344 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Oct. 



stars withBaily (ee) ; or investigate electricity with Harris, Ronalds, 

 Thomson, and Jenkin (ff ) ; or try the action of long-continued 

 heat with Harcourt (gg) ; in these and a hundred other directions, 

 our attempts to gain knowledge have brought back new facts and 

 new laws of phenomena, or better instruments for attaining, or 

 better methods for interpreting them. Even when we enter the 

 domain of practical art, and apply scientific methods to test a 

 great process of manufacture, we do not fail of success, because we 

 are able to join in united exertion the laborious cultivators of 

 science and the scientific employers of labor. 



Am I asked to give an example ? Let it be iron, the one 

 substance by the possession of which, by the true knowledge and 

 right use of which, more than by any other thing, our national 

 greatness is supported. What are the ores of iron — what the 

 peculiarities and improvements of the smelting processes — what 

 the quality of the iron — its chemical composition — its strength in 

 columns and girders as cast iron ; in rails and boiler plate, in 

 tubes and chains, as wrought iron — what are the best forms in 

 which to employ it, the best methods of preserving it from decay ? 

 — these and many other questions are answered by many special 

 reports in our volumes, bearing the names of Barlow, Mallet, 

 Porter, Fairbairn, Bunsen, Playfair, Percy, Budd, Hodgkinson, 

 Thomson ; and very numerous other communications from Lucas, 

 Fairbairn, Cooper, Nicholson, Price, Crane, Hartley, Davy, 

 Mushet, Hawkes, Penny, Scoresby, Dawes, Calvert, Clark, Cox, 

 Hodgkinson, May, Schafhaeutl, Johnston, Clay, and Boutigny.. 

 Beyond a question, a reader of such of these valuable documents 

 as relate to the strength of iron, in its various forms, would be 

 far better informed of the right course to be followed in experi- 

 ments on armor-plated ships and forts to resist assault, and in the 

 construction of ordnance to attack them, than is likely to be "from 

 merely witnessing a thousand trials of the cannon against the 

 target. Any one who remembers what the iron furnace was forty 

 years ago, and knows its present power of work ; or who contrasts 

 the rolling mills and hammers of other days, with the beautiful 

 machines which now, with the gentlest motion but irresistible 



(ee) British Association Catalogue of Stars, 1845. 

 (ff) The latest result of these researches is an instrumental standard 

 of electrical resistance. (Reports of the British Association, 1863-1864.) 

 (gg) Reports of the British Association, 1846-1860. 



