New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-11-17


each capable of trembling to the sound which ID in
unison with tia mechanical action truly, answer
ing 10 the sympathetic vibration, with when Tue
strings of piano will respond to the corresponding
notes of tuteand these are translated nv tue nlnd
into all the utoances Of articuate speech all tho
haun0nies of muSic-Speech that engendeis new
ideas within us strains which, though they may die
away in the air, live forever III the memory. The
exquisite delight we experience IN listening TO the
works of great composers arises thus III mechan
zeal movements, which are the issue OF mathematical
combinations. The unseen world IS under the innu-
ence OF number!
But what is number except there be one who mum
bersl When P0mpey in his Syrian war, broke INTO
the holy of hoes at Jerusalem, he expressed, rs
Tacitus tells us, his astonshment that there was no
image of a Divinity within; the shrine was silent
and empty. And so. though after death we may
anatomze and explore the nmost rcccsses OF the
brain, the vailed Genius that once presided there
has eluded us, and has not left so much ~ phan-
tom trace shadow of himself
The experiments of Galvani and Volta have not
vet reached their conclusion; those of Faraday aud
Du Bots Raymond have only yielded a preliminary
suggestion az to the nervous force. Excepting the
great sympathetic nerve, the nervous hbers them
selves are as is well-kn0wn, OF two clasSes-thOse
that gather the impressions of external things and
convey them to the nerve centers, and those that
transmit the dictates of the will from within out
wardly. The capabilities of one Of the former--tne
apparatus for sight-haye been greatly improved by
various optical contrivances, such as microscopes
and telescopes an earnest OF what may
hereafter be done as respects the four other
special organs of sense; and concerns the second
class the result of mental operations, the resolves OF
the will, may be transmitted with greater velocity
than even in the living system ITSELF and that
vast terrestrial distances or even beneath the
Telegraphic wires are, strictly speaking continue
tions Of the centrifugal nerves, and we are not with
out for believing that it is the influence
which is active in both cases.
In scientific point of view, such improvements in
the capabilities of the organs for receiving exter
nal impressions, such extensions 70 the distances
to which the results of intellectual acts and the die
tates of the will may be conveyed, constitute a true
development, evolution none the less real though
ii may be of an artificial kind If we reflect care
fully on these things bearing in mind what is now
known of the course of development In the animal
SERIES we shall not fail to remark what a singular
interest gathers round these artificial developments
artificial they can scarcely be called, since they
themselves have arisen nterlorly They are the re-
suit of intellectual acts Man has been developing
himself He, far the earth is concerned. IS be-
coming 0mnipresent. The electrical nerves OF so,
ciety are spread TO a plexus all over Europe and
America; their commssural strands run under the
Atlantic and the Pacific.
SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN AMERICA.
In many of the addresses that have been made
during the past Summer. the Centennial occasion.
the shortcomings Of the United States in extending
the boundaries of scientific knowledge, especially in
the physical and chemical departments have been sci