PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSSOCIATION. 497 



great accessible coal deposit in Europe. But we have far greater 

 resources of this description than she has, thus : We have, in 

 Pennsylvania, more coal than England ever had. We have, also, 

 more coal in each of the States of Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, 

 Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri, and probably in Kansas, than is 

 known to exis^ in all the rest of the world put together. Were 

 our population to become as dense as that of China or Japan, we 

 should have for each person a ton of coal every year for at least 

 ten thousand years to come. I say then that we are destined to 

 become the great manufacturing and commercial nation of the 

 globe, if, happily, we can only keep together. 



IMPROVED JOURNALS FOR RAILROAD CARS. 



Mr. Atkinson exhibited Hopkins' patent brass journal for rail- 

 road cars, which had been in use upon the Central Railroad, of N. 

 Jersej'-, for six months, and had run 63,000 miles. It weighed two 

 pounds fourteen ounces, when new, and now weighs seventeen and 

 a half ounces. It ran three months with one oiling. The box is 

 made tight, so as to keep the dirt out. 



APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO THE MILITARY ART. 



Prof. Seely. — I presume it was not the intention, in selecting this 

 subject, to include the application of chemistry to provide for the 

 ordinary wants of the soldier, but merely its application to the 

 pyrotechnic or destructive art. There is an exaggeration in the 

 public, mind with regard to what chemistry is capable of doing, 

 and as to what it has done in warfare. The far-famed Greek fire, 

 which was said to destroy ever3^thing in its way, and which 

 water would not extinguish, was not near as efficient as ordinary 

 camphine or alcohol. It seems that it was substantially com- 

 posed of our petroleum oil. 



Some modes of applying chemistry are objected to because of 

 their barbarism, such as firing poisoned balls, or poisoning the 

 provisions of the enemy. It is not the object of modern warfare 

 to make men sick for life, or to destroy the lives of men, women 

 and children, indiscriminately, but to defeat soldiers in the field, 

 until the war can be ended. 



The military is now the most perfect of all the ai-ts, for no 

 other art has been so much encouraged by governments. 



I think that a shell six inches in diameter, filled with melted 

 cast iron, will have more effect than a hogshead of any inflamma- 

 ble fluid that could be fired. Sulphuric acid, sprinkled over an 

 [Am. Inst.] FP 



