# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 22/December 1882/Science in Relation to the Arts II

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* SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE ARTS.
By C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, F. R. S.
II.
GAS is an institution of the utmost value to the artisan; it requires hardly any attention, is supplied upon regulated terms, and gives with what should be a cheerful light a genial warmth, which often saves the lighting of a fire. The time is, moreover, not far distant, I venture to think, when both rich and poor will largely resort to gas as ​the most convenient, the cleanest, and the cheapest of heating agents, and when raw coal will be seen only at the colliery or the gas-works. In all cases where the town to be supplied is within say thirty miles of the colliery, the gas-works may with advantage be planted at the mouth, or still better at the bottom of the pit, whereby all haulage of fuel would be avoided, and the gas, in its ascent from the bottom of the colliery, would acquire an onward pressure sufficient probably to impel it to its destination. The possibility of transporting combustible gas through pipes for such a distance has been proved at Pittsburg, where natural gas from the oil district is used in large quantities.
The quasi monopoly so long enjoyed by gas companies has had the inevitable effect of checking progress. The gas being supplied by meter, it has been seemingly to the advantage of the companies to give merely the prescribed illuminating power, and to discourage the invention of economical burners, in order that the consumption might reach a maximum. The application of gas for heating purposes has not been encouraged, and is still made difficult, in consequence of the objectionable practice of reducing the pressure in the mains during day-time to the lowest possible point consistent with prevention of atmospheric indraught. The introduction of the electric light has convinced gas managers and directors that such a policy is no longer tenable, but must give way to one of technical progress; new processes for cheapening the production and increasing the purity and illuminating power of gas are being fully discussed before the Gas Institute; and improved burners, rivaling the electric light in brilliancy, greet our eyes as we pass along our principal thoroughfares.
Regarding the importance of the gas-supply as it exists at present, we find from a government return that the capital invested in gasworks in England, other than those of local authorities, amounts to £30,000,000; in these, 4,281,048 tons of coal are converted annually, producing 43,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas, and about 2,800,000 tons of coke; whereas the total amount of coal annually converted in the United Kingdom may be estimated at 9,000,000 tons, and the byproducts therefrom at 500,000 tons of tar, 1,000,000 tons of ammonia liquor, and 4,000,000 tons of coke, according to the returns kindly furnished me by the managers of many of the gas-works and corporations. To these may be added say 120,000 tons of sulphur, which up to the present time is a waste product.
Previous to the year 1856—that is to say, before Mr. W. II. Perkin had invented his practical process, based chiefly upon the theoretical investigations of Hoffman, regarding the coal-tar bases and the chemical constitution of indigo—the value of coal-tar in London was scarcely a halfpenny a gallon, and in country places gas-makers were glad to give it away. Up to that time the coal-tar industry had consisted ​chiefly in separating the tar by distillation into naphtha, creosote, oils, and pitch. A few distillers, however, made small quantities of benzene, which had been first shown—by Mansfield, in 1849—to exist in coal-tar naphtha mixed with toluene, cumene, etc. The discovery, in 1856, of the mauve or aniline purple gave a great impetus to the coal tar trade, inasmuch as it necessitated the separation of large quantities of benzene, or a mixture of benzene and toluene, from the naphtha. The trade was further increased by the discovery of the magenta or rosaniline dye, which required the same products for its preparation. In the mean time, carbolic acid was gradually introduced into commerce, chiefly as a disinfectant, but also for the production of coloring matter.
The next most important development arose from the discovery by Graebe and Liebermann that alizarine, the coloring principle of the madder-root, was allied to anthracene, a hydrocarbon existing in coal tar. The production of this coloring-matter from anthracene followed, and is now one of the most important operations connected with tar distilling. The success of the alizarine made in this manner has been so great that it has almost entirely superseded the use of madder, which is now cultivated to only a comparatively small extent. The most important coloring-matters recently introduced are the azo-scarlets. They have called into use the coal-tar hydrocarbons, xylene and cumene. Naphthalene is also used in their preparation. These splendid dyes have replaced cochineal in many of its applications, and have thus seriously interfered with its use. The discovery of artificial indigo by Professor Baeyer is of great interest. For the preparation of this coloring-matter toluene is required. At present artificial indigo does not compete seriously with the natural product; but, should it eventually be prepared in quantity from toluene, a further stimulus will be given to the coal-tar trade.
The color industry utilizes even now practically all the benzene, a large proportion of the solvent naphtha, all the anthracene, and a portion of the naphthaline resulting from the distillation of coal-tar; and the value of the coloring-matter thus produced is estimated by Mr. Perkin at £3,350,000.
The demand for ammonia may be taken as unlimited, on account of its high agricultural value as a manure; and, considering the failing supply of guano and the growing necessity for stimulating the fertility of our soil, an increased production of ammonia may be regarded as a matter of national importance, for the supply of which we have to look almost exclusively to our gas-works. The present production of 1,000,000 tons of liquor yields 95,000 tons of sulphate of ammonia, which, taken at £20 10s. a ton, represents an annual value of £1,947,000.
The total annual value of the gas-works by-products may be estimated as follows:
| Coloring-matter | £3,350,000 |
| Sulphate of ammonia | 1,947,000 |
| Pitch (325,000 tons) | 365,000 |
| Creosote (25,000,000 gallons) | 208,000 |
| Crude carbolic acid (1,000,000 gallons) | 100,000 |
| Gas-coke, 4,000,000 tons (after allowing 2,000,000 tons consumption in working the retorts) at 12s | 2,400,000 |
| Total | £8,370,000 |
Taking the coal used, 9,000,000 tons at 12s., equal £5,400,000, it follows that the by-products exceed in value the coal used by very nearly £3,000,000.
In using raw coal for heating purposes these valuable products are not only absolutely lost to us, but in their stead we are favored with those semi-gaseous by-products in the atmosphere too well known to the denizens of London and other large towns as smoke. Professor Roberts has calculated that the soot in the pall hanging over London on a winter's clay amounts to fifty tons, and that the carbonic oxide, a poisonous compound, resulting from the imperfect combustion of coal, may be taken as at least five times that amount. Mr. Aitken has shown, moreover, in an interesting paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, last year, that the fine dust resulting from the imperfect combustion of coal is mainly instrumental in the formation of fog; each particle of solid matter attracting to itself aqueous vapor; these globules of fog are rendered particularly tenacious and disagreeable by the presence of tar-vapor, another result of imperfect combustion of raw fuel, which might be turned to much better account at the dye-works. The hurtful influence of smoke upon public health, the great personal discomfort to which it gives rise, and the vast expense it indirectly causes through the destruction of our monuments, pictures, furniture, and apparel, are now being recognized, as is evinced by the success of recent Smoke Abatement Exhibitions. The most effectual remedy would result from a general recognition of the fact that, wherever smoke is produced, fuel is being consumed wastefully, and that all our calorific effects, from the largest down to the domestic fire, can be realized as completely and more economically, without allowing any of the fuel employed to reach the atmosphere unburnt. This most desirable result may be effected by the use of gas for all heating purposes, with or without the addition of coke or anthracite.
The cheapest form of gas is that obtained through the entire distillation of fuel in such gas-producers as are now largely used in working the furnaces of glass, iron, and steel works; but gas of this description would not be available for the supply of towns owing to its bulk, about two thirds of its volume being nitrogen. The use of water-gas, resulting from the decomposition of steam in passing through a hot chamber filled with coke, has been suggested, but this gas is also objectionable, because it contains, besides hydrogen, the poisonous and inodorous ​gas, carbonic oxide, the introduction of which into dwelling-houses could not be effected without considerable danger. A more satisfactory mode of supplying heating separately from illuminating-gas would consist in connecting the retort at different periods of the distillation with two separate systems of mains for the delivery of the respective gases. Experiments made some years ago by Mr. Ellisen, of the Paris gas-works, have shown that the gases rich in carbon, such as defiant and acetylene, are developed chiefly during an interval of time, beginning half an hour after the commencement and terminating at half the whole period of distillation, while during the remainder of the time, marsh gas and hydrogen are chiefly developed, which, while possessing little illuminating power, are most advantageous for heating purposes. By resorting to improved means of heating the retorts with gaseous fuel, such as have been in use at the Paris gas-works for a considerable number of years, the length of time for effecting each distillation may be shortened from six hours, the usual period in former years, to four, or even three hours, as now practiced at Glasgow and elsewhere. By this means a given number of retorts can be made to produce, in addition to the former quantity of illuminating-gas of superior quality, a similar quantity of heating-gas, resulting in a diminished cost of production and an increased supply of the valuable by-products previously referred to. The quantity of both ammonia and heating-gas may be further increased by the simple expedient of passing a streamlet of steam through the heated retorts toward the end of each operation, whereby the ammonia and hydrocarbons still occluded in the heated coke will be evolved, and the volume of heating-gas produced be augmented by the products of decomposition of the steam itself. It has been shown that gas may be used advantageously for domestic purposes with judicious management even under present conditions, and it is easy to conceive that its consumption for heating would soon increase, perhaps tenfold, if supplied separately at say one shilling a thousand cubic feet. At this price gas would be not only the cleanest and most convenient, but also the cheapest form of fuel, and the enormous increase of consumption, the superior quality of the illuminating-gas obtained by selection, and the proportionate increase of by-products, would amply compensate the gas company or corporation for the comparatively low price of the heating-gas.
The greater efficiency of gas as a fuel results chiefly from the circumstance that a pound of gas yields in combustion twenty-two thousand heat-units, or exactly double the heat produced in the combustion of a pound of ordinary coal. This extra heating power is due partly to the freedom of the gas from earthy constituents, but chiefly to the heat imparted to it in effecting its distillation. Recent experiments with gas-burners have shown that in this direction also there is much room for improvement.
The amount of light given out by a gas-flame depends upon the ​temperature to which the particles of solid carbon in the flame are raised, and Dr. Tyndall has shown that, of the radiant energy set up in such a flame, only the 125 part is luminous; the hot products of combustion carry off at least four times as much energy as is radiated, so that not more than one hundredth part of the heat evolved in combustion is converted into light. This proportion could be improved, however, by increasing the temperature of combustion, which may be effected either by intensified air-currents or by regenerative action. Supposing that the heat of the products of combustion could be communicated to metallic surfaces, and be transferred by conduction or otherwise to the atmospheric air supporting combustion in the flame, we should be able to increase the temperature accumulatively to any point within the limit of dissociation; this limit may be fixed at about 2,300° C., and can not be very much below that of the electric arc. At such a temperature the proportion of luminous rays to the total heat produced in combustion would be more than doubled, and the brilliancy of the light would at the same time be greatly increased. Thus improved, gas-lighting may continue its rivalry with electric lighting both as regards economy and brilliancy, and such rivalry must necessarily result in great public advantage.
In the domestic grate radiant energy of inferior intensity is required, and I for one do not agree with those who would like to see the open fire-place of this country superseded by the Continental stove. The advantages usually claimed for the open fire-place are, that it is cheerful, "pokable," and conducive to ventilation; but to these may be added another of even greater importance, viz., that the radiant heat which it emits passes through the transparent air without warming it, and imparts heat only to the solid walls, floor, and furniture of the room, which are thus constituted the heating surfaces of the comparatively cool air of the apartments in contact with them. In the case of stoves, the heated air of the room causes deposit of moisture upon the walls in heating them, and gives rise to mildew and germs injurious to health. It is, I think, owing to this circumstance that upon entering an apartment one can immediately perceive whether or not it is heated by an open fire-place; nor is the unpleasant sensation due to stove-heating completely removed by mechanical ventilation; there is, moreover, no good reason why an open fire-place should not be made as economical and smokeless as a stove or hot-water apparatus.
In the production of mechanical effect from heat, gaseous fuel also presents most striking advantages, as will appear from the following consideration. When we have to deal with the question of converting mechanical into electrical effect, or vice versa, by means of the dynamo-electrical machine, we have only to consider what are the equivalent values of the two forms of energy, and what precautions are necessary to avoid losses by the electrical resistance of conductors and by ​friction. The transformation of mechanical effect into heat involves no losses except those resulting from imperfect installation, and these may be so completely avoided that Dr. Joule was able by this method to determine the equivalent values of the two forms of energy. But, in attempting the inverse operation of effecting the conversion of heat into mechanical energy, we find ourselves confronted by the second law of thermo-dynamics, which says that, whenever a given amount of heat is converted into mechanical effect, another but variable amount descends from a higher to a lower potential, and is thus rendered unavailable.
In the condensing steam-engine this waste heat comprises that communicated to the condensing-water, while the useful heat, or that converted into mechanical effect, depends upon the difference of temperature between the boiler and condenser. The boiler-pressure is limited, however, by considerations of safety and convenience of construction, and the range of working temperature rarely exceeds 120° C., except in the engines constructed by Mr. Perkins, in which a range of 160° C., or an expansive action commencing at fourteen atmospheres, has been adopted with considerable promise of success, as appears from an able report on this engine by Sir Frederick Bramwell. To obtain more advantageous primary conditions we have to turn to the caloric or gas engine, because in them the co-efficient of efficiency, expressed by t-t't' may be greatly increased. This value would reach a maximum if the initial absolute temperature t could be raised to that of combustion, and t' reduced to atmospheric temperature, and these maximum limits can be much more nearly approached in the gas-engine worked by a combustible mixture of air and hydrocarbons than in the steam-engine.
Assuming, then, in an explosive gas-engine a temperature of 1,500° C., at a pressure of four atmospheres, we should, in accordance with the second law of thermo-dynamics, find a temperature after expansion to atmospheric pressure of 600° C., and therefore a working range of 1500° - 600° $=$ 900°, and a theoretical efficiency of 9001,500 $+$ 274 $=$ about one half, contrasting very favorably with that of a good expansive condensing steam-engine, in which the range is 150 $-$ 30 $=$ 120° C, and the efficiency 120150 $+$ 274 $=$ 27. A good expansive steam-engine is therefore capable of yielding as mechanical work two-seventh part of the heat communicated to the boiler, which does not include the heat lost by imperfect combustion, and that carried away in the chimney. Adding to these the losses by friction and radiation in the engine, we find that the best steam-engine yet constructed does not yield in mechanical effect more than one seventh part of the heat-energy residing in the fuel consumed. In the gas engine we have also to make reductions from the theoretical efficiency, on account of the rather serious loss of heat by absorption into the ​working cylinder, which has to be cooled artificially in order to keep its temperature down to a point at which lubrication is possible; this, together with frictional loss, can not be taken at less than one half, and reduces the factor of efficiency of the engine to one fourth.
It follows from these considerations that the gas or caloric engine combines the conditions most favorable to the attainment of maximum results, and it may reasonably be supposed that the difficulties still in the way of their application on a large scale will gradually be removed. Before many years have elapsed we shall find in our factories and on board our ships engines with a fuel-consumption not exceeding one pound of coal per effective horse-power per hour, in which the gas producer takes the place of the somewhat complex and dangerous steam boiler. The advent of such an engine and of the dynamo-machine must mark a new era of material progress at least equal to that produced by the introduction of steam-power in the early part of our century. Let us consider what would be the probable effect of such an engine upon that most important interest of this country—the merchant navy.
According to returns kindly furnished me by the Board of Trade and "Lloyd's Register of Shipping," the total value of the merchant shipping of the United Kingdom may be estimated at £126,000,000, of which £90,000,000 represent steamers having a net tonnage of 3,003,988 tons; and £36,000,000 sailing-vessels, of 3,688,008 tons. The safety of this vast amount of shipping, carrying about five sevenths of our total imports and exports, or £500,000,000 of goods in the year, and of the more precious lives connected with it, is a question of paramount importance. It involves considerations of the most varied kind: comprising the construction of the vessel itself, and the material employed in building it; its furniture of engines, pumps, sails, tackle, compass, sextant, and sounding apparatus, the preparation of reliable charts for the guidance of the navigator, and the construction of harbors of refuge, light-houses, beacons, bells, and buoys, for channel navigation. Yet notwithstanding the combined efforts of science, inventive skill, and practical experience—the accumulation of centuries—we are startled with statements to the effect that during last year as many as 1,007 British-owned ships were lost, of which fully two thirds were wrecked upon our shores, representing a total value of nearly £10,000,000. Of these ships 870 were sailing-vessels and 137 steamers, the loss of the latter being in a fourth of the cases attributable to collision. The number of sailing-vessels included in these returns being 19,325, and of steamers 5,505, it appears that the steamer is the safer vessel, in the proportion of 4·43 to 3·46; but the steamer makes on an average three voyages for one of the sailing-ship taken over the year, which reduces the relative risk of the steamer as compared with the sailing-ship per voyage in the proportion of 13·29 to 3·46. Commercially speaking, this factor of safety in favor of steam-shipping is to a ​great extent counterbalanced by the value of the steamship, which bears to that of the sailing-vessel per net carrying ton the proportion of 3: 1, thus reducing the ratio in favor of steam-shipping as 13·29 to 10·38, or in round numbers as as 4: 3. In testing this result by the charges of premium for insurance, the variable circumstances of distance, nature of cargo, season, and voyage have to be taken into account; but, judging from information received from ship-owners and underwriters of undoubted authority, I find that the relative insurance paid for the two classes of vessel represents an advantage of 30 per cent in favor of steam-shipping, agreeing very closely with the above deductions derived from statistical information.
In considering the question how the advantages thus established in favor of steam-shipping could be further improved, attention should be called in the first place to the material employed in their construction. A new material was introduced for this purpose by the Admiralty in 1876-'78, when they constructed at Pembroke dock-yard the two steam corvettes, the Iris and Mercury, of mild steel. The peculiar qualities of this material are such as have enabled ship-builders to save 20 per cent in the weight of the ship's hull, and to increase to that extent its carrying capacity. It combines, with a strength of thirty per cent superior to that of iron, such extreme toughness, that in the case of collision the side of the vessel has been found to yield or bulge several feet without showing any signs of rupture, a quality affecting the question of sea-risk very favorably. When to the use of this material there are added the advantages derived from a double bottom, and from the division of the ship's hold by means of bulk-heads of solid construction, it is difficult to conceive how such a vessel could perish by collision either with another vessel or with a sunken rock. The spaces between the two bottoms are not lost, because they form convenient chambers for water-ballast, but powerful pumps should in all cases be added to meet emergencies.
The following statement of the number and tonnage of vessels building and preparing to be built in the United Kingdom on the 30th of June last, which has been kindly furnished me by Lloyd's, is of interest as showing that wooden ships are fast becoming obsolete, and that even iron is beginning to yield its place, both as regards steamers and sailing-ships, to the new material mild steel; it also shows that by far the greater number of vessels now building are ships of large dimensions propelled by engine-power:
| | MILD STEEL. | MILD STEEL. | IRON. | IRON. | WOOD. | WOOD. | TOTAL. | TOTAL. |
| | No. | Tons gross. | No. | Tons gross. | No. | Tons gross. | No. | Tons gross. |
| Steam | 89 | 159,751 | 555 | 929,921 | 6 | 460 | 650 | 1,090,132 |
| Sailing | 11 | 16,800 | 70 | 120,259 | 49 | 4,635 | 130 | 141,694 |
| | 100 | 176,551 | 625 | 1,050,180 | 55 | 5,095 | 780 | 1,232,826 |
​If to the improvements already achieved could be added an engine of half the weight of the present steam-engine and boilers, and working with only half the present expenditure of fuel, a further addition of 30 per cent could be made to the cargo of an Atlantic propeller vessel—no longer to be called a steamer—and the balance of advantages in favor of such vessels would be sufficient to restrict the use of sailing-craft chiefly to the regattas of this and neighboring ports.
The admirable work on the "British Navy," lately published by Sir Thomas Brassey, the Civil Chief Lord of the Admiralty, shows that the naval department of this country is fully alive to all improvements having regard to the safety as well as to the fighting qualities of her Majesty's ships of war, and recent experience goes far to prove that, although high speed and manoeuvring qualities are of the utmost value, the armor-plate which appeared to be fast sinking in public favor is not without its value in actual warfare.
The progressive views perceptible in the construction of the navy are further evidenced in a remarkable degree in the hydrographic department. Captain Sir Frederick Evans, the hydrographer, and Vice President of the British Association, gave us at York last year a very interesting account of the progress made in that department, which, while dealing chiefly with the preparation of charts showing the depth of water, the direction and force of currents, and the rise of tides near our shores, contains also valuable statistical information regarding the more general questions of the physical conditions of the sea, its temperature at various depths, its flora and fauna, as also the rain-fall, and the nature and force of prevailing winds. In connection with this subject the American Naval Department has taken an important part, under the guidance of Captain Maury and the Agassiz father and son, while in this country the persistent labors of Dr. William Carpenter deserve the highest consideration.
Our knowledge of tidal action has received a most powerful impulse through the invention of a self-recording gauge and tide-predicter, which will form the subject of one of the discourses to be delivered at our present meeting by its principal originator, Sir William Thomson; when I hope he will furnish us with an explanation of some extraordinary irregularities in tidal records, observed some years ago by Sir John Coode at Portland, and due apparently to atmospheric influence.
The application of iron and steel in naval construction rendered the use of the compass for some time illusory, but in 1839 Sir George Airy showed how the errors of the compass, due to the influence experienced from the iron of the ship, may be perfectly corrected by magnets and soft iron placed in the neighborhood of the binnacle, but the great size of the needles in the ordinary compasses rendered the correction of the quadrantal errors practically unattainable. In 1876 Sir William ​Thomson invented a compass with much smaller needles than those previously used, which allows Sir George Airy's principles to he applied completely. With this compass correctors can be arranged so that the needle shall point accurately in all directions, and these correctors can be adjusted at sea from time to time, so as to eliminate any error which may arise through change in the ship's magnetism, or in the magnetism induced by the earth through change of the ship's position. By giving the compass-card a long period of free oscillation, great steadiness is obtained when the ship is rolling.
Sir William Thomson has also enriched the art of navigation by the invention of two sounding-machines; the one being devised for ascertaining great depths very accurately in less than one quarter the time formerly necessary, and the other for taking depths up to 130 fathoms without stopping the ship in its onward course. In both these instruments steel piano-forte wire is used instead of the hempen and silken lines formerly employed; in the latter machine the record of depth is obtained not by the quantity of wire run over its counter and brake wheel, but through the indications produced upon a simple pressure gauge consisting of an inverted glass tube, whose internal surface is covered beforehand with a preparation of chromate of silver, rendered colorless by the sea-water up to the height to which it penetrates. The value of this instrument for guiding the navigator within what he calls "soundings" can hardly be exaggerated; with the sounding-machine and a good chart he can generally make out his position correctly by a succession of three or four casts in a given direction at given intervals, and thus in foggy weather is made independent of astronomical observations, and of the sight of light-houses or the shore. By the proper use of this apparatus, such accidents as happened to the mail-steamer Mosel not a fortnight ago would not be possible. As regards the value of the deep-sea instrument I can speak from personal experience, as on one occasion it enabled those in charge of the cable steamship Faraday to find the end of an Atlantic cable, which had parted in a gale of wind, with no other indication of the locality than a single sounding, giving a depth of 950 fathoms. To recover the cable a number of soundings in the supposed neighborhood of the broken end were taken, the 950 fathom contour line was then traced upon a chart, and the vessel thereupon trailed its grapnel two miles to the eastward of this line, when it soon engaged the cable twenty miles away from the point, where dead reckoning had placed the ruptured end.
Whether or not it will ever be practicable to determine oceanic depths without a sounding-line, by means of an instrument based upon gravimetric differences, remains to be seen. Hitherto the indications obtained by such an instrument have been encouraging, but its delicacy has been such as to unfit it for ordinary use on board a ship when rolling.
​The time allowed me for addressing you on this occasion is wholly insufficient to do justice to the great engineering works of the present day, and I must therefore limit myself to making a short allusion to a few only of the more remarkable enterprises.
The great success, both technically and commercially, of the Suez Canal, has stimulated M. de Lesseps to undertake a similar work of even more gigantic proportions, namely, the piercing of the Isthmus of Panama by a ship-canal, forty miles long, fifty yards wide on the surface, and twenty yards at the bottom, upon a dead level from sea to sea. The estimated cost of this work is £20,000,000, and, more than this sum having been subscribed, it appears unlikely that political or climatic difficulties will stop M. de Lesseps in its speedy accomplishment. Through it, China, Japan, and the whole of the Pacific Ocean will be brought to half their present distance, as measured by the length of voyage, and an impulse to navigation and to progress will thus be given which it will be difficult to overestimate.
Side by side with this gigantic work, Captain Eads, the successful improver of the Mississippi navigation, intends to erect his ship railway, to take the largest vessels, fully laden and equipped, from sea to sea, over a gigantic railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a distance of ninety-five miles. Mr. Barnaby, the chief constructor of the navy, and Mr. John Fowler have expressed a favorable opinion regarding this enterprise, and it is to be hoped that both the canal and the ship-railway will be accomplished, as it may be safely anticipated that the traffic will be amply sufficient to support both these undertaking's.
Whether or not M. de Lesseps will be successful also in carrying into effect the third great enterprise with which his name has been prominently connected, the flooding of the Tunis-Algerian Chotts, thereby re-establishing the Lake Tritonis of the ancients, with its verdure-clad shores, is a question which could only be decided upon the evidence of accurate surveys, but the beneficial influence of a large sheet of water within the African desert could hardly be matter of doubt.
It is with a feeling not unmixed with regret that I have to record the completion of a new Eddystone Light-house in substitution for the chef-d'oeuvre of engineering erected by John Smeaton more than one hundred years ago. The condemnation of that structure was not, however, the consequence of any fault of construction, but was caused by inroads of the sea upon the rock supporting it. The new lighthouse, designed and executed by Mr. (now Sir James) Douglass, engineer of Trinity House, has been erected in the incredibly short time of less than two years, and bids fair to be worthy of its famed predecessor. Its height above high water is one hundred and thirty feet, as compared with seventy-two feet, the height of Telford's structure, which gives its powerful light a considerably increased range. The ​system originally suggested by Sir William Thomson some years ago, of distinguishing one light from another by flashes following at varied intervals, has been adopted by the Elder Brethren in this as in other recent lights in the modified form introduced by Dr. John Hopkinson, in which the principle is applied to revolving lights, so as to obtain a greater amount of light in the flash.
The geological difficulties which for some time threatened the accomplishment of the St. Gothard Tunnel have been happily overcome, and this second and most important sub-Alpine thoroughfare now connects the Italian railway system with that of Switzerland and the south of Germany, whereby Genoa will be constituted the shipping port for those parts.
Whether we shall be able to connect the English with the French railway system by means of a tunnel below the English Channel is a question that appears dependent at this moment rather upon military and political than technical and financial considerations. The occurrence of a stratum of impervious gray chalk, at a convenient depth below the bed of the Channel, minimizes the engineering difficulties in the way, and must influence the financial question involved. The protest lately raised against its accomplishment can hardly be looked upon as a public verdict, but seems to be the result of a natural desire to pause pending the institution of careful inquiries. These inquiries have been made by a Royal Scientific Commission, and will be referred for further consideration to a mixed Parliamentary Committee, upon whose report it must depend whether the natural spirit of commercial enterprise has to yield in this instance to political and military considerations. Whether the Channel Tunnel is constructed or not, the plan proposed some years ago by Mr. John Fowler, of connecting England and France by means of a ferry-boat capable of taking railway trains, would be a desideratum justified by the ever-increasing intercommunication between this and Continental countries.
The public inconvenience arising through the obstruction to traffic by a sheet of water is well illustrated by the circumstance that both the estuaries of the Severn and of the Mersey are being undermined in order to connect the railway systems on the two sides, and that the Frith of Forth is about to be spanned by a bridge exceeding in grandeur anything as yet attempted, by the engineer. The roadway of this bridge will stand one hundred and fifty feet above high-water mark, and its two principal spans will measure a third of a statute mile each. Messrs. Fowler and Baker, the engineers to whom this great work has been intrusted, could hardly have accomplished their task without having recourse to steel for their material of construction, nor need the steel used be of the extra-mild quality particularly applicable for naval structures to withstand collision, for, when such extreme toughness is not required, steel of very homogeneous quality can be produced, bearing a tensile strain double that of iron.
​The tensile strength of steel, as is well known, is the result of an admixture of carbon with the iron, varying between one tenth and two per cent, and the nature of this combination of carbon with iron is a matter of great interest both from a theoretical and practical point of view. It could not be a chemical compound which would necessitate a definite proportion, nor could a mere dissolution of the one in the other exercise such remarkable influence upon the strength and hardness of the resulting metal. A recent investigation by Mr. Abel has thrown considerable light upon this question. A definite carbide of iron is formed, it appears, soluble at high temperatures in iron, but separating upon cooling the steel gradually, and influencing only to a moderate degree the physical properties of the metal as a whole. In cooling rapidly there is no time for the carbide to separate from the iron, and the metal is thus rendered both hard and brittle. Cooling the metal gradually, under the influence of great compressive force, appears to have a similar effect to rapid cooling in preventing the separation of the carbide from the metal, with this difference, that the effect is more equal throughout the mass, and that more uniform temper is likely to result.
When the British Association met at Southampton on a former occasion, Schonbein announced to the world his discovery of gun-cotton. This discovery has led the way to many valuable researches on explosives generally, in which Mr. Abel has taken a leading part. Recent investigations by him, in connection with Captain Noble, upon the explosive action of gun-cotton and gunpowder confined in a strong chamber, which have not yet been published, deserve particular attention. They show that while by the method of investigation pursued about twenty years ago by Karolye (of exploding gunpowder in very small charges in shells confined within a large shell partially exhausted of air) the composition of the gaseous products was found to be complicated and liable to variation, the chemical metamorphosis which gun-cotton sustains, when exploded under conditions such as obtain in its practical application, is simple and very uniform. Among other interesting points noticed in this direction was the fact that, as in the case of gunpowder, the proportion of carbonic acid increases, while that of carbonic oxide diminshes with the density of the charge. The explosion of gun-cotton, whether in the form of wool or loosely spun thread, or in the packed compressed form devised by Abel, furnished practically the same results if fired under pressure, that is, under strong confinement—the conditions being favorable to the full development of its explosive force; but some marked differences in the composition of the products of metamorphosis were observed when gun-cotton was fired by detonation. With regard to the tension exerted by the products of explosion, some interesting points were observed, which introduce very considerable difficulties into the investigation of the action of fired gun-cotton. Thus, whereas no marked ​differences are observed in the tension developed by small charges and by very much larger charges of gunpowder having the same density (i. e., occupying the same volume relatively to the entire space in which they are exploded), the reverse is the case with respect to gun-cotton. Under similar conditions in regard to density of charge, 100 grammes of gun-cotton gave a measured tension of about 20 tons on the square inch, 1,500 grammes gave a tension of about 29 tons (in several very concordant observations), while a charge of 2·5 kilos gave a pressure of about 45 tons, this being the maximum measured tension obtained with a charge of gunpowder of five times the density of the above.
The extreme violence of the explosion of gun-cotton as compared with gunpowder when fired in a closed space was a feature attended with formidable difficulties. In whatever way the charge was arranged in the firing-cylinder, if it had free access to the inclosed crusher gauge, the pressures recorded by the latter were always much greater than when means were taken to prevent the wave of matter suddenly set in motion from acting directly upon the gauge. The abnormal or wave-pressures recorded at the same time that the general tension in the cylinder was measured amounted in the experiment to 42·3 tons, when the general tension was recorded at 20 tons; and in another, when the pressure was measured at 29 tons, the wave-pressure recorded was 44 tons. Measurements of the temperature of explosion of guncotton showed it to be about double that of the explosion of gunpowder. One of the effects observed to be produced by this sudden enormous development of heat was the covering of the inner surfaces of the steel explosion-vessel with a net-work of cracks, small portions of the surface being sometimes actually fractured. The explosion of charges of gun-cotton up to 2·5 kilos in perfectly closed chambers, with development of pressures approaching to 50 tons on the square inch, constitutes alone a perfectly novel feat in investigations of this class.
Messrs. Noble and Abel are also continuing their researches upon fired gunpowder, being at present occupied with an inquiry into the influence exerted upon the chemical metamorphosis and ballistic effects of fired gunpowder by variation in its composition, their attention being directed especially to the discovery of the cause of the more or less considerable erosion of the interior surface of guns produced by the exploding charge—an effect which, notwithstanding the application of devices in the building up of the charge specially directed to the preservation of the gun's bore, has become so serious that, with the enormous charges now used in our heavy guns, the erosive action on the surface of the bore produced by a single round is distinctly perceptible. As there appeared to be prima facie reasons why the erosive action of powder upon the surface of the bore at the high temperatures developed should be at any rate in part due to its one component sulphur, Noble and Abel have made comparative experiments ​with powders of usual composition and with others in which the proportion of sulphur was considerably increased, the extent of erosive action of the products escaping from the explosion-vessel under high tension being carefully determined. With small charges a particular powder containing no sulphur was found to exert very little erosive action as compared with ordinary cannon-powder; but another powder, containing the maximum proportion of sulphur tried (15 per cent), was found equal to it under these conditions, and exerted very decidedly less erosive action than it, when larger charges were reached. Other important contributions to our knowledge of the action of fired gunpowder in guns, as well as decided improvements in the gunpowder manufactured for the very heavy ordnance of the present day, may be expected to result from a continuance of these investigations. Professor Carl Himly, of Kiel, having been engaged upon investigations of a similar nature, has lately proposed a gunpowder in which hydrocarbons precipitated from solution in naphtha take the place of the charcoal and sulphur of ordinary powder. This powder has among others the peculiar property of completely resisting the action of water, so that the old caution, "Keep your powder dry," may hereafter be unnecessary.
The extraordinary difference of condition, before and after its ignition, of such matter as constitutes an explosive agent leads us up to a consideration of the aggregate state of matter under other circumstances. As early as 1776, Alexander Volta observed that the volume of glass was changed under the influence of electrification, by what he termed electrical pressure. Dr. Kerr, Govi, and others have followed up the same inquiry, which is at present continued chiefly by Dr. George Quincke, of Heidelberg, who finds that temperature, as well as chemical constitution of the dielectric under examination, exercises a determining influence upon the amount and character of the change of volume effected by electrification; that the change of volume may under certain circumstances be effected instantaneously as in flint-glass, or only slowly as in crown-glass, and that the elastic limit of both is diminished by electrification, whereas in the case of mica and of gutta-percha an increase of elasticity takes place.
Still greater strides are being made at the present time toward a clearer perception of the condition of matter when particles are left some liberty to obey individually the forces brought to bear upon them. By the discharge of high-tension electricity through tubes containing highly rarefied gases (Geissler's tubes), phenomena of discharge were produced which were at once most striking and suggestive. The Sprengel pump afforded a means of pushing the exhaustion to limits which had formerly been scarcely reached by the imagination. At each step the condition of attenuated matter revealed varying properties when acted upon by electrical discharge and magnetic force. ​The radiometer of Crookes imported a new feature into these inquiries, which at the present time occupy the attention of leading physicists in all countries.
The means usually employed to produce electrical discharge in vacuum-tubes was Ruhmkorff's coil; but Mr. Gassiot first succeeded in obtaining the phenomena by means of a galvanic battery of 3,000 Leclanché cells. Dr. De La Rue, in conjunction with his friend Dr. Hugo Müller, has gone far beyond his predecessors in the production of batteries of high potential. At his lecture "On the Phenomena of Electric Discharge," delivered at the Royal Institution, in January, 1881, he employed a battery of his invention consisting of 14,400 cells (14,832 Volts), which gave a current of 0·054 Ampere, and produced a discharge at a distance of 0·71 inch between the terminals. During last year, he increased the number of cells to 15,000 (15,450 Volts), and increased the current to 0·4 Ampere, or eight times that of the battery he used at the Royal Institution.
With the enormous potential and perfectly steady current at his disposal, Mr. De La Rue has been able to contribute many interesting facts to the science of electricity. He has shown, for example, that the beautiful phenomena of the stratified discharge in exhausted tubes are but a modification and a magnification of those of the electric arc at ordinary atmospheric pressure. Photography was used in his experiments to record the appearance of the discharge, so as to give a degree of precision otherwise unattainable in the comparison of the phenomena. He has shown that between two points the length of the spark, provided the insulation of the battery is efficacious, is as the square of the number of cells employed. Mr. De La Rue's experiments have proved that at all pressures the discharge in gases is not a current in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but is of the nature of a disruptive discharge. Even in an apparently perfectly steady discharge in a vacuum-tube, when the strata as seen in a rapidly revolving mirror are immovable, he has shown that the discharge is a pulsating one; but, of course, the period must be of a very high order.
At the Royal Institution, on the occasion of his lecture, Mr. De La Rue produced, in a very large vacuum-tube, an imitation of the aurora borealis; and he has deduced from his experiments that the greatest brilliancy of aurora displays must be at an altitude of from thirty-seven to thirty-eight miles—a conclusion of the highest interest, and in opposition to the extravagant estimate of 281 miles at which it had been previously put.
The President of the Royal Society has made the phenomena of electrical discharge his study for several years, and resorted in his important experiments to a special source of electric power. In a note addressed to me, Dr. Spottiswoode describes the nature of his investigations much more clearly than I could venture to give them. He says: "It had long been my opinion that the dissymmetry shown in ​electrical discharges through rarefied gases must be an essential element of every disruptive discharge, and that the phenomena of stratification might be regarded as magnified images of features always present, but concealed under ordinary circumstances. It was with a view to the study of this question that the researches by Moulton and myself were undertaken. The method chiefly used consisted in introducing into the circuit intermittence of a particular kind, whereby one luminous discharge was rendered sensitive to the approach of a conductor outside the tube. The application of this method enabled us to produce artificially a variety of phenomena, including that of stratification. We were thus led to a series of conclusions relating to the mechanism of the discharge, among which the following may be mentioned:
"1. That a stria, with its attendant dark space, forms a physical unit of a striated discharge; that a striated column is an aggregate of such units formed by means of a step-by-step process; and that the negative glow is merely a localized stria, modified by local circumstances.
"2. That the origin of the luminous column is to be sought for at its negative end; that the luminosity is an expression of a demand for negative electricity; and that the dark spaces are those regions where the negative terminal, whether metallic or gaseous, is capable of exerting sufficient influence to prevent such demand.
"3. That the time occupied by electricity of either name in traversing a tube is greater than that occupied in traversing an equal length of wire, but less than that occupied by molecular streams (Crookes's radiations) in traversing the tubes. Also that, especially in high vacua, the discharge from the negative terminal exhibits a durational character not found at the positive.
"4. That the brilliancy of the light with so little heat may be due in part to brevity in the duration of the discharge; and that, for action so rapid as that of individual discharges, the mobility of the medium may count as nothing; and that for these infinitesimal periods of time gas may itself be as rigid and as brittle as glass.
"5. That striæ are not merely loci in which electrical is converted into luminous energy, but are actual aggregations of matter.
"This last conclusion was based mainly upon experiments made with an induction-coil excited in a new way—viz., directly by an alternating machine, without the intervention of a commutator or condenser. This mode of excitement promises to be one of great importance in spectroscopic work, as well as in the study of the discharge in a magnetic field, partly on account of the simplification which it permits in the construction of induction-coils, but mainly on account of the very great increase of strength in the secondary currents to which it gives rise."
These investigations assume additional importance when we view ​them in connection with solar—I may even say stellar—physics, for evidence is augmenting in favor of the view that interstellar space is not empty, but is filled with highly attenuated matter of a nature such as may be put into our vacuum-tubes. Nor can the matter occupying stellar space be said any longer to be beyond our reach for chemical and physical test. The spectroscope has already thrown a flood of light upon the chemical constitution and physical condition of the sun, the stars, the comets, and the far-distant nebula?, which have yielded spectroscopic photographs under the skillful management of Dr. Huggins, and Dr. Draper, of New York. Armed with greatly improved apparatus, the physical astronomer has been able to reap a rich harvest of scientific information during the short periods of the last two solar eclipses; that of 1879, visible in America, and that of May last, observed in Egypt by Lockyer, Schuster, and by Continental observers of high standing. The result of this last eclipse expedition has been summed up as follows: "Different temperature levels have been discovered in the solar atmosphere; the constitution of the corona has now the possibility of being determined, and it is proved to shine with its own light. A suspicion has been aroused once more as to the existence of a lunar atmosphere, and the position of an important line has been discovered. Hydrocarbons do not exist close to the sun, but may in space between us and it."
To me personally these reported results possess peculiar interest, for in March last I ventured to bring before the Royal Society a speculation regarding the conservation of solar energy, which was based upon the three following postulates, viz.:
1. That aqueous vapor and carbon compounds are present in stellar or interplanetary space.
2. That these gaseous compounds are capable of being dissociated by radiant solar energy while in a state of extreme attenuation.
3. That the effect of solar rotation is to draw in dissociated vapors upon the polar surfaces, and to eject them, after combustion has taken place, back into space equatorially.
It is therefore a matter of peculiar gratification to me that the results of observation here recorded give considerable support to that speculation. The luminous equatorial extensions of the sun which the American observations revealed in such a striking manner (with which I was not acquainted when writing my paper) were absent in Egypt; but the outflowing equatorial streams I suppose to exist could only be rendered visible by reflected sunlight, when mixed with dust produced by exceptional solar disturbances or by electric discharge; and the occasional appearance of such luminous extensions would serve only to disprove the hypothesis entertained by some, that they are divided planetary matter, in which case their appearance should be permanent. Professor Langley, of Pittsburg, has shown, by means of his bolometer, that the solar actinic rays are absorbed chiefly in the solar instead of ​in the terrestrial atmosphere, and Captain Abney has found by his new photometric method that absorption due to hydrocarbons takes place somewhere between the solar and terrestrial atmosphere; in order to test this interesting result still further, he has lately taken his apparatus to the top of the Riffel with a view of diminishing the amount of terrestrial atmospheric air between it and the sun, and intends to bring a paper on this subject before Section A. Stellar space filled with such matter as hydrocarbon and aqueous vapor would establish a material continuity between the sun and his planets, and between the innumerable solar systems of which the universe is composed. If chemical action and reaction can further be admitted, we may be able to trace certain conditions of thermal dependence and maintenance, in which we may recognize principles of high perfection, applicable also to comparatively humble purposes of human life.
We shall thus find that, in the great workshop of Nature, there are no lines of demarkation to be drawn between the most exalted speculation and commonplace practice, and that all knowledge must lead up to one great result, that of an intelligent recognition of the Creator through his works. So, then, we members of the British Association and fellow-workers in every branch of science may exhort one another in the words of the American bard who has so lately departed from anions: us
With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,