3 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



illustration was the substitution of chlorate of potash and sul- 

 phuret of antimony for mercury to fill the caps, the latter not 

 being obtainable. These and many other similar facts might be 

 quoted to confirm the statement of Colonel William Leroy Brouii, 

 the head of the Richmond Arsenal, and at present the superin- 

 tendent of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, that "when we 

 consider the absence of manufactories and machinery and of 

 skilled mechanics in the South at the beginning of the war, its 

 [the Ordnance Department] successfully furnishing ordnance sup- 

 plies for so large an army during the four eventful years is a 

 striking instance of the wonderful energy and resources and 

 abilities of its people to overcome difficulties." We have but to 

 look at the table of manufacturing establishments in the South at 

 present, in comparison with past years, to realize the rapid in- 

 crease in that line and the growth of skilled labor that must in- 

 evitably accompany it. From 1880 till the present there has been 

 a wonderful forward movement. Data have not yet been collected 

 in full by the Census Department for 1890, but the bulletins issued 

 on the principal Southern cities all show a large increase in the 

 number of plants of every sort, and the cities of Memphis, Nash- 

 ville, New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Richmond, Norfolk, Savan- 

 nah, Augusta, and Baltimore, all of them more than doubled, and 

 some of them more than quadrupled the amount of capital invested 

 in manufacturing enterprises between 1880 and 1890. Railroad 

 mileage in the South increased from 23,811 miles in 1881 to 44,805 

 in 1891, and the number of cotton mills during the same period 

 from 161 to 356. All of these facts speak for themselves, and 

 need no comment to point out their influence upon the future. 

 Another potent factor, in its influence in stimulating invention 

 in the future, is the great increase in industrial and polytechnic 

 schools in the South, and the attention now paid to the study of 

 natural science, which was formerly neglected for the classics. 

 As has been recently pointed out in an interesting article by 

 Prof. Charles W. Dabney, in the early days of American history 

 the preachers were the learned men and the leaders in educational 

 work. Nearly all the older colleges were the offspring of the 

 churches, and in the South this continued to be the case, not only 

 down to the period of the war, but for a decade afterward. The 

 University of Virginia, one of the few institutions not under 

 church influence, was naturally the first to open advanced scien- 

 tific departments. It may be mentioned also that this university 

 was the first in the Union where the elective system was intro- 

 duced, in contradistinction to the curricular method in vogue 

 elsewhere. Harvard and other Northern colleges have in late 

 years modeled their courses much after the Virginia plan. The 

 South has also within its borders probably the first college in the 



