NATURE 
623 
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1870. 
ON ORIGINAL EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH 
IN RELATION TO EMPLOYMENT FOR 
WORKMEN, 
Te is an ‘mportant national question, “ By what means 
can employment for workmen in this country be in- 
creased?” My reply is, “ By encouragement of experi- 
mental scientific research.” 
I have observed that increased employment of work- 
men constantly results from original experimental research 
in science in the following order : Experimental researches 
in science lead to scientific discoveries ; scientific disco- 
veries lead to practical inventions ; and practical inven- 
tions lead to increase of employment. Usually, a scientific 
investigator first discovers some new fact or principle in 
science ; next, an inventor applies this discovery, in the 
form of an invention, to some useful purpose ; and then a 
manufacturer or man of business brings it into general 
use, and employs workmen or servants to assist him. 
In some cases, however, the discovery of a new truth in 
science, its application by invention, and its practical 
carrying out, are all effected by the same individual. 
The following examples will illustrate the foregoing 
observation:—The discoveries of voltaic electricity, 
electro-magnetism, and magneto-electricity, by Volta, 
Oersted, and Faraday, led to the invention of electric 
telegraphy by Wheatstone and others, and to the 
great manufactures of telegraph cables and telegraph 
wire, and of the materials required for them. The value 
of the cargo of the Great Eastern alone in the present 
Bombay telegraph expedition is calculated at three millions 
of pounds sterling. It also led to the employment of 
thousands of operators to transmit the telegraphic mes- 
sages, and to a great increase of our commerce in nearly 
all its branches by the more rapid means of communica- 
tion. The discovery of voltaic electricity further led to 
the invention of electro-plating, and to the employment 
of a large number of persons in that business. The nume- 
rous experimental researches on specific heat, latent heat, 
the tension of vapours, the properties of water, the mecha- 
nical effect of heat, &c., resulted in the development of 
steam-engines and railways, and the almost endless em- 
ployments depending upon their construction and use. 
About a quarter of a million of persons are employed on 
railways alone in Great Britain. The various original 
investigations on the chemical effects of light led to the 
invention of photography, and have given employment to 
thousands of persons who practise that process, or manu- 
facture and prepare the various materials and articles 
required in it. The discovery of chlorine by Scheele led 
to the invention of the modern processes of bleaching, 
and to various improvements in the dyeing of textile 
fabrics, and has given employment to a very large number 
of our Lancashire operatives. The discovery of chlorine 
has also contributed to the employment of thousands of 
printers, by enabling Esparto grass to be bleached and 
formed into paper for the use of our daily press. The 
numerous experimental investigations in relation to coal- 
gas have largely been the means of extending the use of 
that substance and of increasing the employment of work- 
men and others connected with its manufacture, The 
discovery of the alkali metals by Davy, of cyanide of 
potassium, of nickel, phosphorus, the common acids, and 
a multitude of other substances, have led to the employ- 
ment of a whole army of workmen in the conversion of 
those substances into articles of utility. 
The foregoing examples might be greatly enlarged 
upon, and a great many others might be selected from the 
sciences of physics and chemistry, but those mentioned 
will suffice. There is not a force of nature, nor scarcely 
a material substance that we employ, which has not been 
the subject of several, and in some cases of numerous 
original experimental researches, many of which have 
resulted, in a greater or less degree, in increasing the 
employment for workmen and others. 
The variety and extent of the employments which have 
resulted from scientific research are so great that they 
ramify in some form or other through nearly all our 
manufacturing, artistic, and commercial occupations, our 
social relations, and our every-day life ; and those employ- 
ments have become of such common occurrence that we 
are apt scarcely to think how much experimental research 
has had to do with their production, and we are thus led to 
undervalue original experimental investigation as a means 
of producing employment. Persons in general can easily 
understand that an acorn planted in the ground will, in 
the course of time, become an oak, because it is a palpable 
and visible effect ; but they cannot so readily perceive 
that the abstract scientific fact discovered by experiment 
to-day will probably soon become an invention of practical 
daily use, not because it is less real, but simply because it 
is a phenomenon less evident to the senses, and requires 
a greater exercise of intellect to perceive it. 
In many instances the application of original experi- 
mental science in new inventions has superseded, and in 
a limited sense diminished, manual labour, but it has in 
such cases either substituted more intellectual occupation 
for it, or has opened up new sources of employment to a 
far greater extent by increasing trade and manufacture. 
For example, the number of waggoners and horses now 
employed to collect and deliver all the goods for railways 
is much greater than the whole of those employed for 
conveying the goods of the country before railways were 
constructed, 
The capability of developing increased employment 
by the means proposed is immense, and practically 
unlimited, because scientific discovery is quite in its 
infancy, and we are at present only on the very threshold 
of a knowledge of the forces of nature and of the con- 
stitution of material substances; in this sense, therefore, 
experimental scientific research may be viewed as ¢he 
great fountain-head of employment for workmen. 
The reason why original experimental science is the 
great fountain-head of industry in manufactures and trades 
trades is, that it is only by means of such research that we 
can become accurately acquainted with the forces and sub- 
stances involved in manufactures, and be enabled to use 
them to the greatest advantage. The intimate connection 
between science and industry is shown by the fact that 
when new scientific discoveries are published there are 
numerous inventors who immediately endeavour to apply 
them to useful purposes, and men of business ready to 
carry out the inventions practically. 
The great and important results already obtained by 
