RELATION TO COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. 315 



to know whether it is a fish or a serpent which is offered to their grasp, 

 and to perceive that they are receiving bread, where they thought it waa 

 a stone. 



II. The Home Industrial Museum, secondly, should be a place where 

 the Eature and value of the unknown products of this country and of 

 foreign countries might be ascertained and made public. Investigations 

 into native products calculated to serve the entire nation have been pro- 

 secuted in all the practical museums of the country since their establish- 

 ment. I mention one or two. At the Museum of Economic Geology, 

 London, an elaborate and most valuable series of researches on the steam 

 coals of the navy, was made some years ago by Sir Henry De la Beche, 

 and Dr. Lyon Playfair. An equally important series of analyses of 

 the iron-orea of England has recently been completed under Dr. 

 Percy of the same museum ; and Dr. Hoffmann and Mr. "Witt, who are 

 also among its officers, have investigated at great length, the question — 

 How far, without prejudice to the public health, the sewage of great 

 towns may be rendered agriculturally useful ? Sir Robert Kane, Direc- 

 tor of the Museum of Irish Industry, Dublin, has devoted an entire 

 volume to the discussion of the Industrial resources of Ireland. Along 

 with Dr. Sullivan, he has also made a detailed report on the modes in 

 which the too abundant peat of his native country can be rendered use- 

 ful ; and in the laboratory of this museum, the question of cultivating 

 beet-root in Ireland as a source of sugar has been very fully considered. 

 Similar investigations are continually in progress. 



As for foreign countries, every day ships bring to our great sea- 

 ports important raw materials which, through the ignorance of brokers, 

 are wasted or neglected. Samples of every strange raw material which 

 passes through the Inland Revenue Office, should be sent to one or 

 other, or all, of the industrial museums of the country, to be examined 

 and reported on for the good of the community. It is not intended by 

 this to come in between the importer and his profits, but only to sup- 

 plement his ignorance or neglect of the value of what he has imported. 

 But wdiatever may be thought of this proposition, none will probably 

 deny that it would be of signal service to the mercantile public to 

 be assured that whatever raw materials their correspondents or agents 

 sent home, would be examined, if desired, by skilled adepts, and their 

 commercial value proximately determined. If you only call to remem- 

 brance the immense stimulus which commercial enterprise has received 

 within but twenty years, from the discovery abroad of gutta percha, 

 guano, gold, and nitrate of soda, besides many other bodies less familiar 

 to the general public — you will perceive how essential it is that every 

 possible workable material should be collected abroad, and carefully 

 examined at home. 



III. Commercial enterprise is as much interested in sending finished 

 products to a distance, as in bringing raw materials to its own 

 door. The perfected results, accordingly, of industrial art, are as 



