is the force which has 

 done the most in this direction in the past, and that it is what we must look to 

 for growth in the future. We take advantage of every opportunity to secure 

 articles that shall be entertaining as well as instructive without sacrificing accu- 

 racy, and we especially seek those authors who have the ability to write upon 

 scientific subjects in a clear and instructive way. 



The most characteristic feature of the nineteenth century, and especially of its 

 latter half, has been the truly wonderful advance of science, both theoretical and 

 practical. Coincident with this advance, and very largely dependent upon it, 

 has been the unprecedented development of commerce and manufactures, of 

 social organization and national wealth. A comparison of the potentiality of an 

 unskilled laborer of one hundred years ago with that of a like workman of to-day 

 brings out most strikingly what this scientific advance has accomplished in 

 solving the problems of life and raising the standard of comfort ; so that the 

 luxuries of a few years ago are the necessities of to-day, and new pleasures have 

 been added and even become common which were formerly beyond the reach 

 of the wealthy, in view, then, of this prominently scientific aspect, the most 



18 



