Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-04-10
wuaT scIEncE TEACHEs.

~
scientific researches, and a deeper m
sight into the unity and unvarying
sequence of all natural phenomena the
cultiyators of useful knowledge appear
to be working more successfully now
than ever before, and with a measure
of support from public sympathy, as
unprecedented as it is gratifying. All
sound philosophy is based on law and
order; and the tendency of all observed
facts and concentrations is to harmon
ize heterogeneous developments in ma
ture, and evolve both truth and peace
from falsehood and conflict. Scientists
give to our little world an existence of
one hundred million years; and
they would fain tell us the condition of
things as they changed more or less,
into new forms of gaseous and crystal
line matter, and new evolutions in or
ganic life, rising forever from the sim
plest to the more complex state of
being, from one thousand years to an
other.
1.-The Age of Ice" and a long, cold
and dreary age it was, forms the sub
iect discussed and illustrated in the
first article of the Popular Science
Monthly, D. Appleton & Co, New
York, for April. The great changes
of temperature, and of every feature
of climate, to which our planet has
been subjected, are most remarkable.
James Geikie of the Geological Soci-
ETY. of Edinburgh, has published a work
entitled 1.-The Great Ice Age, and its
Relation to the Antiquity to Man."
which gives the latest and fullest ex-
position of all the facts bearing on this
Interesting study. This treatise is re-
printed by d. Appleton & Co., of New
York; and as it contains only SIS
pages and is not expensive, it should
find its way into all public and many
private libraries. To us it seems i'm
possible that present cotton grow
ing climate has succeeded a
temperature so cold, that
water e~vaporated from an open
sea- under the equator should have
fallen in snow and ice in Tennessee till
these solids covered the whole earth in
this latitude a mile in depth. 1t is
thought the cold went on increasing
for thirty thousand years. Our author
says: "If it be possible to use the or
bital changes as a guide to a chrome
logical date for this term of cold, we
can say it began about -24O,006 years
since, and continued for 10000 years,
terminating $4,000 before A. D. 1860.
The cold would have eliminated about
$4,000 after its beginning" Be
fore the age Of the glaciers
and icebergs, our northern hemis-
phere invited elephants, mammoths,
hippopotami and tropical plants.
That was perhaps the stone age of the
most advanced in human. culture; and
ice must have driven man from either
temperate zone, as now known, into the
torrid regions to keep from freezing
and starving. Glaciers scoopedou the
immense basins of our great Northern
lakes, and performed other dynamic
feats to the great Appalachian noun
tains, which make our land what it is.
From the use Of stone as implements
Of industry, man advanced to those of
bronze and iron, and finally to
those of steel and edge tools. If his
progress IN science has been slow, and
long delayed, it Will be all the sounder
for the wonderful preparation that has
been made for its introduction into the
universe. What facts in nature are
more suggestive of future mental growth
than the achievements Of such intel
lects as those Of Laplaee and Newton?
Every year, and probably every day,
brings conditions that never before ex-
listed, new combinations of matter, and
new compound and complex results.
This is human progress and evolution
in obedience to law and order.
The lightest known gas; called n.y.
drogen, has many properties peculiar
to itself; and SO has the gas called oxy-
gen. But when these two gases CON-
bine and form water, this new COM
pound has a thousand new powers and
in the economy of nature;
and especially in all vegetable and ami
NAL life, without which aid from water,
all organic life would be impossible.
Gases lose nothing as gases ,,by the po-
tency Of their hmitless compounds in a
liquid and solid form. Life harms
nothing if it does not improve it. Life
has ever been themain source of human
wealth and greatness. If n seed or
grain of cotton would produce only one
in return for cultivation, no would
cultivate either. Without a large vital
increase in plants and animals. gold
md silver, iron and steel would be
yalueless. Man could not live; and he
,an never learn how he lives until he
natural science. This is the
lirect road to health, wealth, and all
hat elevates humanity. Every one
should knew what to do, and how to do
t in perfect harmony with natural
avs.
CITY AND COUNTRY.
The McMinnUille NeW Era makes the
jollowing complaint: