FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 425 



commodities or services can be afforded. Such questions involve a multi- 

 tude of details, and it is just here where scientifically trained men have a 

 large field before them. The economical organization of labor, the perfec- 

 tion of machines, the prevention or utilization of former waste, the rectifi- 

 cation of past constructive blunders — are all questions of legitimate scien- 

 tific study, which invested interests are rapidly recognizing. The econom- 

 ics of transportation, the management of railways and canals, are subjects 

 that will repay the profoundest study, and in these directions the field for 

 a brilliant professional reputation is most enticing. There are numberless 

 vexed questions and unsolved problems in connection with transportation 

 matters, that only scientific methods of thought, coupled with practical ex- 

 perience and observation, can grapple with. Ex-President Grant is cred- 

 ited with the remark, that certain public men had the misfortune to begin 

 their career as major-generals. There is a world of wisdom in the remark?- 

 no matter what its source, or to whom it applies. It is, indeed a misfort- 

 une to rise in the world more rapidly than one's knowledge and experi- 

 ence warrant. Let me, as a matter of advice, caution you against the am- 

 bition of getting ahead too fast. All the schools in Christendom cannot 

 take the place of experience. They can at best only prepare and furnish 

 the mind, so as to make experience scientifically usable. It is, therefore, 

 and in fact necessary, for a professional beginner to start low in the ranks, 

 so that he may be familiar with the manner in which things are done, if he 

 ever expects to take a high position in the command of men, and in the 

 management of things. In other w^ords, he must know how things are 

 done, before he can instruct others to do them. In conclusion, let me re- 

 mind you, that you go forth under the standard of an Alma Mater that has 

 xaade a record in almost every state in the Union — see to it, that in your 

 lives and practice, you hopor her, as she this evening honors you. — Van 

 Nostrand's Engineering Magazine. 



FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



Paris, September 1st, 1877. 

 Meteorology is the least known of the sciences, and any progress re- 

 cently made therein — and it is much — is to destroy many ideas hitherto 

 received as exact. The subject was so near us, observations were so fa- 

 miliar that we concluded to exclude remote causes. Some laws were found 

 to be contradictory, and deductions more apparent than true. It is only 

 now that we begin to observe that solar spots have connection with the- 

 weather, and to suspect the stars as producing variations in the atmosphere. 

 We must elsewhere than on the surface of the earth seek the explanation 

 of these disturbances. 



