88 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



Colonel Strange observes, ' Science can no longer be 

 cultivated as in by-gone times it used to be. In 

 astronomy the man with his table spy-glass cannot 

 now furnish acceptable results. In chemistry, the 

 Wollaston tea-tray and wine-glasses are superseded by 

 well-equipped laboratories. In optics we see elaborate 

 spectroscopes, not Newton's simple prism. In meteor- 

 ology, and in every investigation of continuous pheno- 

 mena, we are satisfied with nothing less than self- 

 recording instruments. In electricity, in microscopy, 

 and in other branches, our appliances are every day 

 more and more amplified. The age of great discoveries 

 made, and, above all, extensive series of facts accu- 

 mulated with limited means, is passing away ; and we 

 are every day compelled to employ more perfect 

 appliances and more systematic agencies in unravelling 

 the secrets of nature.' 



It is scarcely necessary to point out that the aid of 

 the State in securing the progress of physical science 

 is not asked without the promise of a quid pro quo. It 

 is not as though the State were called upon to aid in 

 antiquarian, or entomological, or numismatic researches, 

 or in any subject of inquiry which, however interesting, 

 has no practical bearing on the wants of daily life, or 

 on the appliances by which the social state of man may 

 be benefited and improved. Nor is it to secure the 

 spread of scientific knowledge that State aid is called 

 for, but to secure the progress of physical science. 

 That that progress cannot fail to bring with it im- 

 portant advantages to mankind it is almost needless to 



