The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-22

Ildl IS l4tt Stdlu5 OL tIIG AiiAhlAS1iSAAS horsernan of to-day!
 IF SCIENTISTS, HAD BEEN CRIMI-
 NAILS.
 It is. a lucky thing for society at large that scientists are seldom, if ever, lowered with criminal instincts. For supposing the converse held good! Sup posing, for instance, that Professor De- war, the discoverer of liquid air had been an anarchist. In that case he would have had ready to his hand a secret and deadly explosive which would be infinitely more powerful than dynamite, while needing neither fuse or detonator to set 1t off. All that would be necessary would be to fill a steel bomb-tte bigger and thicker the bet ter-with liquid air, and dramatically close it. Immediately the interior con- tents would begin to expand as the i'm prisoned and tortured atmosphere commenced slowly to return from it's liquid to a gaseous state; and this ex- pansion would continue until, if the bomb could be made strong enough, the well-nigh iraconceivable pressure of 12,- 900 pounds per-square inch would event. ually be developed. ,a :.'.=>....
 Then the enveloping walls of steel, even if 8 foot or more in thickness, would inevitably fly into innumerable fragments. and with an explosive vio- leuce which would be sufficient to wreck anything and everything within a rad- sus of probably thousands of yards. Indeed, 1t has been estimated that a single gallon of liquid air could. given certain conditions. be made equal in destructiveness to 10000 tons of gum powder. Or assume, on the other hand, that he had been a criminal of the Pal :aer type---a secret poisoner. In liquid air he had at his command far more deadly toxic agent than even prussic acid; and one, moreover, which, had he chosen to keep his discovery to himself, he might have inconceivably used with almost perfect impunity. For even the very smallest quantity of liquid air. administered internally, would prove almost immediately fatal, eating it's way with vitriolic swiftness into the victims inmost vitals, destroying tissue and bone. and yet leaving no trace of itself.
 Marconi, again, the inventor of wire- less telegraphy, took all the world into his confidence as soon almost as his marvellous discovery was first lighted on. But what if he had chosen to keep his knowledge to himself and utilize it, as he could easily have done, to further dishonorable ends Of his own? f5
 It Is quite conceivable that he might have made millions on the Stock Ex- changes and bourses of Europe and America ;e for by means of his tiny, in- struments, while the. cables slept that the telegraph offices were closed he could have transmitted and received through his accredited agents, of course--exclusive information of vital importance.
 Or supposing that Professor Roentgen the discover of the X-rays, had been a professional thief. He would have had at his beck and call a something which no other member of the fraternity had even dreamed about-a something which would have enabled him to see how many and what valuables were in this or that acceptable. or the amount of coin a person had in his pocket, his purse, or his satchei. His rays" would have been to him, in fact sixth sense, possessed by no other living creature in the whole wide universe. The story of the man who found out how to split Bank of England notes in- to two parts literally. and who was so honest and so disinterested that he went fraI. f11vxsi Yy-a fla 70 hfe knowledge to the directors of the in- stitution in question, is well known. In the main, the details are as usually stated, although It is doubted whether the discovery could have been turned to any practical account If even the dis coverer had been a rogue in embryo ir- stead of an honest and iaw-abiding citi- zen.
 It is fact, however, that only year or two back a similar but far more dangerous discovery was accidentally stumbled upon by 8 pooralien engraver, who freely made a present of his know ledge to the Bankers association. This man found out method by which he could initiate the water marking on let ters of credit and other similar docu- ments. It was a simple method, and easy of application by even the veriest tyro; and there is no doubt that had he chosen to do so he might have swindled the London banks out of hundreds of i thousands of pounds. Since then, it may be mentioned, perforations have been universally substituted for the uld- fashioned water markings, so far as the indication of the amounts is concerned
 Then, again, there is the very typical case of NM. Frenzy and verneuil, who first discovered how to produce valua- ble rubies artificially. By means Of all electric furnace. developing the terrific temperature of thirty-six hundred de- grees centlgrade, these two eminent scientists were able to fuse small and comparatively valueless stones and mil mute fragments of stones into a viscid mass, and this in due process they suc- ceeded in moulding under pressure into one perfect, and, of course, immensely valuable, whole. To the two savants in question this discovery simply repre- sented an interesting scientific fact. That there was a, fortune in the pro-