70 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
researches. But it is not the less true that in the case of 
wearing apparel and this for reasons which I have given 
in analyzing the experiment of Franklin black dresses are 
more potent than white ones as absorbers of solar heat. 
Thus, in brief outline, have been brought before you a 
few of the results of recent inquiry. If you ask me what 
is the use of them, I can hardly answer you, unless you 
define the term use. If you meant to ask whether those 
dark rays which clear away the Alpine snows, will ever be 
applied to the roasting of turkeys, or the driving of steam- 
engines while affirming their power to do both, I would 
frankly confess that they are not at present capable of 
competing profitably with coal in these particulars. Still 
they may have great uses unknown to me; and when our 
coal-fields are exhausted, it is possible that a more ethereal 
race than we are may cook their victuals, and perform their 
work, in this transcendental way. But is it necessary that 
the student of science should have his labors tested by 
their possible practical applications? What is the prac- 
tical value of Homer's Iliad? You smile, and possibly 
think that Homer's Iliad is good as a means of culture. 
There's the rub. The people who demand of science prac- 
tical uses, forget, or do not know, that it also is great as a 
means of culture that the knowledge of this wonderful 
universe is a thing profitable in itself, and requiring no 
practical application to justify its pursuit. 
But while the student of nature distinctly refuses to 
have his labors judged by their practical issues unless the 
term practical be made to include mental as well as 
material good, he knows full well that the greatest prac- 
tical triumphs have been episodes in the search after pure 
natural truth. The electric telegraph is the standing 
wonder of this age, and the men whose scientific knowledge, 
and mechanical skill, have made the telegraph what it is, 
are deserving of all honor. In fact, they have had their 
reward, both in reputation and in those more substantial 
benefits which the direct service of the public always car- 
ries in its train. But who, I would ask, put the soul into 
this telegraphic body? Who snatched from heaven the 
fire that flashes along the line? This, I am bound to say, 
was done by two men, the one a dweller in Italy,* the 
*Volta. 
