The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-12-30

ization of light, and the first asteroids
were detected by astronomers.
Sciences Discovery of Natural Laws.
The middle of the century was
marked by a great mathematical feat.
the discovery of the planet Neptune
by Crouch Adams and Leverrier indie
pendently. The invention Of phOtOE-
raphy, later employed Systematically in
astronomy. made it possible to detect
celestial objects too faint for human
eyes to see, while Kirchoff and Bun
sens sp~ectroscope and the methods Of
spectrum analysis, besides the services
they have rendered to chemistry and
physics. enabled the chemical compost
ton of the celestial bodies to be deter
mined and proved the identity in sub
stanc of the earth with the sun and
stars. BY their aid, too, the distance
Of the stars can be determined, and
h presence ard cOuTse of invisible
stars has been found. To the middle
of the century belongs the enunCiatiOn
of the most important law of matter
since NeWtOn's law Of ~graVitation, the
law of the conservation of energy, the
doctrine, namely. that to create or an
initiate energy IS as impossible as TO
create or annihilate matter; n that
all the phenomena of the material uni
verse consist in transformations Of en-
ergy alone. Almost discovered more
than once earlier in the nIu it was
arrived at independently by several ex-
peTimenteTs. chief among whom were
Joule, who had previously demOnstrat-
ed the law Of the mechanical edUjva-
cent of heat, end julius Mayer, the
originator Of ne "meteoTic ~hypothe-
SIS"
Later have come Clerk-MaxweITs
kiuetic theory of gases, the liquefac-
ton OF all gases by intense cold and the
nnnrnarh fn Eha \ hznlItp zero Harrv's
interrupted electrical waves, which
LAY yielded wireless telegraDhy;
BOentgen's discovery of the cathode
rays, which have rendered the interior
OF opaque objects visible, and the per
iOdic law" in chemistry.
A curious trait in all the sciences has
been the expectation or hope OF the
discovery of some first u like the
idea of chemistry that the elements
may yet be d-eCOmpOSed and some one
element at the root Of all be found OF
in biology the search for the first com
mon clement of life.
The Uttermost Parts of the Earth.
The achievements in geographical TX
: ploTations would alone have SiveT
glory To Il century less wonderful. The
one nautical problem thai Captain
Cook did not live 10 solve, the north
west passage, was accomplished by Ne
Clu.e. and demonstrated to be as i'm
practicable as Cook supposed it to be
The northeast passage. too. has beer
made by N~ordenskjold. who. in th'
Vega" cirCumnavigated the Europe
Asian continent. The search for ST
John Franklin led to the exploration
of the frozen archipelago north o
America and n discovery of the noTti
magnetic pole. Since then the pole it
eff has been the goal of Arctic eX
p~lOrers; hansen has tTaversed Green
land, Peary has found out that it i
an island, while Nansen and Cagn
have come within less than four de
grees of the pole itself. Beyond tn
line to which Cooks cIrcumnavigatiol
restricted the possible Antarctic col ii
nent. several have penetrated. and 70
the first time men nave landed an
winteTed on the Antarctic coast. j
/ America discovery has been fOllOWe
so soon by settlement that The mem
DRY has quickly disappeared, and eve
the remarkable journey of Lewis an
Clarke up the Missouri into Oregon