Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-16
Scientists obstructing Progress.


 Professional scientists those filling college chairs-are more apt than other men to suggest difficulties and throw obstacles in the path of scientific progress. Mankind in
 general are now quite credulous in respect of science They are too ready to believe in the announcements of scientific pretenders.
 Savants themselves incline to the other ex- treme of doubt They are sometimes the bit terest opponents of those original thinkers and discoverers who are continually forcing the boundaries of human conquest over the unknown. Scientific men said it would be impossible to drive railroad trans up
 grades of over fifteen feet to the mile A grade of one hundred feet IS considered easy for the modern locomotive. The same carplng class declared that no steamship could carry coals enough to run her across the Atlantic Ocaan They ridiculed the earliest attempts to law an Atlantic cable, because no wire could be sufficiently insulated at great sea depths nor be secured against rupture from various causes They have demonstrated to their own satisfaction over and over again
 that the electric light could never economic
 ally compete with gas, and that it's subdivi- sion was an impossibility. These are few out of many examples of the inability or some scientists to appreciate the discoveries
 and claims of men of genius who know DO such word as fall
 Sir William Thomson, of England, is more liberal and hopeful than most of his scientific brethren in the estimate he puts on the fu- ture of electricity But in his address be- fore the British association at York he is so very anxious to avoid the terrible
 suspicion of being sanguine that he throws cold water on some of the most reasonable expectations of modern science. It has for some time been hoped and believed that the immense tidal force now daily wasted could be utilized as mo- tive power Tide mills have been in success
 full operation for many years. This tide IS caught on it's rise and imprisoned in basin and used like any other reserved water to l drive mills. Why could not this be done on the large scale in great estuarles and bays, | and the pent-up water serve to drive electric | engines. and currents of great power be con 1 veyed by wire to distant cities, there to be l used for the production of light and the movement of machinery? Sir William | Thomson says it would take @ dock area ot forty acres to produce one hundred-h horse | power of tidal force, and that the cost ot constructing the artificial basins pu ts the
 scheme financially out of the question. This | is mere assumption. Of course it would be | possible to spend so much money on the tl- 1 dal reservoirs as to make the plan pnproft- | able But nature has provided place
 along every sea coast where the operation
 could be performed by the construction Of g
 moderately expensive sea wall. Granting, | however, that the tidal force is not available,
 can we not fall back on the wind as an ally Sir William Thomson offers no encourage
 ment in this direction. Windmills with him
 are as expensive as tidal basins It is true
 as he says, that some of them are very costly i machines. But it is surely within the re
 sources of Yankee ingenuity to make cheaI | and efficient windmills for the performance o
 almost any work required of them. Lttl'
 dependence can be placed on windmills fol | steadiness But NJ Faure's brilliant in l vention for storing up electricity enable