KNOWLEDGE. 



[Janxary 1, 1897. 



THE | y/^ |SCIENCE 



. |OFTHE| ^ 



I QUEEN'S REIGN. 



I.-THE DAWN OF A BRILLIANT ERA. 



By John Miils, F.E.A.S. 



*' Not in V.Tin the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let ws raus:e ; 

 Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change." 



THE year upon which we have just entered completes 

 the sixth decade of Queen Victoria's reign — a 

 reign which for fulness of time, virtuous and 

 enlightened policy, and glorious conquest in the 

 arts of peace, has no parallel in the annals of 

 this realm. Could one but draw true word-pictures of 

 social England as it was in the year 1837, and as it is 

 to-day, after the lapse of sixty years — years teeming with 

 the fruits of genius in every walk of life — the contrast 

 between the two periods would form a convincing proof 

 of the intellectual development and the amplification of 

 the resources of the people — advantages won by a bloodless 

 victory of mind over matter. Yet there is in reality no 

 gulf between the past and the present. The men whose 

 doings have laid the foimdatiou of our commercial 

 prosperity belong to a past age, and we who carry on the 

 appointed work of improvement and civilization are their 

 progeny and belong emphatically to past times. Theirs 

 was the understanding at once penetrating and vigilant, 

 but more distinguished, perhaps, for the caution and 

 sureness of its march than for the brilliancy or rapidity 

 of its movements. 



It is our object in this short sketch to convey some idea 

 of the condition of science when the Queen ascended the 

 throne in 1837. Other papers will follow dealing with the 

 development of the several branches of science during 

 the past sixty years. The mind of man in its progress 

 towards its higher destiny is confronted, in the main, 

 with the physical earth as a problem which, within the 

 Umits of a life, it must struggle to solve. The intellectual 

 spirit is capable of embracing all finite things. Science 

 alone can interpret their mysterious whispers. It requires 

 an effort of the imagination to the great bulk of people 

 now living to realize what the condition of life must have 

 been in 1837. Divested of the luxuries which science has 

 heaped upon us since that auspicious epoch, we should 

 relapse into a state of civilization which would more nearly 

 resemble that of ancient Greece and Rome than that to 

 which we have attained at the present time. 



One of the factors too important to ignore in the grand 

 sum of scientific progress during the unique reign of our 

 gracious sovereign lady is the Soyal Institution, which was 

 founded in the year 1800. " Its aim and objects were to 

 diffuse the knowledge and facilitate the general introduc- 

 tion of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, 

 and to teach by philosophical lectures and experiments 

 the application of science to the useful purposes of life." 

 Count Eumford, to his lasting credit be it said, was the 

 chief promoter of this temple of science, which can boast 

 of having given in its early days employment to Youug, 



Davy, Brande, and Faraday. This institution may, with 

 some regard for truth, be looked upon as the nursery in 

 which the plants that have yielded so much fruit in their 

 maturer years were tended in their infancy. By whom ? 

 By men who were our progenitors in science — patient, 

 indomitable, calmly and wisely bold, modestly self-reliant, 

 ever watching, ever toiling, ever adding to the store of 

 knowledge that was to benefit not them alone but the great 

 human race ; each guided by his own perceptions of what 

 is great in humanity and fitting in a nation — men whose 

 instinct it was to work for the world and fight against 

 misery. 



About the year 1887 what has been called the " old 

 astronomy " may be said to have culminated. The elder 

 Herschel, almost equally famous as optician and 

 astronomer, had, so to speak, put on the coping stones of 

 the fabric. His magnificent speculations on the Milky 

 Way, the constitution of nebuht, etc., first opened the 

 way to the conception that what was called the universe 

 was in all probability but a detached and minute portion 

 of that fathomless series of similar formations which 

 ought to bear the name. In a word, he assigned to the 

 earth its true position — an ignoble one — among the vast 

 array of worlds revolving in the depths of infinitude ; made 

 clear to the thoughtful student of nature that the vastnesa 

 of created worlds extends beyond the confines of imagini- 

 tion ; that the phenomena of reality are more startling 

 tban the phantoms of the ideal. It is true that the 

 younger Herschel, who continued the labours of his 

 illustrious father, made some experiments in spectrum 

 analysis as early as the year 1835; and Niepce, in 1824, 

 by fixing images produced by the camera obscura, invented 

 photography ; but the part which these two branches of 

 science were to play in the " new astronomy " was not so 

 much as conceived at the commencement of the present 

 reign. That the prism should be the touchstone of worhls, 

 the markings in the spectra of celestial bodies teUmg the 

 story of the composition of these denizens of outer space 

 with sometbing like the precision with which a jeweller 

 determines the quality of gold by comparing its colour 

 with the markings of specimens of known quality on the 

 touchstone, is a chapter in the romance of science which 

 belongs to the Victorian era ; as is also the part played by 

 photography in reveahng the existence of stellar and 

 nebular systems far beyond the reach of telescopic and 

 spectroscopic power, and its useful application to Doppler's 

 principle as regards the speed and direction of the motion 

 of stars. 



In the domain of geology, a great awakening to a true 

 knowledge of the history of our planet had been effected in 

 the early part of the century by the teachings of William 

 Smitb, the "father of English geology," Agassiz, 

 JIurchison, and others. In February, 1831, the Geological 

 Society, which had hitherto passed him over with a sort of 

 silent contempt, was at length roused to an impartial 

 estimate of Smith, which resulted in the passing of a 

 resolution — " That the first Wollaston medal be given to 

 Mr. William Smith in consideration of his being a great 

 original discoverer in English geology, and especially for 

 his having been the first in this country to discover and to 

 teach the identification of strata, and to determine their 

 succession by means of their embedded fossils." This 

 shrewd observer pointed out that rocks were deposited in 

 successive order, and thus carried the doctrine of evolution 

 into the domain of geology ; and he proved that whatever 

 stratum was found in any part of England, the same 

 remains would be found in it and no otber. Agassiz, 

 about the same period, was working out his theory of 

 glaciers, great boulder deposits, striation of rocks, and so 



