PLEASURES CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE. 



tend to rouse its faculties, and to excite to impor 

 tant inquiries and interesting reflections. The 

 science of mechanics presents us with many cu 

 rious combinations of mechanical powers, which, 

 from the simplest principles, produce the most 

 powerful and astonishing effects. &quot; What can 

 be more strange (says a profound and energetic 

 writer*) than that an ounce weight should ba 

 lance hundreds of pounds by the intervention of 

 a few bars of thin iron ?&quot; And when we consi 

 der that all the mechanical powers may be re 

 duced to the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, 

 the inclined plane, the wedge and the screw, how 

 astonishing are the forces exerted, and the effects 

 produced, by their various combinations in wheel- 

 carriages, mills, cranes, thrashing-machines, and 

 pile-engines ! Hydrostatics teaches us the won 

 derful fact, that a few pounds of water, without 

 the aid of any machinery, will, by mere pres 

 sure, produce an almost irresistible force ; or, in 

 other words, that any quantity of fluid, however 

 small, may be made to counterpoise any quan 

 tity, however large; and hence a very strong 

 hogshead has been burst to pieces, and the water 

 scattered about with incredible force, by means 

 of water conveyed through a very small perpen 

 dicular tube of great length. On the same prin 

 ciple, and by the same means, the foundations of 

 a largo building might be shattered, and the 

 whole structure overthrown. Magnetism dis 

 closes to us such singular facts as the following : 

 that a small piece of steel, when rubbed by 

 the loadstone, and nicely poised, will place itself 

 in a direction nearly north and south, so as to 

 point nearly towards the poles of the world, 

 that the north and south poles of two loadstones 

 will attract, and two north or two south poles re 

 pel each other ; and that the power of a magnet 

 will pass through a thick board, and turn round 

 a compass-needle, with great velocity, though 

 placed at a considerable distance. 



The science of optics likewise disclose a va 

 riety of astonishing truths, and is no less replete 

 with wonders. How wonderful the fact, that 

 light proceeds from the sun, and other luminous 

 bodies, with a velocity of 195,000 miles in a mo 

 ment of time ; that myriads of myriads of rays 

 are flying off from visible objects towards every 

 point of the compass, crossing each other in all 

 directions, and yet accurately depicting the 

 same images of external objects in thousands of 

 eves at the same moment, that the thousands 

 of millions of rays of light which proceed from 

 any particular object must be compressed into a 

 space not more than one-eighth of an inch in di 

 ameter, before they can enter the pupil of the 

 eye, and produce vision, that the images of all 

 the objects which compose an extensive land 

 scape are depicted on the bottom of the eye, in 

 all their colours and relative proportions, within 



* Lord Brougham 



a space less than half an inch in diameter, that 

 the eye can perceive objects distinctly at the dis 

 tance of six inches, and likewise at the distance 

 of ten, fifty, or an hundred miles, serving the 

 purpose both of a microscope and a telescope, 

 and can be instantaneously adjusted to serve 

 either as the one or as the other, and that the 

 variegated colouring which appears in the sce 

 nery of nature is not in the objects themselves, 

 but in the light which falls upon them, without 

 which all the scenes of creation would wear an 

 uniform aspect, and one object would be undis- 

 tinguishable from another ! 



The instruments which the science of optics 

 has been the means of constructing, are also ad 

 mirable in their effects and productive of rati 

 onal entertainment. How wonderful, that, by 

 means of an optic lens, an image is depicted in a 

 dark chamber, on a white table, in which we 

 may perceive the objects of an extensive land 

 scape delineated in all their colours, motions and 

 proportions, and so accurately represented, that 

 we even distinguish the countenances of indivi 

 duals at the distance of a mile, that we can see 

 objects distinctly when a thick board, or a piece 

 of metal, is interposed between them and our 

 eye, that the images of objects can be made to 

 hang in the air either upright o inverted, and 

 that representations either of the living or of the 

 dead can be made to start up instantly before the 

 view of a spectator in a darkened room, that, 

 by admitting into a chamber a few rays of white 

 light from the sun through a prism, all the co 

 lours of light may be seen beautifully painted on 

 a piece of paper, that a single object onay be 

 multiplied to an indefinite number, and that a 

 few coloured bits of glass may be made by re 

 flection to exhibit an infinite diversity of beauti 

 ful and variegated forms ! How admirable the 

 effects of the telescope, by which we may see 

 objects as distinctly at the distance of two or 

 three miles as if they were placed within a few 

 yards of us, by which we can penetrate into the 

 celestial regions, and behold the distant wonders 

 of the planetary system, and the millions of stars 

 dispersed through infinite space, as distinctly as 

 if we were actually transported by a supernatu 

 ral power several hundreds of millions of miles 

 into the regions of the firmament ! And how cu 

 rious the circumstance, that we can, by this in 

 strument, contemplate such objects in all direc 

 tions and positions, that we can view them 

 either as erect, or as turned upside dovm, that 

 we can perceive the spires, houses and windows 

 of a distant city when our backs are turned di 

 rectly opposite to it, and our faces in a contrary 

 direction the rings of Saturn and the moons of 

 Jupiter, when we are looking downwards with our 

 backs turned to these objects, that we can make 

 an object on our right hand or our left, appear as 

 if directly before us, and can cause a terrestrial 

 landscape to appear above us, as if it were sus* 



