PHOSPHORUS  AND  MATCH  MANUFACTURES. 
49 
ON  THE  ORIGIN  AND  PROGRESS  OF  THE  PHOSPHORUS  AND 
MATCH  MANUFACTURES. 
ByG.  Gore. 
It  has  been  wisely  remarked,  that  Science  "teaches  us  to  be 
neglectful  of  nothing;  not  to  despise  small  beginnings,  for  they 
precede,  of  necessity,  all  great  things  in  the  knowledge  of  science, 
either  pure  or  applied."  Not  only  should  we  not  neglect  scien- 
tific knowledge,  but  we  should  nurse  as  it  were  the  smallest  scien- 
tific truth  5  trying  and  watching  the  influence  of  various  condi- 
tions upon  it :  increasing  its  distinctness  or  importance  by  mod- 
ifying the  surrounding  circumstances :  adding  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little,  in  order  to  magnify  the  extent  or  variety  of  its  ap- 
plications to  human  benefit.  It  is  by  such  processes  of  treat- 
ment as  this,  slow  and  certain,  that  the  little  facts  of  the  bygone 
alchemists,  and  of  the  more  modern  scientific  investigators,  have 
been  extended  and  elaborated  into  the  marvellous  and  magnifi- 
cent realities  of  the  present  day. 
Nearly  all  the  great  practical  results  of  science  of  this  period 
have  had  their  origin  in  apparently  useless  and  out-of-the-way 
observations.  The  expansive  power  of  steam  was  known  long 
before  it  was  applied  to  any  useful  purpose.  One  observed  and 
and  another  observed  the  influence  of  various  circumstances 
upon  it ;  one  invented  and  another  contrived  additional  means 
of  controlling  it  and  directing  it :  one  added  and  another  intro- 
duced contrivances  and  pieces  of  accessory  mechanism  to  in- 
crease its  power,  until  from  the  simple  and  apparently  useless 
fact  of  vapor  expansion,  it  has  grown  to  be  the  giant  power  of 
the  earth,  influencing  the  action  and  habits  of  nearly  all  man- 
kind. 
The  curious  facts  respecting  the  action  of  liquids  on  metals, 
observed  by  Volta  and  Galvani,  and  the  action  of  electric  cur- 
rents on  magnets,  have,  by  the  repeated  trials  and  applications 
of  subsequent  discoverers  and  inventors,  been  elaborated  into  the 
present  system  of  electro-telegraphy,  which  bids  fair  to  cover 
the  whole  earth  with  its  wires,  and  to  bring  every  human  being 
into  speaking  distance  with  each  other. 
No  reasonable  and  intelligent  person  can  compare  the  com- 
4 
