The Florence tribune., 1899-05-13
VIII Wonders Never Cease '


 of the world-renowned Society for the Advancement of Science, where deep. lofty and burning questions were the theme of discussion--questions that may well astonish and even horrify. to some extent, a gaping, incredulous world {; questions not even dreamed of by the most eminent scientists, past or present. We have heard of atmospheric expansion and contraction, of uniting oxygen and hydrogen gases by arti6- cial means to make it rain whenever and wherey CT needed. We have heard of proposition to girdle the globe with an immense cable magnetized to such power as to overcome the mao. netic influence of the poles, whereby one man with an electric power engine, stationed at given point, by means of 6 steel lever, has power to turn the earth and hold it to any degree of lati- tude or longitude at will for any length Of time desired, thus making it possi- ble to thaw out the ice bound regions of the arctic and antarctic circles and transfer them to the tropics under the equator, and vice versa. Yet more; we have been but quite re- gently astonished at the inherent power discovered in liquifed air, and yet more recently at the discovery by Thomas Edison, Jr., of new pro- cess in the treatment of steel, whereby 1t can be made about 250 per cent. stronger than that in common use, or, in short, 6-ineh armor plate will be equal in resisting power to a 15 inch plate as now manufactured; and so the world rushes on from one great achieve ment to yet greater in such rapid sue cession that the conservative mind is dazed and bewildered in it's effort to keep pace with the onward march. Yet grand and d--far reaching towards q higher civilization as all of the above enumerated achievements may be, they seem as the prattle of children among their toys as compared to the more re- cent and by far the most important of all the scientific discoveries ever made by mortal man, viz 1st, the compress sion and storage of heat; aud 2d, the magnetic wave by which young people (and for that matter, elderly ones, too,) , are enabled to carry on tete-a-tete courtship at long range, and thousands of other important enterprises hereto fore not thought of-may be success fully conducted by a knowledge of and application of these hitherto hidden natural forces with results otherwise unattainable by man. Little did those highly gifted amateur scientists re- centiy assembled in Prof. D. c. Stevens corral dream of the wide and varied range of possibilities that were opening to the world when they launched for the first time the stored wisdom of the Arizona Scientific Society from the aforesaid corral. Had they but taken a thought that literary wolves, like other wolves, are ever prowling around with eyes alert and ears agog, ever ready to bounce upon and appropriate everything good and fresh, they would have been more discreet about giving the result of their arduous labors and their profound deliberations prey to bogus scientists incapable of acquiring knowledge by their own efforts. They should have put gag in the mouth of the irrepressible joe Mulhatton and checked the flow of his nimble quill until they had perfected and thorough ly tested and secured by patent their invaluable discoveries. In this way they would have saved several hundred millions of dollars liable to be filehed by false pretenders, claiming to be the original diseoverers. It would he a erievoms sin against justice and human ity to defraud this promising young society of any part, even so small 8 part of it's well earned reward as the trihing sum of three or four hundred million dollars, either by direct, open theft or by being victimized through long, tedious and harassing litigation, the favorite method of the greater thief.
 Now, as an admirer of progressive science, and holding those who devote their lives to it's development and . propagation in the highest esteem in general, but more especially each and , every member connected with the young and growing association in the ! city of Florence, I cannot close this epistle without offering, free gratis, a friendly word of advice and sounding & note of timely warning against snares and pitfalls that all great movements , for the uplifting of the race usually have to encounter and vanquish or be l vanquished. Already, as a consequence of the late Florence meeting, and tht clear cut, concise report of it's pro