Maech 11, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



329 



•and the weight made the cost prohibitive. 

 The increased use of steel in construction 

 «eenis likely to preserve our forests from 

 ■disappearance. 



In other directions the gain through this 

 process has been more important. The 

 costly, short-lived iron rail has disappeared 

 and the durable steel rail has taken its 

 place. Under the moderate conditions of 

 twenty-five years ago, iron rails rarely 

 lasted for more than five years ; in addi- 

 tion, the metal was soft, the limit of load 

 was reached quickly, and freight rates, 

 though high, were none too profitable. 



But all changed with the advent of steel 

 rails as made by the American process. 

 Application of abstruse laws, discovered by 

 men unknown to popular fame, enabled in- 

 ventors to improve methods and to cheapen 

 manufacture until the first cost of steel rails 

 was less than that of iron. The durability 

 of the new rails and their resistance to load 

 justified increased expenditure in other di- 

 rections to secure permanently good condi- 

 tion of the roadbed. Just here our fellow 

 member, Mr. P. H. Dudley, made his con- 

 tribution, whose importance can hardly be 

 overestimated. With his ingenious record- 

 ing apparatus, it is easy to discover defects 

 in the roadway and to ascertain their na- 

 ture, thus making it possible to devise 

 means for their correction and for prevent- 

 ing their recurrence. The information ob- 

 tained by use of this apparatus has led him 

 to change the shape and weight of rails, to 

 modify the type of joints and the methods 

 of ballasting, so that now a roadbed should 

 remain in good condition and even improve 

 during years of hard use. 



But the advantages have not inured 

 wholly to the railroad companies. It is 

 true that the cost of maintenance has been 

 reduced greatly ; that locomotives have 

 been made heavier and more powerful ; that 

 freight cars carry three to four times as 

 much as they did twenty-five years ago, so 



that the whole cost of operation is very 

 much less than formerly. But where the 

 carrier has gained one dollar the consumer 

 and shipper have gained hundreds of dol- 

 lars. Grain and flour can be brought from 

 Chicago to the seaboard as cheaply by rail 

 as by water ; the farmer in Dakota raises 

 wheat for shipment to Europe. Coal mined 

 in West Virginia can be sold on the docks 

 of New York at a profit for less than half 

 the freight of twenty-five years ago. Our 

 internal commercial relations have been 

 changed, and the revolution is still incom- 

 plete. The influence of the Holley-Mushet- 

 Bessemer process upon civilization is hardly 

 inferior to that of the electric telegraph. 



Sixty years ago an obscure German 

 chemist obtained an oily liquid from coal- 

 tar oil, which gave a beautiful tint with 

 calcium chloride ; five years later another 

 separated a similar liquid from a derivative 

 of coal-tar oil. Still later, Hofmann, then 

 a student in Liebig's laboratory, investi- 

 gated these substances and proved their 

 identity with an oil obtained long before 

 by Zinin from indigo, and applied to them 

 all Zinin's term, Anilin. The substance 

 was curiously interesting and Hofmann 

 worked out its reactions, discovering that 

 with many materials it gives brilliant colors. 

 The practical application of these discov- 

 eries was not long delayed, for Perkins 

 made it in 1856. The marvelous dyes, be- 

 ginning with Magenta and Solferino, have 

 become familiar to all. The anilin colors, 

 especially the reds, greens and blues, are 

 among the most beautiful known. They 

 have given rise to new industries and have 

 expanded old ones. Their usefulness led 

 to deeper studies of coal-tar products, to 

 which is due the discovery of such sub- 

 stances as antipyrin, phenacetin, ichthyol 

 and saccharin, which have proved so im- 

 portant in medicine. 



One is tempted to dwell for a little upon 

 meteorology, that border land where phys- 



