AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 17 



ena of heat and their applications, as in the steam engine 

 of Watt, were known and even the true nature of heat had 

 been almost established by our countryman, Count Rum- 

 ford ; but of electricity there were only a few sparks of 

 knowledge. Chemistry had had its foundation firmly 

 laid by Priestley, Lavoisier, and Dalton, while Berzelius 

 was pushing rapidly forward. Geology had also its 

 roots down, chiefly through the work of Hufcton and 

 William Smith, though the earth was as yet essentially 

 an unexplored field. Systematic zoology and botany had 

 been firmly grounded by Buff on, Lamarck and Cuvier, on 

 the one hand, and Linnaeus on the other ; but of all that is 

 embraced under the biology of the latter half of the 

 nineteenth century the world knew nothing. The state- 

 ments of Silliman in his Introductory Remarks in the 

 first number, quoted in part on a following page, put 

 the matter still more fully, but they are influenced by the 

 enthusiasm of the time and he could have had little com- 

 prehension of what was to be the record of the next one 

 hundred years. 



Now, leaving this hasty and incomplete retrospect and 

 coming down to 1918, we find the contrast between to-day 

 and 1818 perhaps most strikingly brought out, on the 

 material side, if we consider the ability of* man, in the 

 early part of the nineteenth century, to meet the demands 

 upon him in the matter of transportation of himself and 

 his property. In 1800, he had hardly advanced beyond 

 his ancestor of the earliest civilization ; on the contrary, 

 he was still dependent for transportation on land upon 

 the muscular efforts of himself and domesticated ani- 

 mals, while at sea he had only the use of sails in addition. 

 The first application of the steam engine with commercial 

 success was made by Fulton when, in 1807, the steamboat 

 "Clermont" made its famous trip on the Hudson River. 

 Since then, step by step, transportation has been made 

 more and more rapid, economical and convenient, both on 

 land and water. This has come first through the per- 

 fection of the steam engine ; later through the agency of 

 electricity, and still further and more universally by the 

 use of gasolene motors. Finally, in these early years of 

 the twentieth century, what seemed once a wild dream of 



