The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-12-25
Tn. scientific Progress. OF the Year.

historic tADleau may DC uescIlpeu IL Pooe
Raphaelitic parlance as q ''nocturne in
black and gold," charged with a brighter
tint of hope and deeper gloom of utter dark
ness than the combined genius of Turner
and Whistler ever painted or the cratic pen
of Ruskin ever characterized. How many
brilliant promises belied at the critical mo-
ment, how many confident anticipations
swept away by the remorseless logic OF his
tory Saluted at its birth by volcanic
roar of artillery from the passes OF the
Etropol Balkans, where Muscovite and Mos
lem were ringing down the curtain upon the
lurid drama of the Independence and In
tegrity of the Ottoman Empire, the year
closes amid the deepest intricacies of the
"Great Asian Mystery" now being enacted
amid the everlasting SHOWS OF the Hindu
Kush, the painless wastes of the "Roof Of
the World" and the shifting sands of the
Kizil-Kum. The interpreters of prophetic
visions still have
Ample room and verge enough
The characters OF hell to trace
upon their premillennial canvas, and they
would do we'll to keep their lamps trimmed
and burning, for the dawn of peace is not
yet come.
But while the political annals of the year
are writ large with battle, murder and sud-
den death, the scient ifc record stands writ
ten in letters of living light. No future
chance or change in human events can rob
this passing year of the glory of being one
of the great epoch-making crises in mans
knowledge of nature "A omethean mo-
ment richly fraught with ''the wonders
that shall be-" the marvels of the present,
the axioms of the coming hour. In no
other seas of human activity is it truer than
in the deepest CULTS of physical speculation
that "there is tide in the affairs Of men,"
Every really great discovery is reached
almost simultaneously by isolated workers
separated by thousands Of miles. These
earnest searchers are so many athletes
swiftly speeding toward a common goal,
which the most fortunate gains but q
moment before the slowest of his COMPETE
tors.
Attic very outset Of the present year the
world of science was assembled on the
judges stand, counting seconds in the race
the last Of the gases, and thus experiment.
ally proving the unity of nature and the
continuity between the solid. liquid and
gaseous domains. Cailletet has scored the
first round by liquefying oxygen and car
bonic oxide as early as December 2, 1877,
but being then o candidate for election to a
seat in the Academy of Sciences he mag
unanimously RETAINED from announcing his
success and consigned the account Of his
discovery to sealed packet, which was
opened OF the academic session of De-
cember "a. Strange to relate, NJ. Raoul
Pictet, Of Geneva, announced by letter
at that meeting the same result achieved
by entirely different processes. Scarcely
had the wondering Swans found time to
announce to the public this double triumph
when n. Cailletet, on the last day Of the
year, accomplished the iquefaction Of hy-
drogen, nitrogen and atmospheric air, and,
pressing closely upon him, NJ. Pictet swept to
the goal January II, definitely establishing
the sequence Of the constants Of nature" by
to be metal, thereby brilliantly justifying
the conclusion first reached forty years ago
by the veteran chemist, j. B. Dumas, who
had the honor, as president of o leading
scientific society, to receive the first tele-
graphic announcement from NJ. Pictet, and
to make known to his associates at Paris
this grand discovery on the very day it was
made at Geneva.
Results such as these would suffice to
make the year 1878 forever memorable in
the annals of science, but only the first
page had yet been written. In the same
month of December, 1877, when Cailletet
and Pictet were winning their first laurels
in Paris and Geneva, Thomas Alva Edison
rode into New York one morning from
Menlo Park with a queer brass cylinder
under his arm, and astonished our neigh
bors Of the Scientific American with the bra
zen-faced assertion that MARY had little
lamb" The photograph had sprung, I'M
heralded, upon the world, and SO incredi-
BILE was the scientific fact thus revealed
that several weeks elapsed before it was
generally credited. Although the full
fedged discovery of the phonograph per-
tains to 1877, the whole of its development
and its worldwide renown belong to 1878,
and it ia assuredly not the least Of its many
titles to perpetual remembrance that ''the
Wizard of Menlo Park" then first assumed
recognized position as factor in our
coming civilization. OF Edison's manifold
other and curious inventions-the mega
phone, the phonomotor, and the aerophone-
we have no need now to speak, though in
other times they would rank high among
the curiosities Of science. But there are
three other achievements of his genius
which distinctly call for mention among
the wonders Of the year-the improved car
bon telephone, the tasimeter and the cleo
trio lamp-more than one Of which were