E 8 SAYS. 



PROGRESS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



No ONE can have lived to his eightieth year (my pre- 

 sent age) without an occasional revision of the events 

 which have been comprised compressed one might well 

 say within this time ; and amidst many that are ex- 

 traordinary, none are more so than those which mark 

 the progress of human knowledge, and especially of 

 the physical sciences, during the period in question. 

 When travelling over continent or ocean under the 

 power of steam when looking (and I never do so 

 without a certain awe) on those wires and cables which 

 make the electric current the instantaneous messenger 

 of man over the globe or on the light of the electric 

 lamp, emulating that of the sun or on the photo- 

 graphic creations of the sun itself or on the brilliant 

 metals extracted by the chemist from the dullest earths 

 or on those spectrum lines which have made known 

 various new metals on our own globe, and even dis- 

 closed many of the constituents and physical charac- 

 ters of the sun and stars when looking at these, and 

 many similar things, showing the new mastery Man 



