IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 21 



turbellarian worm, "whose arrangement of muscles," biolo- 

 gists tell us, " is far from economical or effective." 



J. M. Tylor, Whence and Whither of Man, Morse I^ec- 

 tures, 1895, N. Y., 1896, p. 47. In comparison, modern 

 society may be likened to one of the higher mammalia, such 

 as the tiger or the elephant, which cannot onl}^ take up from 

 nature the maximum of energy, but can also apply it in 

 varied movements and a highly complicated conduct. 



Consider the vast stores of energy which society has 

 to-day at its disposal. The steam power of the United 

 States alone equals the day labor of one hundred million 

 men. Behind each man, woman and child of the nation 

 stands more than an automaton of steel with the strength of 

 a man, but with manifold his capacity for productive 

 labor. In carding, for example, fingers of steel do in half 

 an hour what the unaided workman of a century ago could 

 not have accomplished in less than eight months. In 

 machinery society finds a tireless hand capable of perform- 

 ing the mightiest and the most delicate of tasks with equal 

 ease. It strikes with the steam hammer a blow of 2,000 

 tons, and it rules the Rowland grating with its 48,000 

 parallel lines to the inch. 



Consider also the new induement of energy which 

 science has bestowed upon society in the gift of electricity, 

 a power capable of the swiftest and most ready transmis- 

 sion, of infinite subdivision, and of the greatest known 

 intensity of concentration. And how varied is its func- 

 tioning! In mine and quarry it picks and drills and fires 

 the blast. At the wharf it lifts and loads and carries. In 

 the factory it forges, casts, welds and rivets. In the home 

 it shines in the most healthful light yet made by man. In 

 electrolysis it produces a hundred substances of value, 

 such as the caustic alkalies, bleaching powder, chloroform, 

 the chlorates, and aluminum, the metal perhaps to give 

 name to the new century. From the refuse of the mine 

 it extracts millions of dollars worth of the precious metals. 

 It surfaces steel and iron with zinc, nickel or copper, with 

 silver or gold, and copies infallibly the engraved plate of 

 the map and the type set page. In the electric furnace it 



