AMERICA'S INFERIOR POSITION 



discoveries of substances which give off light and 

 energy without apparent drain, inexhaustible and 

 unceasing, seeming even to contradict the funda- 

 mental law of natural phenomena, the conservation 

 of energy. There Maquenne was the first to pro- 

 duce calcium carbide, from which comes acetylene 

 and a new industry; there he now pursues his 

 work upon the chemistry and constitution of the 

 sugars. I cite only two names from a score or 

 more. 



Without naming the Ecole Normale, where St. 

 Claire Deville spent his active life, or the School of 

 Arts and Manufactures, or the College of Pharmacy, 

 where both Berthelot and Moisson gained their 

 reputations, nor a number of other minor institu- 

 tions, here are three great seats of learning, chiefly 

 devoted to experiment and research. This in a 

 single city ! Need there be any marvel that France 

 should possess a roll of great names so resounding 

 that, as I have indicated, the comparatively meagre 

 roll which the United States may produce seems 

 inconsiderable indeed? 



London has a similarly admirable example to 

 offer. The amount of genuinely scientific work 

 which England has done, from the days of Boyle 

 and Hooke and Newton, has been noteworthy 

 enough in itself ; it has been astonishing, when the 



