velocity than even in the living system itself, and that across vast 

 terrestrial distances, or even beneath the sea. Telegraphic wires 

 are, strictly speaking, continuations of the centrifugal nerves, and 

 we are not without reason for believing that it is the same influ- 

 ence which is active in both cases. 



_ In a scientific point of view, such improvements in the capabil- 

 ities of the organs for receiving external impressions, such exten- 

 sions to the distances to which the results of intellectual acts and 

 the dictates of the will may be conveyed, constitute a true devel- 

 opment, an evolution, none the less real though it may be of an 

 kind. If we reflect carefully on these things, bearing in 

 mind what is now known of the course of development in the ani- 

 mal series, we shall not fail to remark what a singular interest 

 gathers round these artificial developments— artificial thev can 

 scarcely be called, since they themselves have arisen interiorly. 

 They are the result of intellectual acts. Man has been develop- 

 ing himself. He, so far as the earth is concerned, is becoming 

 omnipresent. The electrical nerves of society are spread to a 

 plexus all over Europe and America; their r',, mm is -.'ir:.l -ir.m.lx 

 run under the Atlantic and the Pacific. 



In many of the addresses that have been made during the past 

 summer, on the Centennial occasion, the shortcomings of the 

 United States in extending the boundaries of scientific knowledge, 

 in the physical and chemical departments, have been 

 set forth. " We must acknowledge with shame our inferiority to 

 other people," says one. " We have done nothing," says another. 

 Weli, illthi-b trtu we oiiL'ht perhaps to look to the condition 

 of our colleges for an explanation. But we must not forget that 

 many of these humiliating accusations are made by persons who 

 are not of authority in the matter; who, because they are igno- 

 rant of what has been done, think that nothing has been done. 

 They mistake what is merely a blank in their own informal ion tor 

 a blank in reality. In their alacrity to depreciate the merit of 

 their own country, a most unpatriotic alacrity, they would have 

 ns confess that for the last century we have been living on the 

 reputation of Franklin and his thunder-rod. 



Perhaps, then, we may without vanity recall some facts that 

 may relieve us in a measure from the weight of this heavy accusa- 

 tion. We have sent out expeditions of exploration both to the 

 Arctic and Antarctic seas. We have submitted our own coast 

 to a hydrographic and geodesic survey, not excelled in exactness 

 and exteut by any similar works elsewhere. In the accomplish- 

 ment of this we have been compelled to solve many physical 

 problems of the greatest delicacy and highest importance, and 

 we have done it successfully. The measuring rods with which 

 the three great base lines of Maine, Long Island, Georgia, were 

 determined, and their beautiful mechanical appliances, have 

 exacted the publicly expressed admiration of some of the greatest 

 European philosophers, and the conduct of that survey their un- 

 stinted applause. We have instituted geological surveys of many 



