416 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
We find the list of the illustrious names so small that it may be said, there 
ought to have been more, and for the reason that the great treasuries of nature 
were all untouched. This is true ; but the way to them was unknown. And 
for this reason we can but admire the perseverance of the few men who plodded 
through the mazes of the untraversed wilderness and won such wonderful prizes 
as they did. Just here it may not be out of place to add that the above fact of 
the recent birth of science is worth a great deal in an argument with the skeptic 
who denies the inspiration of the Scriptures. Whence came the wonderful knowl- 
edge of creation, given in such beautiful order as verified by modern investiga- 
tion, related in the first chapter of Genesis ? Either scientific knowledge such as 
is now extant was possessed by its author, or else he was divinely inspired. We 
are prone to believe the latter. 
Especially is it to be noted that the wonderful advances and discoveries of 
age (and future ages as well,) came very largely as the result of the invention of 
the telescope and microscope. By these instruments admission was gained for 
the first time to the macrocosm and the microcosm between which man with his 
native powers had hitherto existed. 
Not much was done in geology and chemistry ; these sciences had their true 
birth in the i8th century. 
CHEMISTRY. 
THE ELEMENTS. 
J. H. GLADSTONE, PH.D., F. R. S. 
{^An address delivered before the Chemical Section of the British Association.') 
Though theoretical and practical chemistry are now intertwined, with mani- 
fest advantage to each, they appear to have been far apart in their origin. Prac- 
tical chemistry arose from the arts of life, the knowledge empirically and labor- 
iously acquired by the miner and metallurgist, the potter and the glass-worker, 
the cook and the perfumer. Theoretical chemistry derived its origin from cos- 
mogony. In the childhood of the human race the question was eagerly put, " By 
what process were all things made ? " and some of the answers given started the doc- 
trine of Elements. The earliest documentary evidence of the idea is probably 
contained in the Shoo King, the most esteemed of the Chinese classics for its 
antiquity. It is an historical work, and comprises a document of still more vener- 
able age, called " The Great Plan, with its Nine Divisions," which purports to have 
been given by Heaven to the Great Yu, to teach him his royal duty and * ' the proper 
virtues of the various relations." Of course there are wide differences of opinion 
as to its date, but we can scarcely be wrong in considering it as older than Solomon's 
