Jtility 

 talue 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



724 



nition may be so arranged as to become 

 also protective at the time when protection 

 is most needed; and we may also learn how 

 impossible it is for us to decide on the in- 

 utility of any kind of coloration without 

 a careful study of the habits of the species 

 in its native country. WALLACE Darwinism, 

 ch. 8, p. 149. (Hum.) 



3587. Scientific Toy 



Gives Roentgen Rays. There are thou- 

 sands of facts which are discovered which 

 seem to have no interest, near or remote, to 

 the welfare of humanity, and yet the discov- 

 ery and recording of these facts must some- 

 time and somehow prove useful. 



In chemistry we have many illustrations 

 of this idea. Many years ago Professor 

 Crookes, by producing a vacuum far greater 

 than had ever been accomplished before, dis- 

 covered certain properties of energy which 

 he called radiant matter. For nearly twen- 

 ty years Crookes' tubes have been a physical 

 toy devoted more to the entertainment than 

 the instruction of classes in light, heat, and 

 electricity. The vanes of mica, blackened 

 on one side, and revolving without any ap- 

 parent cause, seem to be almost a realiza- 

 tion of the chimera of perpetual motion. 

 With wonderful skill and ingenuity Profess- 

 or Crookes investigated the elusive proper- 

 ties of this fourth state of matter, a space 

 from which almost all energy was excluded, 

 save that of the unthinkable ether itself. 

 Who, even a few months ago, would have 

 supposed that these truly marvelous re- 

 searches of Crookes could possibly have any 

 direct influence upon men and things? Yet 

 we see now through the marvelous discovery 

 of Professor Roentgen an application of Pro- 

 fessor Crookes's discovery which, in its pos- 

 sibilities of benefit to suffering humanity, 

 has not been surpassed by any single inven- 

 tion of the last hundred years. WILEY Re- 

 lations of Chemistry to Industrial Progress 

 (Address at Purdue University, Lafayette, 

 Ind., 1896, p. 18). 



3588. UTILIZATION OF WASTE 

 PRODUCTS Bleaching-powder Made to Lock 

 Up Noxious Gas. Formerly the chemist 

 when he wished to obtain sodium extracted 

 it from common salt and discharged the 

 chlorin gas into the air. It was found that 

 in establishments where the manufacture 

 of sodium was conducted on a large scale 

 the destructive properties of the chlorin dis- 

 charged into the air were such that all vege- 

 tation was killed for some distance around 

 the manufactory. This came to be such a 

 nuisance that the manufacturers were either 

 compelled to stop business or in some way 

 take care of the chlorin. This is done at 

 the present day by uniting the chlorin gas 

 with common lime, forming a chlorid of 

 lime, which is used for bleaching and puri- 

 fying purposes. ELISHA GRAY Nature's 

 Miracles, vol. i, ch. 5, p. 37. (F. H. & H., 

 1900.) 



3589. 



Colors from Coal- 



tar. Through the discoveries of the great 

 Hoffmann and afterwards by the investiga- 

 tions of other chemists, the dyeing interests 

 of the world have been completely revolu- 

 tionized. From that most unpromising sub- 

 stance, coal-tar, at one time considered an 

 almost worthless residue of the manufacture 

 of gas, nearly all the colors which now find 

 a use in the arts have been derived. WILEY 

 Relations of Chemistry to Industrial Prog- 

 ress (Address at Purdue University, Lafay- 

 ette, Ind., 1896, p. 17). 



3590. VAGARIES, PHILOSOPHICAL, 



OF SCIENTISTS Importations of Theories 

 into Scripture Imagined " Conflict of Re- 

 ligion and Science." One fruitful cause of 

 difficulty in the relations of science and re- 

 ligion is to be found in the narrowness and 

 incapacity of well-meaning Christians who 

 unnecessarily bring the doctrines of natural 

 and revealed religion into conflict, by mis- 

 understanding the one or the other, or by 

 attaching obsolete scientific ideas to Holy 

 Scripture, and identifying them with it in 

 points where it is quite non-committal. 

 Much mischief is also done by a prevalent 

 habit of speaking of all, or nearly all, the 

 votaries of science as if they were irreligious. 

 A second cause is to be found in the ex- 

 travagant speculations indulged in by the 

 adherents of certain philosophical systems. 

 Such speculations often far overpass the 

 limits of actual scientific knowledge, and 

 are yet paraded before the ignorant as if 

 they were legitimate results of science, and 

 so become irretrievably confounded with it 

 in the popular mind. DAWSON Facts and 

 Fancies in_ Modern Science, lect. 1, p. 15. 

 (A. B. P. S.) 



3591. VAGUENESS OF ORDINARY 

 KNOWLEDGE Ideas of a Babe Layman at 

 Shipwreck, Battle, or Fire. All our knowl- 

 edge at first is vague. When we say that 

 a thing is vague, we mean that it has no 

 subdivisions aft intra, nor precise limitations 

 db extra; but still all the forms of thought 

 may apply to it. It may have unity, real- 

 ity, externality, extent, and what - not 

 thinghood, in a word, but thinghood only as 

 a whole. In this vague way, probably, does 

 the room appear to the babe who first be- 

 gins to be conscious of it as something other 

 than his moving nurse. It has no subdivi- 

 sions in his mind, unless, perhaps, the win- 

 dow is able to attract his separate notice. 

 In this vague way, certainly, does every 

 entirely new experience appear to the adult. 

 A library, a museum, a machine-shop, are 

 mere confused wholes to the uninstructed, 

 but the machinist, the antiquary, and the 

 bookworm perhaps hardly notice the whole 

 at all, so eager are they to pounce upon the 

 details. Familiarity has in them bred dis- 

 crimination. ... A layman present at 

 a shipwreck, a battle, or a fire is helpless. 

 Discrimination has been so little awakened 

 in him by experience that his consciousness 



