Manchester Memoirs, Vol. hit. {igi^), No. lH. 39 



on " The Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel without 

 Fuel'' is given, a no better treatment than was later given 

 to De Rougemont, the great hoaxer. The 1898 Report con- 

 tains the following :— Section E, page 943. " Twenty-eight 

 years in Central Australia," by Louis De Rougemont, 

 and Section H, page 1015, " On the Natives of North-West 

 Australia," by ditto. With regard to this matter, Sir 

 William H. Bailey wrote to me on August 25th, as 

 follows : — 



The difficulties that assail pioneers can be further exem- 

 plified by a mention of those that had to be surmounted by 

 the greatest discoverer of the nineteenth century — Dr. Joule. 



He wrote a paper, making public the Laws of the 

 Conservation of Energy and the Mechanical Equivalent 

 of Heat, for the British Association Meeting, in 1844. I 

 believe that this was the Cork Meeting, as my late friend, 

 Mr. Denny Lane, who had to do with it, was then manager 

 of the Cork Gas Company — he later became the Chairman 

 of Directors. Mr. Denny Lane was requested by a friend 

 of Joule's to get together an audience, as it looked as 

 though Joule's paper would he read in an empty room, for 

 even those friendly to him took no interest in his discovery, 

 not understanding the same. One of the officials also 

 sought Mr. Lane's help in getting together a few listeners. 



Mr. Lane, in relating this to me, some time later, said, 

 " I was one of five, and we listened for politeness' sake to 

 Joule, and not one of us was any the wiser when he had 

 finished his paper, as we could not understand it." 



I believe that Joule mentioned his experience to his 

 brother baptist who was honorary organist at St. Peter's 

 Church, and where Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Sowler, the 

 Editor of the " Manchester Courier," was Churchwarden. 

 Through Mr. Sowler's kind influence, a number of young men 

 connected with the Sunday School of St. Peter's formed 

 another audience somewhere near St. James's Square, I think 

 in Back Iving Street, and this obtained for the discoverer a 

 paragraph in the " Manchester Courier." Afterwards we 

 know that it gradually dawned upon the scientific societies 

 in Europe that this son of a Salford brewer had discovered 

 the greatest generalisation of the Laws of Force and Energy. 

 It is not to be wondered at that a new discovery has a diffi- 

 culty in getting an audience, for all discoveries of great 



