McCormack, T. J.

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MISCELLANEOUS.A HISTORY OF THE ART OF PHYSICAL EXPERIMENTATION.It is a fascinating picture for the student of civilisation that Dr. E. Gerlandand Dr. F. Traumiiller have unrolled in their recent History of Physical Experi-me7itation} We have many books that treat of the development of physical theory,but none that give a complete history of the origin and growth of the wonderfuland ingenious mechanical devices by means of which our mastery of the forces ofnature has been advanced to the astonishing pitch witnessed by the closing daysof the nineteenth century.It is little considered what the history of civilisation owes to the invention ofthe simplest machines and tools, which may be regarded as the extensions and ma-terialisations of man's intellect, which have entirely offset the initial advantagesthat brute creation possessed over him in the struggle for existence, and whichhave multiplied his power and opportunities to a degree nothing short of super-human. The invention of the wheel alone bears upon it the burden of as greatcultural achievements as the political history of many empires ; its presence is sofamiliar to us and its function so imbedded in the fabric of our material welfare,that the very idea of its having had an origin or of a period of civilisation thatcould have possibly existed without its puissant aid, appears to have altogether es-caped the notice of the ordinary observer. Yet the Assyrian and Egyptian monu-ments plainly show that some of its simplest and crudest uses are far from havingbeen prehistoric. Its introduction, the development and application of its variedpowers, were very slow processes ; and, moreover, that development was, as in mostother cases, continuous, and little broken by accident ; its history, from a shorttime after its possible chance beginning to its present stage of extreme mechanicalrefinement, has been a succession of interrelated and rational conquests, condi-tioned by the knowledge, art, technical advantages, and intellectual dispositions ofthe ages. The accidents in its development have never occurred save to the inven-tive minds who were looking for them.This intellectual and cultural continuity in the evolution of human implements,workshops, and laboratories is finely brought out in some of the examples whosehistory we can follow in Dr. Gerland and Dr. Traumiiller's work, and notably soin the case of the development of the steam-engine, the origin of which popularromance delights to accord to the chance contemplation of a boiling tea-kettle. Itis not a derogation, but rather a noble compliment, to Watt's genius to recognise^ Geschichte der physikalischen Experimentierkunst. Leipsic : W. Engelniann. 1899. Pages,442. 425 cuts. Price, bound, 17 marks.^8 THE OPEN COURTthat his great invention was the rational and crowning flower of the scientific andtechnical growth of an entire century, and that he had in his work a line of illus-trious predecessors, Huygens, Somerset, Savery, Pappin, and Newcomen, one ofwhom at least was as clear as man could be of the desired goal. No finer picture,in fact, of the state of experimental art and mechanical ideals a century after Gali-leo can be found than that of the efforts of Denis Pappin (1647-1714) to constructa steam-engine to replace human labor. He invented both a low-pressure and ahigh-pressure steam-engine; his procedure was as logical and as cautious as couldbe desired ; his work was guided, not by theoretical fancies, but by the require-ments of the facts, as experimentally ascertained. He was fully conscious of thescope of his invention ; it was designed to pump water from mines, to throw pro-jectiles, and to propel ships and vehicles. Legend even had it that he actuallybuilt a steam-boat, urged by oars, and sailed on it in 1707 from Cassel to Miinden,intending afterwards to proceed to England,—a project in which he was foiled bythe Westphalian mariners, who destroyed his vessel from jealousy. Be that asit may, one cannot withhold one's admiration either for Pappin's ideas or for hispractical execution of them. But the technique of his time failed him, and, as ourauthors remark, the construction of his machine was so unutterably clumsy that itcan now provoke from us only a generous smile.The foregoing is but one of the many developments in the work under consid-eration which will interest the unprofessional reader. The history of the experi-mental and mechanic arts in Egypt and Assyria, in Greece and Rome, thoughmeager, is not without its surprises. Archimedes, Hero, Philo, Ctesbius, and Ptol-emy do much to relieve the absolute barrenness of the later periods. The inquirersof antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly constructed their apparatus themselves ;although Hero and Philo report that they had special mechanics of great skill.The manufacture of astronomical instruments was entrusted chiefly to goldsmithsand other workers in metal. The artistic Roman steelyards are distinctively theirwork. This did not change for centuries, and the trade of instrument-makingproper was not constituted as an independent craft until the invention of mechani-cal clocks : the first professional instrument-makers came from the ranks of theclock-makers.The Byzantine period has nothing to show; the Arabs are more interesting;there are some glimmerings in the Middle Ages (Roger Bacon); there is light inthe sixteenth century with Leonardo da Vinci, Maurolycus, Delia Porta, Gilbert,Copernicus, Stevinus, and Tycho Brahe (some of whose astronomical instrumentswere reproduced from the present work in 'I'hc Open Courl for July, 1900); but thefull radiance of the experimental procedure in physics burst forth with Galileo(i564-1642), who first systematically applied the Socratic method of induction in scienceand rightly conjoined it with deduction, as controlled by experiment. Galileo'sprocedure required the constant check of conclusions by facts ; and the develop-ment of experimental technics sprang from this requirement as fast as the advanceof the mechanic and industrial arts in each succeeding age permitted. The leapswhich it has taken in the present century are known, as to their magnitude at least,by all.But, as was above noted, the ideas of the inquirers often ran in advance of thepossibility of execution. One of the most celebrated books describing physical ex-periments of the seventeenth century is that of Otto Guericke, the inventor of theair-pump The two cuts here reproduced from his I'.xperimeuta hoto (ut 7'ocan-(nr) Ma/i^'dehtn-f^ncu {1672) show the simple apparatus with which he originallyMISCKLI,ANE(JUS. 59sought to obtain a vacuum. The first is that of a common barrel filled with waterwhich was drawn out by means of a fire-engine pump and which the air followedthrough the crevices as rapidly as the exhaustion was performed ; the second isthat of two semi-spherical copper vessels, which burst owing to their defectivecurvature.Guericke's First Crude and Unsuccessful Attempts to Obtain a Vacuum.(Facsimile reproduction from the Expei-imenta Magdeburgica.Amsterdam, 1672.)Guericke's book has supplied our authors with a great number of very interest-ing illustrations. This, indeed, is a feature in which their work is very rich. Thecuts, which number 425, are drawn from rare sources and in themselves form a6o THE OPEN C(JURT.veritable panorama of the development under consideration. The works of Huy-gens, Descartes, Hooke, Newton, Faraday, and many others, far more rare, havealso been exploited by the authors and publisher in lavish and commendable man-ner ; and it is our only regret that we cannot give more space to the notice of theimportant phases of human thought which they represent. Certainly, to manyreaders this book will prove an inspiring one. T. J. McCormack.ASPIRATION.A SONNET.' Tis the afterglow of sunset ! and a mistOf molten gold, at the bidding of the breeze,Is blown athwart the sky beyond yon trees,Wind-woven with waves of fire-fringed amethyst.No limits bar the soul ! Where'er it list,Borne on the untrammelled wings of Joy, it fleesThrough throbbing paths of light : yet naught it sees.Nor dreams of aught, save but to be star-kissed.On ! on 1 it hastens ; all its heart athirstWith love unspeakable, to touch with loveThat lovely light which glimmers now in grey:On ! on ! until in Hesper's arms, where erstIt yearned to lie, it sinks; as all aboveNight's palsy stills the last faint pulse of Day. F. J. P.AN AMERICAN ANTHOLOGYThe task ^of compiling an anthology of American verse' could not have beenentrusted to a more sympathetic critic than Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, theauthor of the admirable Victorian Autliology, and himself a poet of no meanmerit. He has performed his work with true American breadth and in a demo-cratic spirit that few would have had the courage to exhibit, but which has shownthe development of our national versification in all its varied phases, in its highestas well as its lowest sources, demonstrating it to be a genuine utterance of the na-tional heart, "of import in the past and to the future,"—a powerful stimulant tothe nation's growth. By his wide inclusiveness of selection he has put it beyond adoubt that " if our native anthology yields to a foreign one in wealth of choice pro-duction," it is still "from an equally vital point of view the more significant of thetwo." Throughout the years resulting in the Civil War, literature was with usreally a force; and a generous foreign critic, Mr. William Archer, has in Mr.Stedman's judgment truly said: "The whole world will one day come to holdVicksburg and Gettysburg names of larger historic import than Waterloo or Se-dan." "If this be so," Mr. Stedman continues, "the significance of a literatureMw American Anthology, 1787-1899. Selections IllustratinR the Editor's Critical Review ofAmerican Poetry in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Bostonand New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1900. Pages, Ixvii, 878. Price, large crown 8vo, $3.00;full gilt. $3 so; half calf, $5.00.

A History of the Art of Physical Experimentation.

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A History of the Art of Physical Experimentation.

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