328 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
is now a metal of considerable importance in tlie towns of 
Birmingham and Sheffield ; the galvanic battery was discovered 
by Yolta in 1800, and magneto-electricity by Faraday about 
the year 1830. Without the discovery of nickel we should 
have had no nickel refineries, nor German silver manufactories ; 
and without galvanic and magneto-electricity the extensive 
trade of electro-plating would never have sprung up, and the 
manufacture of galvanic batteries, telegraphic instruments, and 
especially of the immense quantities of telegraph wire now con- 
sumed, would never have existed. 
These and other kindred scientific truths having become 
common-place facts of everyday life, we are apt to think that 
abstract science has had but little to do with then’ production, 
and we are thus unconsciously led to undervalue the importance 
of abstract scientific investigation. 
It is true that many processes of manufacture have not been 
consequences of abstract scientific discovery, that they originally 
resulted from alterations made in the rudest artistic appliances, 
and that they have been directed and improved by the results 
of experience. For ages past we have been deriving the 
benefit of scientific principles without a knowledge of their 
existence ; we have trodden in the beaten path of experience, 
ignorant of the truth that we were acting in unison with fixed 
and certain laws. Numerous arts and processes were in exten- 
sive operation long before the principles involved in them were 
at all understood ; the arts of enamelling and of iron-smelting 
were known hundreds of years before we were acquainted with 
the principles of chemistry. In some instances the recorded 
results of daily experience in practical matters, tabulated and 
studied, have led to the discovery of scientific laws, but this is 
merely the making use of our ordinary experience for the 
advancement of knowledge, instead of making special experi- 
ments for the purpose. 
It is also true that many discoveries remain a long time 
before they are practically and extensively applied, that some 
made long ago have not yet found a practical use, and persons 
of superficial minds, therefore, frequently inquire, “ what is 
their use?” Their use is to assist in the development of other 
discoveries, and to be ready at the command of the inventor, 
who applies them to useful purposes. Of what use were the 
various abstract investigations upon specific heat, latent heat, 
the tension of vapours, the properties of water, the mechanical 
effect of heat, &c., by Black and others, but to be ready for 
the illustrious Watt to apply in the steam-engine? Of what 
use was the discovery of atmospheric electricity by Franklin, 
but to lead to the preservation of human life by means of 
lightning conductors ? 
