April 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



649 



mechanics, and six hundred and eighty 

 clerliS. " "For many years past it has 

 regularly paid eighteen per cent, on the 

 ordinary shares, which in 1902 rose to 20 

 per cent. ; and in addition, in common with 

 other and even larger concerns in the same 

 industry, has paid out of profits for im- 

 mense extensions usually charged to capital 

 account. " " There is one of these factories, 

 the works and plant of which stand in the 

 books at $7,500,000, while the money ac- 

 tually sunk in them approaches $25,000,- 

 000. ' ' Such statistics are producing their 

 inevitable effect, and the demand from our 

 industries for graduates capable, not mere- 

 ly of carrying out qualitative and quanti- 

 tative analyses, but with a training fitting 

 them to study and improve processes, and 

 develop new ones to meet new wants, is 

 already much in excess of the supply, and 

 will grow larger and more imperative. 

 Only a short time ago a recent graduate 

 was offered a position in our university 

 at $1,500, whereupon his employer raised 

 his salary to $3,000, and wrote to the uni- 

 versity jocularly suggesting that it increase 

 its bid to that amount, and he would raise 

 it again. 



To meet these demands, as well as the 

 just expectation of society, that laboratories 

 and scientific workers shall continue their 

 free gifts to all, means that our laboratories 

 must not merely keejD abreast of the times, 

 they must keep ahead of them. To do this 

 they miist have apparatus and equipments 

 which grow more elaborate and more costly 

 each year. 



Thinking of the astonishing results ob- 

 tained by the pioneers of chemistry and of 

 physics, as compared with the extreme sim- 

 plicity and the paucity of their instru- 

 ments, it is natural that the first impulse 

 should be to conclude that our modern labo- 

 ratories are extravagant in their demands. 

 But there is more sound truth than there 

 is generally conceded to be in that time- 



honored jest about the young aspirant for 

 scientific laurels who, after a long search 

 through the archives of science, came back 

 to his professor with the bitter complaint 

 that 'all the easy things had been discov- 

 ered already.' The domain of science is 

 not exempt from the general law that the 

 simplest and easiest is done first, and say- 

 ing this should not be construed as detract- 

 ing in the least from the fame of a Colum- 

 bus of science who launched forth ia the 

 courage of his convictions, and after much 

 hardship discovered a new world. The 

 first comer had but to pick the plant nearest 

 at hand to obtain a new specimen, and the 

 roughest sketch of the coast line was a great 

 contribution to knowledge. But think of 

 the years of skilled labor, the reams of cal- 

 culations, and the thousands of exquisitely 

 made instruments that had to be employed 

 before the government could issue those 

 perfect charts of the waters surrounding 

 our country. It was not so very many 

 years ago that gold and silver could be 

 found on and near the surface hereabouts, 

 but that is not now the case. It is said, 

 and it is no doubt true, that the treasures 

 of the Rocky Mountains have been no more 

 than scratched as yet. These scratches are 

 on the surface, and the easiest ones to make, 

 and you must dig more mines and deeper 

 each year. Once a pan and a stream of 

 water were the essentials to wash out a for- 

 tune; now gold-bearing quartz is crushed 

 in the stamp mills, and is treated by the 

 cyanide process. Your modern gold mine 

 requires an initial expenditure of one or 

 two hundred thousand dollars before it 

 l^egins to pay dividends. The analogy is 

 perfect. The prospector's pan of yester- 

 day is to the installation of to-day as the 

 laboratory needs of yesterday are to the 

 laboratory needs of to-day. 



Please notice it pays weU to dig deeper, 

 to crush the ore, to concentrate it and to 

 send it to a smelter. The processes are 



