Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-07-15
The Scientific Outlook.

Wendell Phillips said in a recent speech
that the time was coming when we might
communicate instantly with San Francis
co without wires or operator The au-
dience laughed at him. Perhaps his state
ment is not so eXtrava CANT as it seemed.
Had the ordinary work now done by the
magnetic telegraph been predicted forty
wears ago it would have been received
with the same incredulity. The truth is
that science, like politics and love, always
develops in unexpected directions. No
sooner are men fixed in their scientific
opinions than some startling discovery re-
veals their ignorance and shows the world
that all things are possible under the sun.
Ever since the invention of the use of
steam men have agreed that only hot va
por had the greatest power; but quite re-
Gently Philadelphia mechiniSt exhibited
an iron globe, no larger than n gallon Jug,
full of cold vapor, showing a pressure of
twenty thousand pounds to the square inch.
and neither time nor temperature could
diminish its tremendous power. The dis
covery is said to have been accidental.
The inventor was experimenting with an
engine run by compressed air and a
vacuum, when to his profound astonish-
ment he stumbled on the cold vapor secret;
and it was some time before he could make
II gauge strong enough to test its power.
Until then he had not imagined such n
discovery possible.
Nature seems to coquette with the in
quiring intellect of man until he is sure of
some great secret, when she confounds
him with disappointment; but in his less
inquisitive moments she reveals what he
never dreamed of Modern science is a
Il,
sdered the most incombustible matter
in nature, produces the greatest heat
known. Watch springs burn like pitch.
The chemist prepares delicate muslin so
that it can be cleansed with fire. Arsenic
is prescribed for dangerous diseases
Frozen feet are saved by plunging them
into snow. Children are told to keep
away from iron during a thunderstorm,
yet hardware stores are never struck by
tightening. Persons suffering with hy-
drophobia go into convulsions at the
sight of water. A French physician, how
ever, has cured fifty cases of this awful
malady with hot baths. An editor of a
New York newspaper lost his sight until
a surgeon put knife into his eyeballs,
whereupon the man recovered and went
about his work.
The widest imagination is unable to
predict the discoveries of the future For
all we knowfamilies in the next century
may pump fuel from the river, and illu-
inmate their houses with ice and electrici-
ty. Iron vessels, properly magnetized,
may sail through the air like balloons, and
trip to the Rocky Mountains may be
made in an hour. Perhaps within fifty
years American grain may be shot into
Liverpool and Calcutta through iron pipes
laid under the sea. By means of condens-
ed air and cold vapor engines excursion
parties may travel along the floor of the
ocean, sailing past ancient wrecks and
mountains of coral. On land the intelli-
gent farmer may turn the soil of a thou
sand acres in a day, while his son cuts
wood with platinum wire and shells corn
by electricity. The matter now contained
in New York daily may be produced ten
thousand times a minute, on little scraps
of pasteboard, by improved photography !;