768 REPORT— 1898. 



in a triple capacity. The earth is an object of much importance, alike to the 

 terrestrial magnetician, the telegraph electrician, and the tramway engineer ; but 

 while the first aims at observing its magnetism, and the second rejoices in the 

 absence of the earth currents which interfere with the sending of messages, the 

 third seems bent on converting our maps of lines of force into maps of lines of 

 tramway. 



It might therefore seem as if electric traction — undoubtedly a great boon to 

 the people, and one that has already effected important social developments in 

 America and on the continent of Europe — were destined in time to annihilate 

 magnetic observatories near towns, and even to seriously interfere with existing 

 telegraph and telephone systems. Already the principle of the survival of the 

 fittest is quoted by some electrical engineers, who declare that if magnetic observa- 

 tories are crippled through the introduction of electric tramways, then so much the 

 worse for the observatories. And I fear that my professional brethren only look at me 

 askance for allowing ray devotion to the practical applications of electricity to be 

 tainted with a keen interest in that excessively small, but none the less extremely 

 wonderful, magnetic force which controls our compass needles. 



But this interest emboldens me to ask again, Can the sj^stera of electric 

 traction that has already destroyed the two most important magnetic observa- 

 tories in the United States and British North America be the best and the fittest 

 to survive ? Again, do we iake such care, and spend such vast sums, in tending 

 the weak and nursing the sick because we are convinced that they are the fittest 

 to survive ? May it not perhaps be because we have an inherent doubt about the 

 justness of the survival of the strongest, or because even the strongest of us feels 

 compelled to modestly confess his inability to pick out the fittest, that modern 

 civilisation encourages not the destruction but the preservation of what has obvious 

 weakness, on the chance that it may have unseen strength? 



When the electrical engineer feels himself full of pride at the greatness, the 

 importance, and the power of his industry, and when he is inclined to think 

 slightingly of the deflection of a little magnet compared with the whirl of his 

 1,000 horse-power dynamo, let him go and visit a certain dark store-room near the 

 entrance hall of the Roj^al Institution, and, while he looks at some little coils 

 there, ponder on the blaze of light that has been shed over the whole world from 

 the dimly-lighted cupboard in which those dusty coils now lie. Then he may 

 realise that while the earth as a magnet has endured for all time, the eartli as a 

 tramway conductor may at no distant date be relegated to the class of teniporarj' 

 makeshifts, and that the raids of the feudal baron into the agricultural fields of his 

 neighbours were not more barbarous than the alarms and e.^cursions of the tram- 

 way engineer into the magnetic fields of his friends. , 



A very important consideration in connection with the rapid development of 

 physical inquiry is the possibility of extending our power of assimilating current 

 physical knowledge. For so wide have grown the limits of each branch of 

 physics that it has become necessary to resort to specialisation if we desire to 

 widen further the region of the known. On the other hand, so interlinked are all 

 sections of physics that this increase of specialisation is liable to hinder rather 

 than assist advance of the highest order. 



An experimenter is therefore on the horns of a dilemma — on the one hand, if 

 he desires to do much he must confine himself more or less to one line of physical 

 research, while, on the other hand, to follow that line with full success requires a 

 knowledge of the progress that is being made along all kindred lines. Already an 

 investigator who is much engaged with research can hardly do more as regards 

 scientific literature than read what he himself Avrites — soon he will not have time 

 to do even that. Division of labour and co-operation have therefore become as 

 important in scientific work as in other lines of human activity. Like bees, some 

 must gather material from the flowers that are springing up in various fields of 

 research, while others must hatch new ideas. But, unlike bees, all can be of the 

 ' worker ' class, since the presence of drones is unnecessary in the scientific hive. 



Englishmen have long been at a disadvantage in not possessing any ready 



