REPORT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. Iv 



mended hereafter under our third head, be adopted, the propriety of such a 

 Capitol of Science would be more evident. 



Having, however, considered this question in all its bearings, we cannot 

 too strongly express our conviction, that the juxtaposition of the principal 

 scientific societies would confer a most important benefit on Science ; and 

 almost all concur in this opinion. 



Of late years, considerable encouragement has been extended to practical 

 science, and this is praiseworthy, provided that abstract science receive its 

 due measure of support; but the genius of our countrymen is so eminently 

 practical, that there is great fear that the less showy branch may be com- 

 paratively neglected. Mr. Grove observes, that in that case, " not only will 

 practical science itself suffer, but the country will lose its position in the 

 scale of nations in all that most exalts them." It would be, in fact, to use a 

 common phrase, a beginning at the wrong end. 



This is a subject on which much misconception prevails, and this Report 

 may be read by some to whom the facts about to be stated are not so familiar 

 as they are to those to whom it is primarily addressed. The following state- 

 ment, therefore, may not be deemed wholly uncalled for. It is not uncom- 

 mon to hear, or even to read, remarks in which the practical application of 

 scientific truths is lauded at the expense of Science itself, so that it might be 

 inferred, that those from whom such observations proceed were completely 

 ignorant, — 1st, of the extent to which the most abstract scientific investigations 

 have often led to the most useful industrial applications ; and 2ndly, of the 

 many instances in w^hich observations and experiments, seemingly trivial, and 

 likely to lead to no useful result, have, sometimes after the lapse of years and 

 after having been submitted to a succession of master minds, been elaborated 

 into discoveries of the greatest importance to the progress of civilization, 

 and which do honour to human nature. 



These objectors to pure Science have either forgotten, or never learnt, 

 that, in the words of an eminent writer, "the modern art of navigation is an 

 unforeseen emanation from the purely speculative, and apparently merely 

 curious inquiry, by the mathematicians of Alexandria, into the properties of 

 three curves formed by the intersection of a plane surface and a cone." 



The Steam-Engine itself, so simple in its origin, and yet so fruitful of 

 great results, derived its most important improvements from the abstract 

 investigations, by Dr. Black and others, into the nature of heat ; — though it 

 required the genius of a Watt to make them available in practice. 



Some curious properties of chemical substances, when acted on by light, 

 were noted, and then arose the art of Photography, the applications of which 

 both to Science and Art are in course of continual extension. Marvellous 

 properties of light, called its ^^polarization" led to the invention of instru- 

 ments by which submarine rocks may be discovered, to new modes of 

 detecting the nature of chemical liquids, and to improvements in the art 

 of refining beet-root sugar. 



Observations of the magnetism of iron, and on the elasticity of steel and 

 relative expansions of metals, were the origin of the compass and chronometer, 

 without which navigation and commerce (and how many countless blessings 

 follow in their train I) would now be in almost as rude a state as in the time 

 of the ancients. 



The examination of the properties of gases passing through narrow aper- 

 tures, showed us how to shield the miner from destruction ; and other chemical 

 investigations, how to preserve the sheathing of ships from corrosion — an in- 

 vention which, from unforeseen and remarkable causes, failed at first, but is 

 now successful. 



