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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE MARCH OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE. 



IT is idle to be continually repeating 

 that this is a very wonderful age ; 

 but we may with good reason congratu- 

 late ourselves that science has now 

 reached a point that insures to the 

 human race an ever-increasing mastery 

 over the powers and resources of na- 

 ture, and that ought, with any kind of 

 right management, to be productive of 

 better modes of life from year to year, 

 not for the few only but for all. At the 

 last meeting of the British Association 

 an address was delivered by Mr, Preece, 

 President of the Section of Mechanical 

 Science, which, though confined to the 

 single subject of the recent advances in 

 the practical applications of electricity, 

 furnishes a vivid picture of the changes 

 which scientific knowledge generally is 

 woi'king in the world. Things that to 

 our forefathers were perfect types of 

 the unknowable, are to-day, as Mr. 

 Preece remarks, among the best-under- 

 stood of natural phenomena, if not in 

 relation to their ultimate cause, at least 

 in regard to the laws of their operation. 

 Among the various troublesome ques- 

 tions asked of the patriarch Job was one 

 as to whether he could send lightnings, 

 so that they might come and go at his 

 bidding. Of course, Job had to give it 

 up; but that was not because the prob- 

 lem was absolutely insoluble, but be- 

 cause he had not the scientific knowl- 

 edge necessary to solve it. To-day 

 lightnings are flying to and fro in most 

 complete subjection to the will of man ; 

 and even the free lightnings of heaven 

 have to a large extent been placed un- 

 der bonds to do him no harm. Mr. 

 Preece antedates, we observe, by five 

 years the classical experiment of Frank- 

 lin with the electricity of the clouds, 

 placing it in 1747 instead of in 1752 ; but 

 he is correct in stating that nearly a 

 century elapsed after Franklin's great 

 discovery before, as a working power, 



electricity was fairly mastered. Natu- 

 rally the Church was opposed to the 

 study of electricity in its beginnings ; but 

 that study has been too fruitful of bene- 

 ficial results, and too victoriously success- 

 ful all along the line, to remain under a 

 ban of any kind. Churches themselves 

 are now protected by liglitning-rods 

 against random thunderbolts, just as 

 the clergy, in common with other class- 

 es, are protected by vaccination against 

 small-pox. On the subject of lightning- 

 rods, Mr. Preece's declaration that " as 

 long as points remain points, as long as 

 conductors remain conductors, as long 

 as the rods make proper connection with 

 the earth, lightning protectors will pro- 

 tect," is a word spoken in season; as 

 also is the caution he goes on to give as 

 to the neglect of the conditions upon 

 which the whole efficiency of the sys- 

 tem of protection against lightning de- 

 pends. 



It would be impossible within our 

 limits to give anything like a satisfac- 

 tory summary of the very interesting 

 address to which we have referred. Two 

 or three points may, however, be sin- 

 gled out for notice. The electric tele- 

 graph may now be said to have been in 

 use for business purposes for half a cent- 

 ury. The rate of transmission at the 

 outset was five words a minute ; to- 

 day it is six hundred. Cooke and 

 Wheatstone required five wires for their 

 first needle instrument, which worked 

 only at the rate of four words a minute ; 

 whereas one wire now conveys six mes- 

 sages simultaneously at ten times the 

 speed. On the 8th of April, 1886, now 

 nearly three years ago, when Mr. Glad- 

 stone introduced his Home-Eule Bill in 

 the British House of Commons, no less 

 than 1,500,000 words were sent over 

 the wires from the Central Telegraph 

 ofilce in London. Mr. Preece seems to 

 approve of the purchase of the tele- 

 graphs by the British Government. He 



