100 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



eeptable results. In chemistry, the Wollaston tea-tray 

 and wine-glasses are superseded by well-equipped lab- 

 oratories. In optics we see elaborate spectroscopes, 

 not Newton's simple prism. In meteorology, and in 

 every investigation of continuous phenomena, we are 

 satisfied with nothing less than self-recording instru- 

 ments. 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 accumulated 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 Na- 

 ture." 



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 

 assert. We have only to look around us to see what 



