70 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



researches. But it is not the less true that in the case of 

 wearing apparel and this for reasons which I have given 

 in analyzing the experiment of Franklin black dresses are 

 more potent than white ones as absorbers of solar heat. 



Thus, in brief outline, have been brought before you a 

 few of the results of recent inquiry. If yon ask me what 

 is the use of them, I can hardly answer you, unless you 

 define the term use. If you meant to ask whether those 

 dark rays which clear away the Alpine snows, will ever be 

 applied to the roasting of turkeys, or the driving of steam- 

 engines while affirming their power to do both, I would 

 frankly confess that they are not at present capable of 

 competing profitably with coal in these particulars. Still 

 they may have great uses unknown to me; and when our 

 coal-fields are exhausted, it is possible that a more ethereal 

 race than we are may cook their victuals, and perform their 

 work, in this transcendental way. But is it necessary that 

 the student of science should have his labors tested by 

 their possible practical applications? What is the prac- 

 tical value of Homer's Iliad? You smile, and possibly 

 think that Homer's Iliad is good as a means of culture. 

 There's the rub. The people who demand of science prac- 

 tical uses, forget, or do not know, that it also is great as a 

 means of culture that the knowledge of this wonderful 

 universe is a thing profitable in itself, and requiring no 

 practical application to justify its pursuit. 



But while the student of nature distinctly refuses to 

 have his labors judged by their practical issues unless the 

 term practical be made to include mental as well as 

 material good, he knows full well that the greatest prac- 

 tical triumphs have been episodes in the search after pure 

 natural truth. The electric telegraph is the standing 

 wonder of this age, and the men whose scientific knowledge, 

 and mechanical skill, have made the telegraph what it is, 

 are deserving of all honor. In fact, they have had their 

 reward, both in reputation and in those more substantial 

 benefits which the direct service of the public always car- 

 ries in its train. B*ut who, I would ask, put the soul into 

 this telegraphic body? Who snatched from heaven the 

 fire that flashes along the line? This, I am bound to say, 

 was done by two men, the one a dweller in Italy,* the 



*Volta. 



