Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-03-20
CENTURY OF WONDERS.
ITS SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES HAVE
PROFOUNDLY AFFECTED OUR LIFE.

The following article was written
for the goth century issue of the New
York World by Sir Norman Lockyer.
X. C. B.. f. R. S., author of THE
Suns Place in Nature" etc.
There can be no doubt that in the
future history of the world, for thou
sands of years, the century that has
just passed away will be recorded as
one Of the most memorable, If not the
most memorable. to which attention
can be drawn. This high position will
be awarded to it on the ground that
it is the one which has most profound
ly affected the life conditions of the
human race.
The salient point about the nine
teenth century is that it is the scien-
tiflc century Theology. art, learning
in the ordinary sense are at the end
OF it pretty much as they were at the
beginning.
The gift of science to the opening
years of the century was the steam
engine then coming into common use.
Watts patent expired in 1900. When
one reads how it was that Watt
achieved one of the most tremendous
revolutions recorded in history one
cannot help feeling that his position
as mathematical instrument maker
to the university" Cat Glasgow had
everything to do with it. he lived with
his friend Black in an atmosphere Of
research. The steam-engine, so close
ly are all scientific applications bound
together, underlies all our modern
progress, for the reason that hand
labor, thanks to it, has been replaced
by greater powers.
One of the first applications during
this century of the new source of
power was to locomotion This was
done by Watt himself and SPINNING
ton ON the Forth and Clyde Canal in
1902.
Our present enormous battle-ships
and mail steamers and our destroyers
going at 35 miles an hour, are doubly
the result of Watts work. 1t is the
steam-engine which builds them and
drives them when built. 1t may even
be that Mr.. Parsons at the end of the
century will porve to us that Watts
method of applying steam to marine
locomotion can be improved upon for
some uses.
Land locomotion by means of steam
followed in 1929, the Rocket and the
Stockton and Darlington railway in
augUrating the long series of engines
and railways which now make rapid
and safe transit possible almost over
the Yhole surface of the civilized
world, both speed and economy being
secured by James's invention of the
tubular boiler.
Electricity comes next, with its Won
derful record of electric telegraph,
electric light, electric traction, tele-
phones and wireless telegraphy, and
all since 1886. Of the applications of
electricity, after what has happened,
he would be bold man who would
venture to predict where they will
STOP or that no equality striking de-
velopments are yet in store for us.
If they come it will be because the
future will produce it's Faradays or its
Kelvins.
The saving of the lives of our sail
ors by storm warnings and the study
of the laws of storms is one of the
applications of the science of meteor
ology which the century has brought
us-a result undreamed of by him who
first weighed the air." Nor do the
benefits of science to our seafaring
ann seagoing populations end here
Ocean currents as well as air currents
have been investigated and charted by
photographers, who have added to
these benefits by maps showing
depths, so that now the contours of
the bottom of seas and oceans are
nearly as well known as those of the
land surfaces.
More than this man himself has
been proved to have been present on
the scene contemporaneously with
many now extinct animals at a time
long antecedent to that favored by
Archbishop Usher. This work has
been extended by the modern science
OF archaeology, which has demonstrate
- N-AS N@NiStSiNC VI otIIlCu
ties and by no means rude civiliza-
tions thousands of years ago, and it is
now evident that "in the noblest study
of mankind" the geologist and archae.
ologist must work together to dive
still further into mans early history.
But there has also been another
very practical application of geologi-
cal study. Geography long ago gave
us maps of land surfaces; geology
has now based upon them geological
maps of priceless value to all inter
ested in the products of the mine.
1t was formerly thought that the
study of organic nature could have no
possible application; that the study of
animals and plants Lex to classifica-
tion chiefly if not exclusively.
In this region Of thought we find an.
other revolution as striking, if not
more striking, than those already re.
ferred to. The genius of Darwin has
evolved from this study "the origin of