NATURE 



457 



THURSDAY, APRIL ii, iS 



NEWSPAPER SCIENCE 

 A 1 THETHER some knowledge of Science or some 



* * love for scientific truth will ever penetrate the 

 masses, may well be questioned when we read such an 

 aiticle as the fo'Iovving, which appeared in the daily 

 pip.r boasting the largest circulation in the world, and 

 which we reprint almost entire a? a curiosity of newspaper 

 literature : — 



" What is a Joule ?— or who is he, if a Joule is a human 

 being, and not a vegetable — a weapon of offence, or some- 

 th-ng to drink, or a Phantom ? And if Joule be human, 

 why did he not consider that human reason is fdlible, 

 and human patience exhaustible, when he penned, or got 

 somebody else to pen, a maddening article which has 

 appeared in the Nautical Magazine, from which we 

 gather that the transformitions of energy are in tHeir 

 nature similar to the operations of commerce ; but with 

 this difference, that in thermodynamics the relative 

 values never vary. This, it seems, is the universal theorem 

 of a Joule ; and a red-hot poker must always bear the 

 same relation to sixpence as the contents of a tea-kettle 

 at boilmg point bear to a five-pound note. . . . Under 

 the new dispensation the sovereign, ' to which all other 

 forms of energy can be referred,' is to be an unit of heat. 

 On the obverse is stamped 'Joule's equivalent,' and on 

 the other side is inscribed 772 foot-pounds. One unit of 

 heat is the amount required to raise the temperature of 

 one pound of water one degree, and the equivalent for 

 this coin is 772 foot-pounds of work — that is, the work 

 requiied to be expended to raise one pound w"cight 772 

 feet. . . . But what is the new 'Joule's equivalent' 

 to be made of.? — cobwebs, leather, or fresh butter ? — and 

 who wants to raise a pound weight 772 feet ? As a 

 problem of proportion, the theory is, of course, philoso- 

 )<hical enough ; but it would be just as easy to fix a unit 

 of cold as well as a unit of heat ; and, under any circum- 

 stances, until Joule comes into the open and tells us who 

 he is, what he means, and when his equivalents are to be 

 put into circulation, society, we fear, will decline to re- 

 cognise a sovereign as a Joule, or thirty shiUings as a 

 Joule and a half." 



Now, with the mental condition of the man who could 

 pen such an article as this we have nothing to do ; he 

 may go on writing according to his lights every day of 

 the week, and no one but his ovi'n friends need interfere to 

 stop him. But there are one or two considerations which 

 arise from the perusal of it not without their importance. 



In the first place, bearing in mind the contempt for 

 Science so often apparent in the public utterances of men 

 ol i.igh calibre — instances occur to us as we write, and 

 pro'.ably will to our readers, of men of the highest culture 

 in literature or art, who never allude to scientific work 

 or 10 scientific teachers without a scarcely disguised sneer 

 at the inferior part which they play in the national 

 economy — we may, after all, be content that Science is 

 alluded to at all in a paper possessing so large a circula- 

 tion. The next consideration is one to which we attach 

 the highest importance. 



Surely it is now ti.ne that scientific men themselves 

 should take a little more trouble than they do — we know 

 it is asking a good deal from them — in the matter of 

 br nging their own work, and the importance of it to the 

 ccmmunity, before such audiences as the daily papers 

 afford. Were they to do this, the labours of our great 



VOL, V. 



scientific teachers — our Huxleys, Tyndalls, and Carpen- 

 ters — would be enormously lightened. If we hear of an 

 attendance of several thousands at a penny lecture by 

 Huxley at Manchester, or a Sunday afternoon lecture 

 in St. George's Hall by Carpenter, we fancy a love of 

 science is spreading with rapid strides ; but the fact is 

 that the strides are not so rapid as they might be, because 

 the labourers on whom progress depends are so few and 

 the area of their lcc:ure work is restricted, whereas many 

 newspapers, on the other hand, number their readers by 

 hundreds of thousands. Until scientific men do this, we 

 must be content with the present state of things. It is 

 in no sph'it of invidious comparison that we may remind 

 our readers of the frequent extracts which appear in our 

 columns from Harper s Weekly, a political and general 

 paper of very large circulation in the United States, the 

 scientific department of which, containing information of 

 the highest value, is edited by one of the most eminent 

 scientific men of America. But what is the present state 

 of things with us .'' In the main it is one in which the 

 public is informed of scientific work by others than the 

 doers of the work ; and the labour of classifying these 

 writers is not difficult. 



In the first place we have, we are thmkful to say, a 

 small though gradually increasing number whose labours 

 leave nothing to be desired, who, being men of scientific 

 culture themselves, take a pleasure in their work, and to 

 whom the friends of Science in this country cannot be too 

 grateful. As an illustration of the labours of this class 

 of writers, designed to present to the non-scientific public 

 an account of remarkable scientific phenomena, in popu- 

 lar and yet accurate language, we may refer to one 

 of the most recent publications of this class, an article 

 entitled " A Voyage to the Sun " in the March number of 

 the Cornhill Magazine, which we commend to the notice 

 of all aspirants after scientifico-literary fame. The play 

 of fancy which invests with an attractive grace a subject 

 that would appear dry to many, is combined with a happy 

 art of describing scientific phenomena in clear and exact 

 language, in a manner that we have seldom seen equalled. 

 It is impossible to overrate the labours of these gentlemen 

 in the present condition of Science in England. 



Secondly, we have a still larger class where the intention 

 is good, but in which the culture, scientific and otherwise, 

 is not so high. In the writings of these Science is apt 

 to run wild : accuracy gives place to imagery, and the 

 would-be learners, after an hour's attempt at gainmg know- 

 ledge, rise from it, knowing rather less than they did 

 before, and looking upon Science as a fearful and wonder- 

 ful thing with which the less they have to do the better. 



We have next a third class, composed of writers as 

 widely difterent as the poles, but we place them together 

 because the harm they both do is incalculable. The 

 writer who is anxious to know what a "Joule" is may be 

 taken as the type of one division. Grossly ignorant of all 

 kinds of Science, it is nothing to him that he should bring 

 it into discredit ; he is doubtless paid for his work, and 

 we need say no more about him. In the second division 

 we find sometimes high culture, but the writing is not 

 written for Science' sake. It is entirely a personal affair. 

 The advancement of Science gives way to that of the 

 individual and his friends, and any subject written upon 

 is seen through a fog of personality and advertisement. 



