Sept. 18, 1885.] 



♦ KNO^VLEDGE ♦ 



of Governments, while it has at the same time altered 

 the whole practice of commerce. To England steam and 

 electricity have been of incalculable advantage. The 

 ocean, which once made the country insular and isolated, 

 is now the very life-blood of England and of the greater 

 England beyond the seas. As in the human body the 

 blood bathes all its parts, and through its travelling 

 corpuscles carries force to all its members, so, in the body 

 politic of England and its pelagic extensions, steam has 

 become the circulatory and electricity tho nervous system. 

 The colonies, being young countries, value their raw 

 materials as their chief sources of wealth. When they 

 become older they will discover it is not in these, but in 

 the culture of scientific intellect, that their future pros- 

 perity depends. Older nations recognise this as the law 

 of progress more than we do ; or, as Jules Simon tersely 

 puts it, " That nation which most educates her people 

 will become the greatest nation ; if not to-day, certainly 

 to-morrow." — Sir L. Playfair. 



No great discovery flashes upon the world at once, 

 and, therefore. Pope's lines on Newton are only a poetic 



" Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, 

 God said, ' Let Ne%vton be,' and all was light." 

 No doubt the road upon which he travelled had been 

 long in preparation by other men. The exact observa- 

 tions of Tycho Brahe, coupled with the discoveries of 

 Copernicus^ Kepler, and Galileo, had already broken down 

 the authority of Aristotle and weakened that of the 

 Church. But, though the conceptions of the imiverse 

 were thus broadened, mankind had not yet rid themselves 

 of the idea that the powers of the universe were still 

 regulated by spirits or special providences. Even Kepler 

 moved the planets by spirits, and it took some time to 

 knock these celestial steersmen on the head. Descartes, 

 who really did so much by his writings to force the con- 

 clusion that the planetary movements should be dealt 

 with as an ordinary problem in mechanics, looked upon 

 the universe as a machine, the wheels of which were 

 kept in motion by the unceasing exercise of a divine 

 power. Yet such theories were only an attempt to 

 regulate the universe by celestial intelligences like our 

 own, and by standards within our reach. It required 

 the discovery of an all-pervading law, universal through- 

 out all space, to enlarge the thoughts of men, and one 

 which, while it widened the conceptions of the universe, 

 reduced the earth and solar system to true dimensions. 

 It is by the investigation of the finite on all sides that 

 we obtain a higher conception of the infinite — 

 " Willst du ins Unendliche schreitcn, 

 Geh nur im Flndlichen nach alien Seiten." 



—Sir L. Flayfair. 



Navigation and commerce mightily benefited by our 

 better knowledge of the motions of the heavenly bodies. 

 Still, these benefits to humanity arc incomparably less in 

 the history of progress than the cxpansiiui of (lie Iniiuan 

 intellect which followed tho withdrawn! cf tlii> cMMiups 

 that confined it. Truth was now able to iliscunl auth. rily, 

 and marched forward without hindrance. iJcfurc this 

 point was reached Bruno had been burned, Galileo had 

 abjured, and both Copernicus and Descartes had kept 

 back their writings for fear of offending the Church. Tho 

 recent acceptance of evolution in biology has had a like 

 effect in producing a far profoundcr intellcctiial change in 

 human thought than any mere impulse of industrial de- 

 velopment. Already its application to sociology and 

 education is recognised, but that is of less import to 

 human progress than the broadening of our views of 



Natur.'. .\l -r, ' • .1' r ,. 1 ; ' ■ is, then, the true 



fouii'l^' I : : I'-ture of modem 



civil!- ■ "uld take part in 



itslii'iiM :::.i_, rr\.^-r.', -.uA. i\ ! ' .. inlvance it for its 

 own sake and not for its applications. Ignorance may 

 walk in the path lighted by advancing knowledge, but 

 she is unable to follow when science passes her, for, like 

 the foolish virgin, she has no oil in her lamp. An esta- 

 blished truth in science is like the constitution of an 

 atom in matter — something so fixed in the order of 

 things that it has become independent of further dangers 

 in the struggle for existence. The stim of such truths 

 forms the intellectual treasure which descends to each 

 generation in hereditary succession. Though the dis- 

 coverer of a new truth is a benefactor to humanity, he 

 can give little to futurity in comparison with the wealth 

 of knowledge which he inherited from the past. We, in 

 our generation, should appreciate and use our great 

 possessions — 



" For me your tributary stores combine, 

 Creation's heir ; the world, the world is mine." 



—Sir L. Playfair. 



Mr. Buchan, secretary of the Meteorological Society 

 of Scotland, read a paper on the rainfall of the British 

 Islands, in which he gave the results of observations 

 duritigthe twenty-four years from 1860 to 1883, at 1,080 

 stations in England and Wales, 547 in Scotland, and 213 

 in Ireland ; in all 1,840. The regions of heaviest rainfall 

 marked off by an average of 80 in. or upwards annually 

 were four — Skye and a large portion of the mainland to 

 the south-east a-s far as Luss, on Loch Lomond, the greater 

 part of the Lake district, a long strip including the more 

 mountainous part of North Wales and the mountainous 

 district in the south-east of Wales. The West Highlands 

 presented the most extensive region of heaviest rainfall in 

 the British Islands. The heaviest rainfall in Scotland, 

 128-50 in., was at Glencroe. On the other hand, the 

 smallest rainfall, varying from 22-50 in. to 25 in., over- 

 spread a large section of the south-east of England from 

 the Humber to the estuary of the Thames, excluding the 

 higher grounds of Lincoln and Norfolk, and including 

 a small patch in the valley of the Thames from Kew to 

 Marlow. 



Mr. J. Wilson Swan read a paper on an electric safety- 

 lamp for miners, in which he submitted the latest result 

 of an attempt to adapt electric lighting to the require- 

 ments of coal - mining. He said it was more than 

 doubtful if any of the lamps at ] rr^- r* ^n i;-'!- v, r-vf ^-ife 

 in an explosive atmosphere in a st -i '" ! • :•■ 'I r ■ id 

 motion, or when subject to a ru~' ~ -t 



Mental ? ' * ' 



1 \N ick in- 

 ;-ide, was 

 : ... The 



fragile ,Mrfi(i,.„ of , 

 barrier to t! .■ . 

 side tl..' Inii.o .. .: 



lamp which ho Mil.,...ttol r.v . .1 



by a very thick irlass Lull's .v , i 



by a silvered roU.rtor U-ViuA 



within the case provided tho i :... .. .,....-.;.;., .lie 



battery terminals w ith the charging circuit. Tlio com- 

 bined apparatus of battery and lamp weighed 6 J lb., and 

 the cylindrical case containing tho colls monsurcd 8 in. by 

 4 in. J[r. Swan claim..! T ■■ iV.r .. '•. ' ...i!. tl.at it pos- 

 sessed the merit of li ■ - ' ' ' 1 f it was 

 neither so light nor s.. .i' . : '..i', it was 

 in both respects at least \ .-a.ii. .1 'o. :. 1 -^ > i.iUy was it 

 to bo noted that tho working cost woiil.l probably not be 

 more than that of tho ordinary lamps. As regarded tho 



