466 



NA TURE 



[SEPTEMBER 12, I 89 5 



tricity to the use of man have grown up side by side with the 

 British Association. 



One of the first practical applications of Faraday's discoveries 

 was in the deposition of metals and electro- plating, which has 

 developed into a large branch of national industry ; and the 

 diss<Kialing effect of the electric arc, for the reduction of ores, 

 and in other processes, is daily obtaining a wider extension. 



But probably the application of electricity which is tending to 

 produce the greatest change in our mental, and even material 

 condition, is the electric telegraph and its sister, the telephone. 

 By their agency not only do we learn, almost at the time of their 

 occurrence, the events which are happening in distant parts of 

 the world, but they are establishing a community of thought and 

 feeling between all the nations of the world which is influencing 

 their attitude towards each other, and, we may hope, may tend 

 to weld them more and more into one family. 



The electric telegraph was introduced experimentally in Ger- 

 many in 1833, two years after the formation of the Association. 

 It was made a commercial success by Cooke and Wheatstone in 

 England, whose first attempts at telegraphy were made on the 

 line from Euston to Camden Town in 1837, and on the line from 

 Paddington to West Drayton in 1838. 



The submarine telegraph to America, conceived in 1856, 

 became a practical reality in 1861 through the commercial 

 energy of Cyrus Field and Pender, aided by the mechanical skill 

 of Latimer Clark, Gooch, and others, and the scientific genius 

 of Lord Kelvin. The knowledge of electricity gained by means 

 of its application to the telegraph largely assisted the extension 

 of its utility in other directions. 



The electric light gives, in its incandescent form, a very perfect 

 hygienic light. WTiere rivers are at hand the electrical trans- 

 mission of power will drive railway trains and factories econom- 

 ically, and might enable each artisan to convert his room into a 

 workshop, and thus assist in restoring to the labouring man 

 some of the individuality which the factory has tended to 

 destroy. 



In 1843 Joule described his experiments for determining the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat. But it was not until the meeting 

 at Oxford, in 1847, that he fully developed the law of the con- 

 ser\-ation of energy, which, in conjunction with Newton's law 

 of the conservation of momentum, and Dalton's law of the 

 conservation of chemical elements, constitutes a complete 

 mechanical foundation for physical science. 



Who, at the foundation of the Association, would have 

 believed some far-seeing philosopher if he had foretold that the 

 spectroscope would analyse the constituents of the sun and 

 measure the motions of the stars ; that we should liquefy air 

 and utilise temperatures approaching to the absolute zero for 

 experimental research ; that, like the magician in the " .\rabian 

 Nights," we should annihilate distance by means of the electric 

 telegraph and the telephone : that we should illuminate our 

 largest buildings instantaneously, with the clearness of day, by 

 means of the electric current ; that by the electric transmission 

 of power we shouUl Ik: able to utilise the Falls of Niagara to 

 work factories at distant places ; that we should extract metals 

 from the crust of the earth by the same electrical agency to 

 which, in some cases, their <le|>isition has l>een attributed? 



These discoveries and their applications have been brought to 

 their present condition by the researches of a long line of scien- 

 tific explorers, such as Dalton, Joule, .Maxwell, Helmholtz, Ilerz, 

 Kelvin, and Rayleigh, aided by vast strides made in mechanical 

 skill. But what will our successors lie discussing sixty years 

 hence? How little do we yet know of the vibrations which 

 communicate light and heat ! Far as we have advanced in ihe 

 application of electricity to the uses of life, we know but little 

 even yet of its real nature. We are only on the threshold of 

 the knowledge of molecular action, or of the constitution of the 

 all-|)ervading .-ether. Newton, at the end of the scvenleenlh 

 century, in his preface to the " Principia," says : " 1 have 

 dc<luced the motions of the planets by mathematical reasoning 

 from forces : and I would that we could derive the f)ther phenu- 

 m' 're from mechanical principles by the same mode 



rii l''<jr many things move me, sfj that I st)mewhat 



Ml I -"' h may dejiend on certain forces by which the 



|.., . through causes not yet known, are either 



utf li other according to regular figures, or are 



repelled .iii'l rcude from each other; and these forces lx;lng 

 unknown, philosophers have hitherto made their attempts on 

 nature in vain." 



In 1K4S l-'araday remarked: "Mow rapidly the knowledge 



NO. 1350, VOL. 52] 



of molecular forces grows upon us, and how strikingly every 

 investigation tends to develop more and more their importance I 



"A few years ago magnetism was an occult force, afl'ecting 

 only a few bodies ; now it is found to intluence all bodies, and 

 to possess the most intimate relation with electricity, heat, 

 chemical action, light, crystallisation ; and through it the forces 

 concerned in cohesion. We may feel encouraged to con- 

 tinuous labours, hoping to bring it into a bond of union with 

 gravity itself." 



But it is only within the last few years that we have begim to 

 realise that electricity is closely connected with the vibrations 

 which cause heat and light, and which seem to pervade allsjiace 

 — vibrations which may be termed the voice of the Creator call- 

 ing to each atom and to each cell of protoplasm to fall into its 

 ordained position, each, as it were, a musical note in the har- 

 monious symphony which we call the universe. 



Meteorology. 



At the first meeting, in 1831, Prof. James D. Forties was 

 requested to draw up a report on the State of Meteorological 

 Science, on the ground that this science is more in want than any 

 other of that systematic direction which it is one great object of 

 the Association to give. 



Prof. Forbes made his first report in 1832, and a subsequent 

 report in 1840. The systematic records now kept in various 

 parts of the world of barometric pressure, of solar he.tt, of the 

 temperature and iihysical conditions of the atmosphere at various 

 altitudes, of the heat of the ground at various depths, of the 

 rainfall, of the prevalence of winds, and the gradual elucidation 

 not only of the laws which regulate the movements of cyclones 

 and storms, but of the influences which are exercised by the 

 sun and by electricity and magnetism, not only upon atmospheric 

 conditions, but upon health and vitality, are gradually approx- 

 imating meteorok>gy to llie position of an exact science. 



England took the lead in rainfall observations. Mr. G. J. 

 Symons organised the British Rainfall System in 1S60 with 178 

 observers, a system which uiuil 1S76 received the help of the 

 British Association. Now Mr. Symons himself conducts it, 

 assisted by more than 3000 observers, and these volunteers not 

 only make the observations, but defray the expense of their 

 reduction and publication. In foreign countries this work is done 

 by Government officers at the public cost. 



At the present time a very large numlier of rain gauges are in 

 daily use throughout the world. The British Islands have more 

 than 3CXXJ, and India and the United States have nearly as many ; 

 France and Germany are not fat behind ; Australia probably has 

 more— indeed, one colony alone, New South Wales, has more 

 than I too. 



The storm warnings now issued under the excellent systematic 

 organisation of the Meteorological Cominitlee may be said to 

 have had their origin in the terrible storm which broke over the 

 Black Sea during the Crimean War, on November 27, 1855. 

 Leverrier traced the progress of that storm, and seeing how its 

 path could have been reported in advance by the electric tele- 

 graph, he projMsed to establish observing stations which should 

 report to the coasts the probability of the occurrence of a storm, 

 Leverrier communicated with .Viry, and the tloveinment autho- 

 rised .\dmiral FitzRoy to make tentative arrangements in this 

 country. The idea was also adopted on the continent, and now 

 there are few civilised countries north or south of the e<iuator 

 without a system of storm warning.' 



BlOLOlilOAI. St^F.NlF. 



Botany. 



The earliest Reports of the Association which l>ear on the 

 biological sciences were those relating to botany. 



In 1831 the controversy was yet unsettled between Ihe 

 advant.iges of the Linnean, or Artificial system, as contrasted 

 with the Natural system of cl.tssification. Histology, nuirphii- 

 logy, and physiological botany, even if born, were in their 

 early infancy. 



Our rccor<ls show that von Mohl noted cell division m 1835, 

 the presence of chlf)rophyll corpu.scles in 1837 ; and he first 

 descripcd protoplasm in 1846. 



>Il'h.->« often iKcn sii|)po«:il ihal Ix;vcrricr was i«lso the first to issue .a 

 daily we.nllict iii.ip. lull lli:il was nol itic ca>e, for in llie Grc.il Kxhlbujon of 

 iSsi the KIcclric 'i'clci;r.iph t'omiiany sold daily wcalhcr nirips, copies ol 

 which arc slill in cviMciice. :ind the dal.i for them were, il is believed, ob- 

 laincd hy .Mr. James (Jl.-iisher, F.R.S., al ihat lime Superinlcndenl of the 

 ^lctcorological I IciMrlmcnt at Greenwich. 



