Mineral Point weekly tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1859-1868, 1864-04-20
The MaFyeIs Of Science.

4 london correspondent writes: | do not
know any experiences to be had in London
SO bewildering to the imagination as those
which one gets at the Royal Institution. The
experiments there carried on are not, alas,
Tor the people; few things are for the million
i'm England YOU must have 4 friend at court
but if once you do get in, you find yourself
seeing sights and dreaming dreams no mortal
ever dared To see or dream before. Profes-
=0r Marshall takes you to pieces puts you
drop by drop into bottles on your table you
find that YOU are seven gallons of water, five
pounds of starch, ditto of sugar, bar of iron
with touch here and there of few other
articles. Did you fancy you were fearfully
and wonderfully made? Simple mortal
there is nothing wonderful about you You
are very easily made. A little lime and cleo
tricfty, and presto there are your bones; a
little albumeu, sugar etc, and there Il the
fat meat OF YOU. The professor acknowledges
with shame that he has not quite cOntriYed
ta create your muscular and cerebral tissue,
Lat has hope of doing that in his next years
series. Then YOU 90 home, muttering be
tween your long breaths-W hat IS TO come of
IN this? IS there really a scientific good
time coming, when not only, as Emerson
urophesied, viii our salad grow whilst the
water to cook it IS boiling, but when in some
suffering rctort on the table the related
nam viii be created in the same hour Or
shall we one day when our lungs worn
out instead Of going to Cuba, send out and
order a new pair OF the apotheeary? Shall
5ye see along the streets signs that read,
..Liyers and Hearts mended here with neat
ness and dispatch:'
But now here Is Prof Fraaklaud, who lee
gures every Saturday on the Metallic Ele-
uentS. To prove to you that the sun Is en-
Kel0ped in a cloak of large willow leaves
that where this cloak has hared aside there
are black spots. the light from even those
black spots however, being far brighter than
The eve can bear-is the least OF his perform
ances. He discourses familiarity on the met
MS that are in the sun, reporting the amount
ST cold and silver il contains just as If he
were giving a statement OF the funds "a the
Bank of England. Nay, he visits the stars,
and as Il lie were reporting celestial coast
survey, tells Won Just what metals they hold
ami how much. For these metals correspond
To- certain rays of light in the spectrum, and
chromium IS made to give its sigu-mauual
written with 1 star-beam across q billion or
10 miles Of space Now whilst he Is discOurs-
ing about a star, he thinks we may as well seeit
.afEs Z. g5yit-ah, there on his screen Is Syrius.
Simple enough Is the little crescent-shaped
10av-an inch and aaH IN lcugtL-but
rat er amazing to reflect that light started
gag from SyTius just tweutv-one years ago,
earth. unfold to it Its shape and beauty. 1t
much rs if I we're to drop stone into the
Atlantic Is Liverpool, and that from it the
widening wave should at last beat ut your feet
4e Gouev Island, and that from that wave you
could tell the character of the stone | had
dropped.
Then the professor brings out his electric
tights. the room is darkened He takes a
vIre. nals a bit Of chloride of tin upon it, and
burns il: now see on the screen vast fern
leaves, enormous hchens-all the growths OF
the primal world 4 little lead is now burnt
AMI from il swell up stately pines. Shade of
Lamark do YOU not hover near to witness
tao blooming out of your theory in grander
wsy5 than in the "Festiges of Creation," or
-ar more accepted Darwinianism Is it pos
-.ale for any one to see these crystalline folia-
IONS of tin and lead, without inaging that in
The early world there was a great electric
burning at the core of the world, and that IN
lar5g the metals of primodial rocks sprang
nto vast fern swamps But professor Frank
.aHd IS Tot speculative man he Is coldly
scientific, snubbing every thing beyond the
attained fact Yet l can see plainly that he
feels that, in the attainment of separate
color from the sun for every earthly metal,
Photographic science hovers on the verge of
producing not only the lineaments of every
e4.ect, but its tints and colors.