146 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



stances of the effects of discovery. Though Corinth 

 produced what we might call Birmingham and Sheffield 

 wares, and Athens was the centre of the manufactures 

 which we now find divided between Leeds, Staffordshire, 

 and London, yet coal was not employed by the Greeks 

 and Romans ; it was not used as fuel, even at Newcastle, 

 till the thirteenth century, and only crept into general 

 use during the reign of Elizabeth. This one product 

 has been the main cause of a complete revolution in our 

 national industry. It is only a generation or two since 

 that, by means of the raw material, coal, was evoked a 

 new motive-power, steam, and that iron was first ex- 

 tensively applied to mining, to machinery, and to locomo- 

 tion. Now every civilised country is scored with railroads, 

 cities are lighted with gas, and coal and iron promise to 

 change the characters of our ships and our mariners. 

 Before coal was used to generate steam, the sites of 

 manufacturing towns were determined chiefly by the 

 convenience of mill-streams, and the woods were the 

 seats of smelting. The forest fires are now extinguished ; 

 the fabrication of iron has travelled to the coal-fields, 

 which have become the densest-peopled parts of the 

 kingdom, and the scenes of the busiest industry. Wool, 

 once the staple industry of England, is now second in 

 magnitude and importance compared with cotton ; yet, 

 with the discovery of new sources of supply, and with in- 

 creased home production, the quantity made into cloth- 

 ing is vastly greater than in former times. The develop- 

 ment of the cotton industry is another example of the 

 application of raw produce to extended uses. The intro- 

 duction on the Continent of the silkworm, more than a 

 thousand years ago, gave rise to the unrivalled manu- 

 factures of the South of France, and originated one of 

 the chief elements of the wealth of Italy and Greece. 

 The dyeing of textile fabrics leads us into the domain of 

 chemistry, a subject requiring a volume merely to name 

 its discoveries. Indigo has displaced woad as a blue 

 dye ; and the new aniline colours, outvying the Tyrian 

 purple, elevate our taste and gratify our sense of beauty. 

 If we take other examples, similar facts appear. The 

 Chilian potato has provided food for many millions of 

 people, and in 300 years has reached a perfection in 

 Eui*ope to which in its native soil it never approached. 

 Maize has become an important crop round the Medi- 

 terranean ; while wheat, which was given to America in 

 exchange, has flourished there so greatly as to admit of 

 large exports to the Old World. 



Discoveries of the utmost value appear, for a time, of 

 less moment, because their full development is not at 

 first reached or foreseen. It is not easy for us to deter- 

 mine how far the industrial and social habits of posterity 

 may be influenced by the production of the hydro-car- 

 bons and mineral oils. From the first employment of 

 caoutchouc for rubbing out pencil-marks, its applications 

 have been manifold. In gutta-percha we see applica- 

 tions of a new raw material to telegraphy, embracing the 

 world. We need but contrast the present period of our 

 history with any former period, or the condition of any 

 one country with another, to perceive the effect of such 

 knowledge upon human well-being. Every year adds to 

 our list of useful animal, vegetable, and mineral sub- 

 stances ; while the greater consumption of those already 

 known calls forth, as a rule, greater production. Thus 

 the importance of a knowledge of raw materials cannot 

 be overrated. It is a matter of personal interest to every- 

 body in every part of the world. 



No abstract reasoning would have led us to discover 

 the properties and uses of iron, without first seeing, 

 handling, and examining a piece of that metal. Experi- 

 ment has founded this department of knowledge. Every 

 discovery of a new material, or a new property of an old 

 material, has suggested new uses, and fresh necessities 

 have led continually to fresh researches. We know that 



f dyeing, tanning, brewing, glass-making, and weaving were 

 known to the Egyptians in very ancient times, ranging 

 from 1,500 to 2,500 years before Christ, These indus- 

 trial operations involved an earlier discovery of the raw 

 substances operated upon. Indigo and purple dyes ; bark 

 and other astringents that effect the change from skin 

 to leather ; barley and malt ; silicious sands and alkalies 

 that, admixed, form glass ; silk, linen, and cotton all of 

 these must have made part of the earliest human history. 

 Passing over along interval, we read of quills being used 

 for writing (A.D. 600), of the use of sugar among the Arabs 

 (A.D. 850), and of coffee among the Persians (A.D. 875). 

 After the lapse of several centuries, America opened to 

 us another world of raw produce. The potato was intro- 

 duced into Europe in the last decade of the sixteenth 

 century, and its cultivation rapidly spread during the 

 seventeenth century. Maize, cocoa, and tobacco were 

 likewise made familiar to us. 



Without extending the list, we may dwell upon the 

 thought of how much we owe to the past, even in these 

 few selected instances. The same methods that rewarded 

 our ancestors with fruits of discovery, must be still 

 followed by us in order to add to their number. Our 

 forefathers observed, compared, tested, and applied, age 

 by age, the gifts of nature, and bequeathed to us the 

 accumulated store of knowledge which we inherit. To 

 come into possession of our share of this knowledge of 

 economic substances, our study must begin at home. 

 Here the things are at hand, and we early become accus- 

 tomed to the use of them. With imports from all parts 

 of the earth, it has become difficult to say whether we 

 are most interested in home or in foreign produce. In 

 England, the facilities for study surpass those of other 

 nations, and we may reverse the usual steps of inquiry, 

 and endeavour, from the raw substance itself, to deduce 

 or to arrive at the conditions of its being, wherein it 

 differs from all other substances. What we know of the 

 undeviating laws of nature, opens our minds to inferences 

 and generalisations whenever a basis of facts is broad 

 enough to support a correct induction. 



In the vegetable kingdom, we see the distinction be- 

 tween an endogen and an cxogen clearly marked from the 

 cotyledons through the whole life-history of the plants. 

 (See Figs. 10, 11, in Lessons in Botany, III., Vol. I., p. 81). 

 The structure of the stem, the veining of the leaves, the 

 number and character of the floral organs, the method of 

 the secretions, all differ persistently in the great sub- 

 kingdoms. A worker in wood will tell from the texture 

 and grain, not merely the species, but the variety of 

 tree, and the place of its growth. A mahogany mer- 

 chant will distinguish the timber of Cuba from that of 

 other West Indian territory, and island growths from 

 the growths of the mainland. Again, the starches 

 prevailing amongst so many plants are known apart by 

 the form of their grains, so that potato-starch mixed 

 with arrowroot can be easily detected; and flour of 

 every kind indicates in the same way the grain from 

 which it was prepared. The microscope shows an iden- 

 tity of structure between the nutmeg, or hard kernel, 

 and the arillus, or mace, that enwraps it, and would prove 

 that the two substances belong to each other, greatly as 

 they differ in appearance, even though their relationship 

 were not otherwise known. In a general way, if we see 

 a rattan, bamboo, or palm stem, we at once know it to 

 be an exotic or tropical production ; and we infer, from 

 the ferns and palms of the coal measures, that the beds 

 of shale and coal originated under circumstances of 

 climate quite different from the temperate and frozen 

 regions where they are now found. 



Examples abound equally in the animal kingdom. We 

 do not hesitate to draw climatic inferences from the 

 presence of the bones of fossil carnivora in cold regions, 

 although such inferences receive no support from the 



