Professor Owen's Address. 381 



other acids, together with other important organic bodies, are now 

 capable of artificial formation from their elements, and the old 

 barrier dividing organic from inorganic bodies is broken down. 

 To the power which mankind may ultimately exercise through the' 

 light of synthesis, who may presume to set limits ? Already 

 natural process can be more economically replaced by artificial 

 ones in the formation of a few organic compounds, the " valerianic 

 acicl," for example. It is impossible to foresee the extent to which 

 Chemistry may not ultimately, in the production of things need- 

 ful, supersede the present vital agencies of nature, w by laying 

 under contribution the accumulated forces of past ages, which 

 would thus enable us to obtain in a small manufactory, and in a 

 few days, effects which can be realized from present natural 

 agencies only when they are exerted upon vast areas of land, and 

 through considerable periods of time." Since Niepce, Herschel, 

 Fox, Talbot, and Daguerre laid the foundatiens of Photography, 

 year by year some improvement is made, — some advance achieved 

 in this most subtle application of combined discoveries in Photicity, 

 Electricity, Chemistry, and Magnetism. Last year M. Poitevin's 

 production of plates in relief, for the purpose of engraving by the 

 action of light alone, was cited as the latest marvel of Photography. 

 This year has witnessed photographic printing in carbon by M. 

 Pretschi. Prof. Owen continued by alluding to the application of 

 photography for obtaining views of the moon, of the planets, of 

 scientific and other phenomena. 



ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH. 



After referring to the discoveries in Electro -magnetism, the 

 lecturer continued. — Remote as such profound conceptions and 

 subtle trains of thought seem to be from the needs of everyday life 

 . the most astounding of the practical augmentation of man's power 

 has sprung out of them. Nothing might seem less promising of 

 profit than Oersted's painfully-pursued experiments, with his little 

 magnets, voltaic pile, and bits of copper wire. Yet out of these 

 has sprung the electric telegraph ! Oersted himself saw such an 

 application of his convertibility of electricity into magnetism, and 

 made arrangements for testing that application to the instantaneous 

 communication of signs through distances of a few miles. The 

 resources of inventive genius have made it practicable for all dis- 

 tances ; as we have lately seen in the submergence and working 

 of the electro-niasrnetic cord connecting the Old and the New 



