5o 



NA TURE 



\_Nov. 20, 1 < 



are glad to hear that the Executive Council of the Ex- 

 hibition are taking into consideration the advisability of 

 devoting their surplus funds to this object, and we hope 

 that they may ultimately resolve to do so. They could 

 not better advance the cause of hygiene, and more fittingly 

 carry on and perpetuate the work begun by the Exhibition. 

 The sum required to build and adequately endow such a 

 laboratory would of course be considerable, but there can 

 be little doubt that, once the matter is started, various 

 public bodies will aid in the work, while a suitable site at 

 South Kensington might be obtained from the Commis- 

 sioners, as there the laboratory would be in the vicinity 

 of those belonging to the Science and Art Department 

 and the City and Guilds Institute. 



HEROES OF SCIENCE 



Heroes of Science: Mechanicians. By T. C. Lewis, M.A. 

 (London : Published under the direction of the Society 

 for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884.) 



IN this volume short histories are given of the following 

 inventors : — Watt, George Stephenson, Richard Ark- 

 wright, Crompton, Maudsley, Joseph Clement, James 

 Nasmyth, Whitworth, and Babbage. The facts told of 

 the lives of these men have been gathered from reliable 

 sources and are accurate. It is unfortunate that Prof. 

 Lewis did not introduce more of these facts in his book 

 instead of using up its very limited space by inserting an 

 inordinate amount of moralising, which is extremely tan- 

 talising, and makes it often difficult to proceed owing to 

 the impatience which it causes. No words that could be 

 used by way of reflection, even by a great writer, could 

 add much to the moral stimulus afforded by the simple 

 narrative of the lives of men like Watt and Stephenson, 

 and the style which we encounter here, although often 

 very ambitious, signally fails in attaining its mark and, 

 instead of increasing our admiration for the men de- 

 scribed, adds an unwelcome tinge of the ridiculous to the 

 account. Thus in describing the early life of Arkwright 

 we meet with these sentences amongst others : — " Before 

 this he was probably as well off as most itinerant dealers 

 in hair of his rank, but this first decisive step of his" [that 

 from a village barber to a dealer in hair] " was enough to 

 show that he could be dominated by an idea even to the 

 length of relinquishing some certainties of advantage." 

 " Whilst he was doing his unexciting work of preparing 

 orderly cover for the outside of other men's heads" [this 

 means making wigs] " he was — apparently too without 

 much mental excitement — introducing order and exer- 

 cising thought in the interior of his own ; in consequence 

 of which it appears that, whatever he did in those days to 

 cover the heads of thinking and thoughtless men and 

 women with a fair show of hair, he has done more for us 

 in providing for the inside of ours some furniture of profit- 

 able thought," &c. 



Amongst many curious pieces of information which we 

 come across we may draw attention to the following pice 

 of social history probably hitherto unknown. " When 

 Adam delved and Eve span, or when their descendants first 

 adopted this division of labour, the work of digging was 

 carried on in the sweat of the brow, it required strength, 

 and was relegated to the man ; the process of spinning, 



which required less strength than dexterity, was assigned 

 to the woman." Neither in Genesis nor in the Transac- 

 tions of the Anthropological Society do we remember 

 having seen any account of this early example of the 

 division of labour. Valuable practice in English con- 

 struction after the manner of the old so-called ortho- 

 graphical exercises, might be set on this book, by asking 

 boys studying English to criticise and explain (if possible) 

 the meaning of the phrases in italics in the following sen- 

 tences : — (Page 155) "In him we look in vain for the 

 disinterestedness that endears self-sacrifice to us." (P. 253) 

 " The revolution that was being effected by the introduc- 

 tion of machine tools, was, like all revolutions, sure to 

 meet with resistance. It is not too much to say that by 

 its means a little one became a thousand." As a piece of 

 grandiloquent writing, of which we here find many 

 samples, we may instance this (p. 211): — "Modern 

 inventions succeed one another like the links of a golden 

 chain forged by men of god-like skill for our support, and 

 indeed for our elevation. The cloak of an Elijah often 

 falls upon the shoulders of an Elisha." 



We are curious to know if the assailers of classical 

 education have ever used stronger language than is here 

 employed in describing Nasmylh's studies (p. 212) : — "The 

 classical education they had attempted with little success 

 to give to him there was not at all suited to his bent. He 

 asked for food, and they gave him a nauseous poison." 

 In these days when the working man is so courted and 

 admired, we should have thought it, to say the least, 

 unnecessary to inform the readers of this book that 

 (p. 202) " in all his (Clement's) work . . . there was an 

 interest in his art which in his case raised it above the 

 labour of a calling," or (p. 232), " in labour such as hi 

 (Nasmyth's) there was no degradation." This too after 

 he had become an employer of labour himself ! 



Besides committing great errors of style, the author 

 occasionally errs as to matters of fact. Thus (p. xiv.), he 

 says, " The world has had to be content with using from 

 two and a half to four pounds of coal for" one horse- 

 power. The limit would have been put much lower had 

 he studied the records of the engines of the best American 

 liners. On p. 57 a description is given of " the double- 

 acting steam-engine, in which steam is admitted to press 

 the piston both upwards and downwards, the piston being 

 also aided in its motion by a vacuum produced by con- 

 densation on the side towards which the steam is pressing 

 it." To say that the piston motion is " aided" by the 

 vacuum on the opposite side to that on which steam is 

 acting is a curious way of representing the fact that with- 

 out such a vacuum no motion of the piston would be 

 possible. The definition of parallel motion given is new. 

 1 11 p. 58 we read, "The specification included . . . the 

 contrivance for parallel motion or for making the piston- 

 rod move perpendicularly up and down without chains 

 or perpendicular guides, or untowardly friction, arch 

 heads, or other pieces of clumsiness." 



The book, which we are informed (p. vi.) is intended for 

 boys, does not give enough explanation. The descriptions 

 of inventions given are of the briefest, and will be quite 

 unintelligible to any one who has not already spent a 

 considerable amount of time in studying them elsewhere. 

 If Prof. Lewis had been content to omit the wearisome 

 reflections which he has placed in the book, and had, 



