THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1864. 



80 ON THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES WHICH FORM 



cotton-mill, the embodiments, all of tliem, of a few very simple statical 

 and dynamical laws ; and yet able, with the speed of race-horses, to 

 transform a raw material, originally as cheap as thistledown, into end- 

 less useful and beautiful fabrics. Michael Scott, had he lived to see them, 

 would have dismissed his demons and broken his wand. 



Yet magnificent as the scale is on which many mechanical transfor- 

 mations occur, they are to a great extent undervalued because there is 

 nothing mysterious about them. However great the difference between 

 the raw material and the finished product, we can follow each step in 

 the transition from the one to the other. The Portland Vase, for 

 example, is as different, in one respect, from the ball of vitreous jelly 

 out of which it was elaborated, as in another, that jelly is from the 

 sand and alkali and metallic oxides, which were melted together to 

 produce it. Rarely-gifted hands and nice tools were needed to furnish 

 the mere outline of that beautiful vessel ; still more to carve the 

 exquisite shapes which are sculptured upon it. Its materials, on the 

 other hand, are of the cheapest ; and the most ignorant slave had skill 

 enough to melt them together. Yet we can realize each step in the 

 mechanical workmanship ; and some lookers-on ; if none others, the 

 artists themselves, saw the whole grow into beauty under their eyes, like 

 Aphrodite rising from the glassy sea. But no one saw or can see the 

 sand and alkali change into glass, or can realise what happens during 

 the transmutation. The most critical part of the process is effected per 

 saltum ; and, as with children trying to watch themselves fall asleep, 

 our eyesight and consciousness fail us at the very moment when the 

 mystery lies bare, and the secret is open to view. It is so with every 

 chemical process : bleaching, dyeing, fermenting, ether- making, reducing 

 of metals, firing of gunpowder. The substances taking part in each 

 reaction are like masqueraders crossing a bridge, the crown of which is 

 hidden by clouds. You trace them, letting no movement escape you, as 

 they climb from one side leisurely towards the elevated centre, and enter 

 the shadowing cloud, but though it seems quite transparent, its entrants 

 grow suddenly invisible, and when you next catch sight of them descend- 

 ing on the other side, they are transfigured and totally changed. 



This occult character of chemical force appeals not only to that 

 vulgar wonder which holds omne ignotum pro magnijico, but provokes 

 the chastened curiosity of the philosopher, who cannot divine what or 

 how many unexpected figures may emerge from each enigma, and alter 

 the value of all his calculations. 



The mechanical powers are like stalwart giants of Northern blood, 

 standing erect and naked to the waist, with their ponderous tools beside 

 them, and their fair, frank faces, ignorant of guile, opening their blue 

 eyes calmly upon us. They possess only strength and skill, and 

 obedience to laws so few and simple that they can be made plain to any 

 intelligent child. "We respect and admire them ; but we feel that we 

 can measure their height, and take the girth of their arms, and we are 



