Triumphs and Wonders
OF THE
1800s

THE
TRUE MIRROR OF A PHENOMENAL ERA

A VOLUME OF ORIGINAL, ENTERTAINING AND INSTRUCTIVE HISTORIC
AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITINGS, SHOWING THE MANY AND
MARVELLOUS ACHIEVEMENTS WHICH DISTINGUISH

AN HUNDRED YEARS
OF
Material, Intellectual, Social and Moral Progress

EMBRACING AS SUBJECTS ALL THOSE WHICH BEST TYPE THE GENIUS,
SPIRIT AND ENERGY OF THE AGE, AND SERVE TO BRING INTO
BRIGHTEST RELIEF THE GRAND MARCH OF IMPROVEMENT
IN THE VARIOUS DOMAINS OF
HUMAN ACTIVITY.

BY
JAMES P. BOYD, A.M., L.B.,

Assisted by a Corps of Thirty-Two Eminent and Specially Qualified Authors.

Copiously and Magnificently Illustrated.

PHILADELPHIA
A. J. HOLMAN & CO.

Copyright, 1899, by W. H. Isbister.
All Rights Reserved.

Copyright, 1901, by W. H. Isbister.

i

Measuring epochs, or eras, by spaces of a hundred years each, that which embraces the nineteenth century stands out in sublime and encouraging contrast with any that has preceded it. As the legatee of all prior centuries, it has enlarged and ennobled its bequest to an extent unparalleled in history; while it has at the same time, through a genius and energy peculiar to itself, created an original endowment for its own enjoyment and for the future richer by far than any heretofore recorded. Indeed, without permitting existing and pardonable pride to endanger rigid truth, it may be said that along many of the lines of invention and progress which have most intimately affected the life and civilization of the world, the nineteenth century has achieved triumphs and accomplished wonders equal, if not superior, to all other centuries combined.

Therefore, what more fitting time than at its close to pass in pleasing and instructive review the numerous material and intellectual achievements that have so distinguished it, and have contributed in so many and such marvelous ways to the great advance and genuine comfort of the human race! Or, what could prove a greater source of pride and profit than to compare its glorious works with those of the past, the better to understand and measure the actual steps and real extent of the progress of mankind! Or, what more delightful and inspiring than to realize that the sum of those wonderful activities, of which each reader is, or has been, a part, has gone to increase the grandeur of a world era whose rays will penetrate and brighten the coming centuries!

Amid so many and such strong reasons this volume finds excellent cause for its being. Its aims are to mirror a wonderful century from the vantage ground of its closing year; to faithfully trace the lines which mark its almost magical advance; to give it that high and true historic place whence its contrasts with the past can be best noted, and its light upon the future most directly thrown.

This task would be clearly beyond the power of a single mind. So rapid has progress been during some parts of the century, so amazing have been results along the lines of discovery and invention, so various have been the fields of action, that only those of special knowledge and training could be expected to do full justice to the many subjects to be treated.

Hence, the work has been planned so as to give it a value far beyond what could be imparted by a single mind. Each of the themes chosen to type the century’s grand march has been treated by an author of specialii fitness, and high up in his or her profession or calling, with a view to securing for readers the best thoughts and facts relating to the remarkable events of an hundred years. In this respect the volume is unique and original. Its authorship is not of one mind, but of a corps of minds, whose union assures what the occasion demands.

The scope, character, and value of the volume further appear in its very large number and practical feature of subjects selected to show the active forces, the upward and onward movements, and the grand results that have operated within, and triumphantly crowned, an era without parallel. These subjects embrace the sciences of the century in their numerous divisions and conquests; its arts and literature; industrial, commercial, and financial progress; land and sea prowess; educational, social, moral, and religious growth; in fact, every field of enterprise and achievement within the space of time covered by the work.

A volume of such variety of subject and great extent affords fine opportunity for illustration. The publishers have taken full advantage of this, and have beautified it in a manner which commends itself to every eye and taste. Rarely has a volume been so highly and elegantly embellished. Each subject is illuminated so as to increase the pleasure of reading and make an impression which will prove lasting.

As to its aim and scope, its number of specially qualified authors, its vigor and variety of style and thought, its historic comprehensiveness and exactness, its great wealth of illustration, its superb mechanism, its various other striking features, the volume may readily rank as one of the century’s triumphs, a wonder of industrious preparation, and acceptable to all. At any rate, no such volume has ever mirrored any previous century, and none will come to reflect the nineteenth century with truer line and color.

Not only is the work a rare and costly picture, filled in with inspiring details by master hands, but it is equally a monument, whose solid base, grand proportions, and elegant finish are in keeping with the spirit of the era it marks and the results it honors. Its every inscription is a glowing tribute to human achievement of whatever kind and wherever the field of action may lie, and therefore a happy means of conveying to twentieth century actors the story of a time whose glories they will find it hard to excel. May this picture and monument be viewed, studied, and admired by all, so that the momentous chapters which round the history of a closing century shall avail in shaping the beginnings of a succeeding one.

iii

JAMES P. BOYD, A. M., L. B.,
Wonders of Electricity.

REAR-ADMIRAL GEORGE WALLACE MELVILLE,
Chief of Bureau of Steam Engineering, Navy Department, Washington, D. C.
The Century’s Naval Progress.

SELDEN J. COFFIN, A. M.,
Professor of Astronomy, Lafayette College, Easton, Pa.
Astronomy during the Century.

THOMAS MEEHAN,
Vice-President Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
Story of Plant and Flower.

MARY ELIZABETH LEASE,
First Woman President of Kansas State Board of Charities.
Progress of Women within the Century.

ROBERT P. HAINS,
Principal Examiner of Textiles, United States Patent Office, Washington, D. C.
The Century’s Textile Progress.

GEORGE EDWARD REED, S. T. D., LL. D.,
President of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.
The Century’s Religious Progress.

JAMES P. BOYD, A. M., L. B.,
Great Growth of Libraries.

WILLIAM MARTIN AIKEN, F. A. I. A.,
Former United States Supervising Architect, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.
Progress of the Century in Architecture.

HARVEY W. WILEY, M. D., PH. D., LL. D.,
Chief Chemist of Division of Chemistry, Agricultural Department, Washington, D. C.
The Century’s Progress in Chemistry.

RITER FITZGERALD, A. M.,
Dramatic Critic “City Item,” Philadelphia.
The Century’s Music and Drama.

JAMES P. BOYD, A. M., L. B.,
The Century’s Literature.

MORRIS JASTROW, JR., PH. D.,
Professor of Semitic Languages, University of Pennsylvania.
The Records of the Past.

MAJOR HENRY E. ALVORD, C. E., LL. D.,
Chief of Dairy Division, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
Progress in Dairy Farming.

SARA Y. STEVENSON, Sc. D.,
Secretary of Department of Archæology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania.
The Century’s Moral Progress.

CHARLES McINTIRE, A. M., M. D.,
Lecturer on Sanitary Science, Lafayette College, Easton, Pa.
Progress of Sanitary Science.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ARTHUR L. WAGNER,
Assistant Adjutant General United States Army.
ivThe Century’s Armies and Arms.

WALDO F. BROWN,
Agricultural Editor “Cincinnati Gazette.”
The Century’s Progress in Agriculture.

WALTER LORING WEBB, C. E.,
Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Pennsylvania.
Progress in Civil Engineering.

D. E. SALMON, M. D.,
Chief of Bureau of Animal Industry, Agricultural Department, Washington, D. C.
The Century’s Progress in the Animal World.

MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER,
United States Army, and Member of Congress from Eighth Alabama District.
Leading Wars of the Century.

GEORGE J. HAGAR,
Editor of Appendix to Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Century’s Fairs and Expositions.

HON. BRADFORD RHODES,
Editor of “Banker’s Magazine.”
The Century’s Progress in Coinage, Currency, and Banking.

H. E. VAN DEMAN,
Late Professor of Botany and Practical Horticulture, Kansas State Agricultural College.
The Century’s Progress in Fruit Culture.

EMORY R. JOHNSON, A. M.,
Assistant Professor of Transportation and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania.
The Century’s Commercial Progress.

FRANKLIN S. EDMONDS, A. M.,
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Central High School, Philadelphia.
The Century’s Advances in Education.

THOMAS J. LINDSEY,
Editorial Staff Philadelphia “Evening Bulletin.”
“The Art Preservative.”

GEORGE A. PACKARD,
Metallurgist and Mining Engineer.
Progress in Mines and Mining.

JOHN V. SEARS,
Art Critic Philadelphia “Evening Telegraph.”
Art Progress of the Century.

J. MADISON TAYLOR, M. D., and
JOHN H. GIBBON, M. D.,
Surgeons Out-Patients Departments of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospitals.
The Century’s Advance in Surgery.

FRANK C. HAMMOND, M. D.,
Instructor in Gynæcology, Jefferson Medical College.
Progress of Medicine.

E. E. RUSSELL TRATMAN, C. E.,
Assistant Editor of “Engineering News,” Chicago, Ill.
Evolution of the Railroad.

LUTHER E. HEWITT, L. B.,
Librarian of Philadelphia Law Association.
Advance in Law and Justice.

MICHAEL J. BROWN,
Secretary of Building Association League of Pennsylvania.
Progress of Building and Loan Associations.

REV. A. LEFFINGWELL,
Rector Trinity Church, Toledo, O.
Epoch Makers of the Century.

v

xiii

19

When, in his “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare placed in the mouth of Puck, prince of fairies, the playful speech,—

he had no thought that the undertaking of a boastful and prankish sprite could ever be outdone by human agency. Could the immortal bard have lived to witness the time when the girdling of the earth by means of the electric current became easier and swifter than elfin promise or possibility, he must have speedily remodeled his splendid comedy and denied to the world its delightful, fairy-like features.

An old and charming story runs, that Aladdin, son of a widow of Bagdad, became owner of a magic lamp, by means of whose remarkable powers he could bring to his instant aid the services of an all-helpful genie. When Aladdin wished for aid of any kind, he had but to rub the lamp. At once the genie appeared to gratify his desires. By means of the lamp Aladdin could hear the faintest whisper thousands of miles away. He could annihilate both time and space, and in a twinkling could transfer himself to the tops of the highest mountains. How the charm of this ancient story is lost in the presence of that marvelous realism which marks the achievements of modern electrical science!

The earliest known observations on that subtle mystery which pervades all nature, that silent energy whose phenomena and possibilities are limitless, and before which even the wisest must stand in awe, are attributed to Thales, a scholar of Miletus, in Greece, some 600 years B. C. On rubbing a piece of amber against his clothing, he observed that it gained the strange property of at first attracting and then repelling light objects brought near to it. His observations led to nothing practical, and no historic mention of20 electrical phenomena is found till the time of Theophrastus (B. C. 341), who wrote that amber, when rubbed, attracted “straws, small sticks, and even thin pieces of copper and iron.” Both Aristotle and Pliny speak of the electric eel as having power to benumb animals with which it comes in contact.

Thus far these simple phenomena only had been mentioned. There was no study of electric force, no recognition of it as such, or as we know it and turn it to practical account to-day. This seems quite strange when we consider the culture and power to investigate of the Egyptians, Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans. True, a few fairy-like stories of how certain persons emitted sparks from their bodies, or were cured of diseases by shocks from electric eels, are found scattered through their literatures, but they failed to follow the way to electrical science pointed out to them by Thales. Even in the Middle Ages, when a few scientists and writers saw fit to speak of electrical phenomena as observed by the ancients, and even ventured to speculate upon them in their crude way, there were no practical additions made to the science, and the ground laid as fallow as it had done since the creation.

After a lapse of more than two thousand years from the experiment of Thales, Dr. Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth (A. D. 1533–1603), took up the study of amber and various other substances which, when subjected to friction, acquired the property of first, attracting and then repelling light bodies brought near them. He published his observations in a little book called “De Magnete,” in the year A. D. 1600, and thus became the first author of a work upon electricity. In this unique and initial work upon simple electrical effects, the author added greatly to the number of substances that could be electrified by friction, and succeeded in establishing the different degrees of force with which they could be made to attract or repel light bodies brought near them.

Fortunately for electrical science, and for that matter all sciences, about21 this time the influence of Lord Bacon’s Inductive Philosophy began to be felt by investigators and scientific men. Before that, the causes of natural phenomena had not been backed up by repeated experiments amounting to practical proofs, but had been accounted for, if at all, by sheer guesses or whimsical reasons. Bacon’s method introduced hard, cold, constant experiment as the only sure means of finding out exactly the causes of natural phenomena; and not only this, but the necessity of series upon series of experiments, each based upon the results of the former, and so continuing, link by link, till, from a comparison of the whole, some general principle or truth could be drawn that applied to all. This inductive method of scientific research gave great impetus to the study of every branch of science, and especially to the unfolding of infallible and practical laws governing the phenomena of nature.

For very many years electrical experiments followed the lines laid down by Dr. Gilbert; that is, the finding of substances that could be excited or electrified by friction. By and by such substances came to be called electrics, and it became a part of the crude electrical science of the time to compute the force with which these electrics, when excited, attracted or repelled other substances near them. Among the ablest of these investigators were Robert Boyle, author of “Experiments on the Origin of Electricity,” Sir Isaac Newton, Otto von Guericke, and Francis Hawksbee, the last of whom communicated his experiments to the English Royal Society in 1705. Otto von Guericke used a hard roll of sulphur as an electric. He caused it to revolve rapidly while he rubbed or excited it with his hand. Newton and Hawksbee used a revolving glass globe in the same way, and thus became the parents of the modern and better equipped electrical machine used for school purposes.

The next step in electrical discovery, and one which marks an epoch in the history of the science, was made by Stephen Gray, of England, in 1729. To him is due the credit of finding out that electricity from an excited glass cylinder could be conducted away from it to objects at a remote distance. Though he used only a packthread as a conductor, he thus carried electricity to a distance of several hundred feet, and his novel discovery opened up what, for the time, was a brilliant series of experiments in England and throughout France and Germany. Out of these experiments came the knowledge that some substances were natural conductors of electricity, while others were non-conductors; and that the non-conductors were the very substances—glass, resin, sulphur, etc.—which were then in popular use as electrics. Here was laid the foundation of those after-discoveries which led to the selection of copper, iron, and other metals as the natural and therefore best conductors of electricity, and glass, etc., as the best insulators or non-conductors.

Up to this time an excited electric, such as a glass cylinder or wheel, had furnished the only source whence electricity had been drawn for purposes of experiment. But now another great step forward was taken by the momentous discovery that electricity, as furnished by the excited but quickly exhausted electric, could be bottled up, as it were, and so accumulated and preserved in large quantities, to be drawn upon when needed for experiment. It is not known who made this important discovery; but by common consent the storage apparatus, which was to play so conspicuous a part in after-investigations,22 was named the Leyden Jar or Phial, from the city of Leyden in Holland. It consisted of a simple glass jar lined inside and out with tinfoil to within an inch or two of the top, the tinfoil of the inside being connected by a conductor passing up through the stopper of the jar to a metallic knob on top. This jar could be charged or filled with electricity from a common electric, and it had the power of retaining the charge till the knob on top was touched by the knuckle, or some unelectrified substance, when a spark ensued, and the jar was said to be discharged. By conductors attached to the knob, guns were fired off at a distance by means of the spark, and it is said that Dr. Benjamin Franklin ignited a glass of brandy at the house of a friend by means of a wire attached to a Leyden jar and stretched the full width of the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.

At this stage in the history of eighteenth century electricity there enters a character whose experiments in electricity, and whose writings upon the subject, not only brought him great renown at home and abroad, but perhaps did more to systematize the science and turn it to practical account than those of any contemporary. This was the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, Pa. He showed to the world that electricity was not created by friction upon an electric, but that it was merely gathered there, when friction was applied, from surrounding nature; and in proof of his theory he invaded the clouds with a kite during a thunder-storm, and brought down electricity therefrom by means of the kite-string as a conductor. The key he hung on the string became charged with the electric fluid, and on being touched by an unelectrified body, emitted sparks and produced all the effects commonly witnessed in the discharge of the Leyden jar.

Franklin further established the difference between positive and negative electricity, and showed that the spark phenomenon on the discharge of the Leyden jar was due to the fact that the inside tinfoil was positively electrified and the outside tinfoil negatively. When the inside tinfoil was suddenly drawn upon by a conductor, the spark was simply the result of an effort upon the part of the two kinds of electricity to maintain an equilibrium. By similar reasoning he accounted for the phenomenon of lightning in the clouds, and by easy steps invented the lightning-rod, as a means of breaking the force of the descending bolt, and carrying the dangerous fluid safely to the ground. Here we have not only a practical result growing out of electrical experiments, but we witness the dawn of an era when electricity was to be turned to profitable commercial account. The lightning-rod man has been abroad in the world ever since the days of Franklin.

Thus far, then, electrical science, if science it could yet be called, had gotten on at the dawn of the nineteenth century. No electricity was really known but that produced by friction upon glass, or some other convenient electric. Hence it was called frictional electricity by some, and static electricity by others, because it was regarded as electricity in a state of rest. Though a thing fitted for curious experiment, and a constant invitation to scientific research, it had no use whatever in the arts. An excited electric could furnish but a trivial and temporary supply of electricity. It exhausted itself in the exhibition of a single spark.

23

By a happy accident in 1790, Galvani, of Bologna, Italy, while experimenting upon a frog, discovered that he could produce alternate motion between its nerves and muscles through the agency of a fluid generated by certain dissimilar metals when brought close together. Though this mysterious fluid came to be known as the galvanic fluid, and though galvanism was made to perpetuate his name, it was not until 1800 that Volta, another Italian, showed to the scientific world that really a new electricity had been found.

Volta constructed what became known as the galvanic pile, but more largely since as the voltaic pile, which he found would generate electricity strongly and continuously. He used in its construction the dissimilar metals silver and zinc, cut into disks, and piled alternately one upon the other, but separated by pieces of cloth moistened with salt water. This simple generator of electricity was the forerunner of the more powerful batteries of the present day, and which are still popularly known as voltaic cells or batteries.

But the importance of Volta’s discovery did not lay more in the construction of his electrical generator than in the great scientific fact that chemistry now became linked indissolubly with electricity and electrical effects. The two novel and charming sciences, hitherto separate, were henceforth to coöperate in those majestic revelations and magnificent possibilities which so signally distinguish the nineteenth century. By means of greatly improved24 voltaic cells or batteries, that is, by jars containing acid in which were suspended dissimilar metals, electricity could be produced readily and in somewhat continuous current. By increasing the number of these cells or jars or batteries, and connecting them with conductors, the current could be made stronger and more effective. In contradistinction to the old frictional or static electricity, the new became known as chemical or current electricity.

As was to have been expected, Volta’s invention and discovery excited the whole domain of electrical science to new investigation, and brought in their train a host of wonderful results, growing more and more practical each year, and pointing the way more and more clearly to the commercial value of electricity as a familiar, inexhaustible, and irresistible power. Thus, in 1801, Nicholson showed that an electric current from a voltaic pile would, when passed through salt water, decompose the water and resolve it into its two original gases, oxygen and hydrogen. In 1807, Sir Humphrey Davy, carrying electricity further into the domain of chemistry, showed, by means of the electric current, that various metallic substances embraced in the earth’s crust, and before his time supposed to be elementary, were really dissoluble and easily resolved into their component parts, whether solids, or gases, or both. Two years later, in 1809, he made the equally momentous discovery of something which was to prove a veritable sit lux, “Let there be light,” for the nineteenth century, and illuminate it beyond all others. Though it had been known almost from the date of the first voltaic pile that, when the ends of its two conducting wires were brought close together, a spark was seen to leap in a curved or arc line from one wire to the other, which phenomenon was known as the voltaic arc, it remained for Davy to exhibit this arc in all the beauty of a brilliant light by using two charcoal (carbon) sticks or electrodes, instead of the wires, at the point of close approach. Here was the first principle of the after-evolved arc light to be found by the end of the century in every large city, and to prove such a source of comfort and safety for their millions of inhabitants. This principle was simply that a stream of electricity pouring along a conducting wire will, when interrupted by a substance such as carbon (charcoal), which is a slow conductor, throw off a bright light at the point of interruption. The phenomenon has been very aptly likened to a running stream of water in whose bed a stone has been placed. The stone obstructs the flow of water. The water remonstrates by an angry ripple and excited roar. In Davy’s experiment with the pieces of charcoal, both became intensely hot while the electricity was making its brilliant arc leap from one to the other, and would, of course, soon be consumed. He, therefore, in showing the principle of a permanent luminant, failed to demonstrate its practical possibilities. These last were not to be attained till the nineteenth century was well along, and only after very numerous and very baffling attempts.

Between 1810 and 1830, many important laws governing electrical phenomena were discovered, which tended greatly to render the science more exact, and to give it commercial direction. Oersted, of Denmark, discovered a means of measuring the strength and direction of an electric current. Ampère, of France, discovered the identity of electricity and what had before been called galvanism. Ritchie, of England, made the first machine by which a continuous motion was produced by means of the attractions and25 repulsions between fixed magnets and electro-magnets. This machine was an early suggestion of the dynamo and motor of the coming years of the century. It meant that electricity was a source of power, as well as of other phenomenal things.

In speaking of the electro-magnet in connection with Ritchie’s machine, it is proper to say that the electro-magnet was probably discovered between 1825 and 1830, but precisely by whom is not known. It differs from the natural magnet, or the permanent steel horseshoe magnet, and consists simply of a round piece of soft iron, called a core, around which are wrapped several coils of fine wire. When an electric current is made to pass through this wrapping of wire, called the helix, the iron core becomes magnetized, and has all the power of a permanent magnet. But as soon as the electric current ceases, the magnetic power of the core is lost. Hence it is called an electro-magnet, or a temporary magnet, to distinguish it from a permanent magnet.

While the discovery of the electro-magnet was very important in the respect that it afforded great magnetic power by the use of a limited or economic galvanic force, or, in other words, by the use of smaller and fewer Voltaic batteries, it was not until Faraday began his splendid series of electrical discoveries, in 1831, that a new and exhaustless wellspring of electricity was found to lay at the door of science. Faraday’s prime discovery was that of the induction of electric currents, or, in other words, of manufacturing electricity directly from magnetism. He began his experiments with what became known as an induction coil, which, though then crude in his hands, is the same in principle to-day. It consists26 of an iron core wrapped with two coils of insulated wire. One coil is of very lengthy, thin wire, and is called the secondary coil. The other is of short, thick wire, and is called the primary. When a magnetic current is passed through the primary coil, with frequent makes and breaks, it induces an alternating current of very high tension in the secondary coil, thus powerfully increasing its effects. In Faraday’s further study of electric induction, he showed that when a conductor carrying a current was brought near to a second conductor it induced or set up a current in this second. So magnets were found to have a similar effect upon one another.

The secret of these phenomena was found to lie in the fact that a magnet, or a conductor carrying a current, was the centre of a field of force of very considerable extent. Such a field of force can be familiarly shown by placing a piece of glass or white paper sprinkled with fine iron filings upon the poles of a magnet. The filings will be drawn into concentric circles, whose extent measures the magnet’s field of force. So also the extent of the field of force surrounding a conductor carrying a current may be familiarly shown. In these instances the filings brought within the fields of force are magnetized. So would any other conducting substance be, and would become capable of carrying away as an independent current that which had been induced in it. Here we have the essential principle of the modern dynamo-electric machine, commonly called simply dynamo. Faraday actually constructed a dynamo, which answered very well for his experiments, but failed in commercial results because the only source of energy he could draw upon in his time was that supplied by the rather costly voltaic cells.

During Faraday’s time and subsequently, electricians in Europe and the United States were active in formulating further laws relative to the nature, strength, and control of electrical currents, and each year was one of preparation for the coming leap of electrical science into the vast realm of commercial convenience and profit.

From the date of the discovery that electricity could be conducted to a distance, dreams were indulged that it could be made a means of communicating27 intelligence. In the eighteenth century, many attempts were made to carry intelligent signals over electric wires. Some of these were quite ingenious, but in the end failures, because the old-fashioned frictional electricity was the only kind then known and employed. Even after the discovery of the voltaic cell or battery, which afforded an ample supply of chemical electricity to operate a telegraphic apparatus, the time was not ripe for successful telegraphy, for up till 1830 no battery had been produced that was sufficiently constant in its operation to supply the kind of current required. For feasible telegraphy, two important steps were yet necessary. One was the discovery of the electro-magnet, 1825–30. The other was the discovery of the Daniell’s battery or cell, in 1836, by means of which a constant electric current could be sustained for a long time.

But even before these two indispensable requisites had been supplied by human genius, much had been done to develop the mechanical methods of conveying intelligence. In 1816, Ronalds, of England, constructed a telegraph by means of which he operated a system of pith-ball signals which could be understood. In 1820, Ampère suggested that the deflection of the magnetic needle by an electric current might be turned to account in imparting intelligence at a distance. In 1828, Dyar, of New York, perfected a telegraph by means of which he made tracings and spaces upon a piece of moving litmus paper, which tracings and spaces could be intelligently interpreted through a prearranged code. A little later, 1830, Baron Schilling constructed a telegraph which imparted motion to a set of needles at either end.

From this time up to 1837, which last year was a memorable one in the history of telegraphy, the genius of such distinguished men as Morse in America, Wheatstone and Cooke in England, and Steinhill in Munich, was brought to bear on the further evolution of the telegraph. While all these names have been associated with the invention of the first practical telegraph, it is impossible, with justice, to rob that of Morse of the distinguished honor. Morse conceived his invention on board the ship Surry, while on a voyage from Havre to New York, in October, 1832. It consisted, as conceived, of a single circuit of conductors fed by some generator of electricity. He devised a system of signs, which was afterwards improved into the Morse alphabet, consisting of dots or points, and spaces, to represent numerals. These were impressed upon a strip of ribbon or paper by a lever which held at one end a pen or pencil. The paper or ribbon was made to move along under the pencil or pen at a regular rate by means of clockwork. In accordance with these conceptions, Morse completed his instrument and publicly exhibited it in 1835.28 He gave it further publicity, in much improved form, in 1837. In this form it was entirely original in the important respects that the ribbon or paper was made to move by clockwork, while a pen or pencil gave the impressions, thus preserving a permanent record of the message conveyed.

Though under systems less original and effective than that of Morse, a first actual telegraph had been operated between Paddington and Drayton, England, a distance of 13 miles, in 1839, and one at Calcutta, India, for a distance of 21 miles, it was not until 1844 that the world’s era of practical telegraphy actually set in under the Morse system, which speedily superseded all others. In that year, amid the jeers of congressmen and the adverse predictions of the press, Morse erected the first American telegraph line in America, between Baltimore and Washington, a distance of 40 miles, and, to the confusion of all detractors, sent the first message over it on May 27 of that year. From that date the fame of Morse was established at home, and soon became world-wide. His system of telegraphy, with slight modifications, became that of all civilized countries.

As was to be expected in a century so full of enterprise as the nineteenth, a science so attractive, so useful to civilization, so commercially valuable, so full of possibilities, as telegraphy, could not remain at rest. Everywhere it stimulated to improvement and new invention and discovery; and as the century progressed, it witnessed in steady succession the wonders of what became known as duplex telegraphy, that is, the sending of different messages over the same wire at the same time. Again, the century witnessed the invention of quadruplex telegraphy, that is, the sending of four separate messages over the same wire, two in one direction and two in another. This was followed by the invention of Gray’s harmonic system, by means of which a number of messages greater than four are transmitted at the same time over the same wire; and this again by Delaney’s synchronous multiplex system, by means of which as many as 72 separate messages have been sent over the same wire at the same time, either all in one direction, or some in one direction and the rest in an opposite.

29 For a time successful telegraphy was limited to overland spaces, the conductors or wires, consisting of iron or copper, being insulated where they passed the supporting poles. In the cities, supporting poles proved to be unsightly and dangerous, and they were succeeded by underground conduits carrying insulated wires. In 1839, we read of what may be reckoned the first successful experiment in telegraphing under water by means of an insulated wire, or cable, as a conductor. The experiment was tried at Calcutta, and under the river Hugli. In 1842, Morse experimented at New York with an under-water cable, and showed that a successful submarine telegraphy was practical. In 1848, a cable, insulated with gutta-percha, was laid under water between New York and Jersey City, and successfully operated. In 1851, a submarine cable was laid and successfully operated under the English Channel. An enterprising American, Cyrus W. Field, of New York, now took up the subject of submarine telegraphy, and suggested a cable under the ocean between Ireland and Newfoundland. One was laid in 1857, but it unfortunately parted at a distance of three hundred miles from land. A second was laid under Mr. Field’s auspices in 1858, but the insulation proved faulty, and after working imperfectly for a month, it gave out entirely.

These disasters, though furnishing much valuable experience, checked the enterprise of submarine telegraphy for a number of years. Not until 1861, when a deep-sea cable was successfully laid and operated between Malta and Alexandria, and in 1864, when one was laid across the Persian Gulf, did enterprise gain sufficient courage to dare another attempt to cable the Atlantic. In 1865, that attempt was made. Again the cable broke, but this did not dissuade from another and successful attempt in 1866. This signal triumph was the forerunner of others, equally important to international commerce and the world’s diplomacy. Countries far apart, and isolated by oceans, have, by means of deep-sea cables, been brought into intimate relation, and made sharers of one another’s intelligence, enterprise, and civilizing instincts. What the overland telegraph has done toward bringing local states and communities into contact, the submarine cable has done for the remote nations.

In form, an ocean cable differs much from the simple wire which constitutes the conductor of an overland or even underground telegraph. It is made in many ways, but mostly with a central core of numerous copper wires, which are more flexible than a single wire. These are thickly covered with30 an insulating material, such as gutta-percha, after first being heavily wrapped in tarred canvas or like material. The central cores may be one, two, three, or even more in number. Where a cable is likely to be subjected to the abrasion of ship-bottoms, rocks, or anchors, it has an outer covering or guard composed of closely united steel wires. In submarine telegraphy, the instruments used in sending and receiving the message are very much more ingenious, delicate, and costly than in overland telegraphy.

Whereas at the beginning of the nineteenth century electric telegraphy was an unknown science, and even up to the middle of the century was of limited use and doubtful commercial value, nevertheless the end of the century witnesses in its growth and application one of its most stupendous marvels. From the few miles of overland wires in 1844, the total mileage of the century has expanded to approximately 5,000,000, and the submarine to 170,000. A single company (the Western Union) in the United States operates 800,000 miles of wire, conveying 60,000,000 messages per year, while throughout the world more than 200,000,000 messages per year serve the purposes of enlightened intercourse. The capital employed reaches many hundreds of millions of dollars.

The close of the nineteenth century opened possibilities in telegraphy that may be classed as startling in comparison with its previous attainments. It would seem that the intervention of the familiar conducting wire is not absolutely necessary to the transmission of intelligence. The old and well-established principle of induced currents has lately been turned to account in what is termed “telegraphy without wires.” As an instance, a telegraph wire, when placed close alongside of a railroad track, will take up and convey to and from the stations the induced pulsations of a magneto-telephone placed within a passing car, and connected to the metallic roof of the car. This system has been put to practical use on at least one railway, and pronounced feasible.

But a greater marvel than this springs from the discovery of Hertz, about 1890, that every electrical discharge is the centre of oscillations radiating indefinitely through space. The phenomenon is likened to the dropping of a stone in a placid lake. Concentric undulations of the water are set up,—little waves,—which gradually enlarge in diameter, and affect in greater or less degree the entire surface. Could an apparatus be invented to detect and direct the oscillations made in space by an electric generator,—to perceive, as it were, the ether undulations, just as the eye notes those on the lake’s surface?

In 1891, Professor Branley found that the electric vibrations in ether could be detected by means of fine metallic filings. No matter how good a conductor of electricity the metal in mass might be, when reduced to fine filings or powder it offered powerful resistance to a passing current; in other words, became a very poor conductor. An electric discharge or spark near the filings greatly decreased their resistance. If the filings were jarred, their original resistance was restored. Branley placed his filings in a tube, into either end of which wires were passed. These were connected with a galvanometer. Ordinarily, the resistance of the filings was such as to prevent a current passing through them, and the galvanometer remained unaffected. But when an electric spark was emitted near the tube, the resistance was so31 much decreased that the current passed readily through the filings, and was detected by the galvanometer. This is simply equivalent to saying that the discharge of the electric spark made the filings to cohere and become a better conductor than when lying loosely in the tube. Here, then, was opportunity for an instrument which had but to regulate the number of sparks and indicate the presence of the electric waves in order to produce dots and dashes similar to those used in the common telegraph. Such an instrument was brought nearest to perfection by Signor Marconi, a young Italian, in 1896. With it he succeeded in sending electric waves through ether or space, and without the use of wires, a distance of four miles, upon Salisbury Plain, England. Later, he transmitted messages by means of space (wireless) telegraphy across Bristol Channel, a distance of 8.7 miles, and subsequently across the English Channel, a distance of 18 miles. Mr. W. J. Clarke, of America, has improved upon Marconi’s methods of space telegraphy, and shown some remarkable results. Whether space telegraphy will eventually supersede that by wires is one of the problems that time only can solve. But such are the possibilities of electrical science that we may well be prepared for more wonderful revelations than any yet made.

Telegraph (Gr. tele, far, and graphein, to write) implies the production of writing at a distance by means of an electric current upon a conductor. Telephone (Gr. tele, far, and phone, sound) implies the production of sound at a distance by the same means, though the word telephone was in early use to describe the transmission of sound by means of a rod or tightly stretched string connecting two diaphragms of wood, membrane, or other substance. This last plan of transmitting sound came to be known as the string telephone, and it retained this name until the invention of the electric telephone.

32 Like the electric telegraph, the electric telephone was an evolution. The string telephone, in the hands of Wheatstone, showed, as early as 1819, that the vibrations of the air produced by a musical instrument were very minute, and could be transmitted hundreds of yards by means of a string armed with delicate diaphragms. But while the string telephone served to confirm the fact that sounds are vibrations of the atmosphere which affect the tympanum of the ear, it remained but a toy or experimental device till after electric telegraphy became an accepted science, that is, in the year 1837 and subsequently. One of the earliest steps toward the evolution of the electric telephone was taken by Mr. Page, of Salem, Mass., in 1837, who discovered that a magnetic bar could emit sounds when rapidly magnetized and demagnetized; and that those sounds corresponded with the number of currents which produced them. This led to the discovery, between 1847 and 1852, of several kinds of electric vibrators adapted to the production of musical sounds and their transmission to a distance. All this was wonderful and momentous, but a little while had still to elapse before one arose bold enough to admit the possibility of transmitting human speech by electricity. He came in 1854, in the person of Charles Bourseul, of Paris, who, though as if writing out a fanciful dream, said, “We know that sounds are produced by vibrations, and are adapted to the ear by the same vibrations which are reproduced by the intervening medium. But the intensity of the vibrations diminishes very rapidly with the distance, so that it is, even with the aid of speaking-tubes and trumpets, impossible to exceed somewhat narrow limits. Suppose that a man speaks near a movable disk, sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations of the voice, that this disk alternately makes and breaks the current from a battery, you may have at a distance another disk, which will at the same time execute the same vibrations.”

Bourseul further showed that the sounds of the voice thus reproduced would have the same pitch, but admitted that, in the then present state of acoustic science, it could not be affirmed that the syllables uttered by the human voice could be so reproduced, since nothing was known of them, except that some were uttered by the teeth, others by the lips, and so on. The status of the telephone then, according to Bourseul, was that voice could be reproduced at a distance at the pitch of the speaker, but that something more was needed to transmit the delicate and varied intonations of human speech when it was broken into syllables and utterances. To transmit simply33 voice was one thing; to transmit the timbre or quality of speech was another.

Bourseul made plain the problem that was still before the investigator. And now comes one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of electricity,—a chapter of mingled shame and glory. In the village of Eberly’s Mills, Cumberland County, Pa., lived a genius by the name of Daniel Drawbaugh, who had made a study of telephony up to the very point Bourseul had left it. He had transmitted musical sound, sound of the voice, and other sounds in the same pitch. He had said that this was all that could be done till some means was discovered of holding up the constant onward flow of the electric current along a conducting wire by introducing into such flow a variable resistance such as would impart to simple pitch of voice the quality or timbre of human speech. Drawbaugh achieved this in his simple workshop as early as 1859–60, according to evidence furnished to the United States Supreme Court at the celebrated trial of the cases which robbed him of the right to his prior invention. He did it by introducing into the circuit a small quantity of powdered charcoal confined in a tumbler, through which the current was passing. The charcoal, being a poor conductor and in small grains, offered just that kind of variable resistance to the current necessary to reproduce the tones and syllables of speech. He transmitted speech between his shop and house, and proved the success he had met with before audiences in New York and Philadelphia. But he neglected to care for the commercial side of his discovery, though many of his patents antedated those which contributed to deprive him of deserved honor and profit.

In 1861, Reis, of Germany, came into notice as the inventor of a telephone which transmitted sound very clearly, but failed to reproduce syllabified speech. However, the principle and shape of his transmitter and receiver were accepted by those who followed him. Two men now came upon the scene who had reached the conclusion already arrived at by Drawbaugh, and who became rivals over his head for the honor and profit of an invention by means of which the quality of the voice in speaking could be transmitted. These two were Elisha Gray, of Chicago, and Alexander Graham Bell, of Boston. Their respective devices seem to have been akin, and to have been presented to the patent office almost simultaneously; so nearly so, at least, as to make them a part of that long, costly, and acrimonious legal contention over priority of invention which did not end till 1887.

Both Bell and Gray reached the conclusion that the transmission of articulate speech was impossible unless they could produce electrical undulations corresponding exactly with the vibrations of the air or sound waves. They brought this similarity about by introducing a variable resistance into the electric current by means of an interposing liquid, just as Drawbaugh had done years before with his tumbler of powdered charcoal. Bell exhibited his instrument with comparative success at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 in Philadelphia; but much had yet to be done to perfect a telephone of real commercial value.

The years 1877–78 were years of great activity among electricians, whose prime object was to perfect a telephone transmitter and receiver, by means of whose mutual operations at opposite ends of a circuit all the modulations of speech could be preserved and passed. To this end Berliner introduced into34 a transmitter or sender the then well-known principle of the microphone (Gr. mikros, small, phone, sound), which magnified the faint sounds by the variation in electrical resistance, caused by variation of pressure at loose contact between two metal points or electrodes. Edison quickly followed with a similar transmitter or sender, in which one of the electrodes was of soft carbon, the other of metal. Then came (1878) Hughes and Blake with senders, in which both of the electrodes were of hard carbon. Subsequently came other and rapid modifications of the sender, both in the United States and Europe, till the form of telephone now in popular use was arrived at, and which, strange to say, is, in its method of securing the necessary variable resistance in the circuit, quite like that employed by Mr. Drawbaugh; to wit, the introduction of fine carbon granules into a small metal cup just behind the vibrating diaphragm or disk of the sender. The circuit goes into the diaphragm in front, passing through the carbon granules and out through the back of the instrument. The action of talking into the sender causes the granules to be agitated, thus opening and closing the circuit and producing the conditions necessary to the transmission of articulate speech. The diaphragm or disk is the very thin covering of the cup containing the granules. It is sometimes made of carbon, but generally of hard metal, as steel. On being struck by the sound waves of the voice, it vibrates to correspond. The same vibrations are reproduced in the receiver at the opposite end of the circuit, and thus one listens to the phenomenon of transmitted human speech. The current for telephonic purposes is furnished by one or more batteries or cells, whose effect is heightened by the presence of an induction coil. The tendency now is to make “bipolars”—two contacts at the diaphragm—in place of a single contact. This style is becoming more in vogue in order to meet the demands of long-distance work. To each telephone is attached a generator or device for ringing a little bell as a signal that some one wishes to communicate. To such perfection have telephones been brought that it is quite possible to converse intelligibly at the distance of a thousand miles, with a less satisfactory service at twice or thrice that distance. The possibilities of clear speech-transmission at indefinite distance are without measure. Like the telegraph, the telephone has opened an immense and profitable industry, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. At the end of the century it is, unfortunately, monopolistic; but the time is near when a reasonable charge for service will enable every business house to communicate with its customers, and when even the remote corners of counties will be brought into touch with their capitals and with one another. Along the lines of civilizing contact the telephone fairly divides the wonders of the century with the telegraph, while for intimate intellectual communication it is a triumph of genius without parallel. It is the dispenser of speech in city, town, and village; in factory and mine, in army and navy; throughout government departments; and in Budapest, Hungary, it is a purveyor of general news, like the newspaper, for the “Telephone Gazette” of that city has a list of regular subscribers, to whom it transmits, at private houses, clubs, cafes, restaurants, and public buildings, its editorials, telegrams, local news, and advertisements.

A very natural outgrowth of the telephone was that curious invention known as the phonograph (Gr. phone, sound, and graphein, to write). It is35 not only an instrument for writing or preserving sound, but for reproducing it. As a simple recorder of sound, it was an instrument dating as far back as 1807, when Dr. Young showed how a tuning-fork might be made to trace a record of its own vibrations. But Young’s thought had to go through more than half a century of slow evolution before the modern phonograph was reached; for in the phonautograph of Scott, the logographs of Barlow and Blake, and the various other attempts up to 1877 to make and preserve tracings of speech, there were no successful means of reproducing speech from those tracings hit upon.

In that year (1877), Edison, in striving to make a self-recording telephone by connecting with its diaphragm or disk a stylus or metal point which would record its vibrations upon a strip of tinfoil, accidentally reversed the motion of the tinfoil so that the tracings upon it affected the stylus or tracing-point in an opposite direction. To his surprise, he found that this reverse motion of the tinfoil, tickling, as it were, the stylus oppositely, reproduced the sounds which had at first agitated the diaphragm. It was but a step now to the production of his matured phonograph in 1878. He made a cylinder with a grooved surface, over which he spread tinfoil. A stylus or fine metal point was made to rest upon the tinfoil, so as to produce a tracing in it, following the grooves in the cylinder when the latter was made to revolve. This stylus was connected with the diaphragm of an ordinary telephone transmitter. When one spoke into the transmitter, that is, set the diaphragm to vibrating, the stylus impressed the vibratory motions of the diaphragm, or, in other words, the waves of the exciting sound, in light indentations upon the tinfoil. In order to reproduce the sounds thus registered in the tinfoil of the cylinder, it was made to revolve in an opposite direction under the point of the stylus, and as the stylus was now affected by precisely the same indentations it had first made in the tinfoil, it carried the identical vibrations it had recorded back to the diaphragm of the telephone, and thus reproduced in audible form the speech that had at first set the diaphragm to vibrating. The speech thus reproduced was that of the original speaker in pitch and quality. Ingenious and wonderful as Edison’s machine was, it was susceptible of improvement, and soon Bell and others came forward with a phonograph in which the recording cylinder was covered with a hardened wax. This was called the graphophone. Again, Berliner improved upon the phonograph by using for his tracing surface a horizontal disk of zinc covered with wax. By chemical treatment, the tracings made in the wax were etched into the zinc, and thus made permanent. Edison made further and ingenious improvements upon his phonograph by attaching hearing tubes for the ear to the sound receiver, and by the employment of an electric motor to revolve the wax cylinder. By the attachment of enlarged trumpets and other devices, every form of modern phonograph has been rendered capable of reproducing in great perfection the various sounds of speech, song, and instrument, and has become a most interesting source of entertainment.

36

Dynamo is from the Greek dunamis, meaning power. Motor is from the Latin motus, or moveo, to move. Dynamo is the every-day term applied to the dynamo-electric machine. Motor is the every-day term applied to the electric motor. The dynamo and motor are quite alike in principle of construction, yet direct opposites in object and effect. Perhaps it might be well to designate both as dynamo-electric machines, and to say that, when such machine is used for the conversion of mechanical energy or power of any kind into electrical energy or power, it is a dynamo. When a reverse result is sought, that is, when electrical energy or power is to be converted into mechanical energy or power, the machine that is used is a motor. In practical use for most purposes they are brought into coöperation, the dynamo being at one end of an electric system, making and sending forth electricity, the motor being at the other end, taking up such electricity and running machinery with it. Both machines were epoch-making in the midst of a wondrous century, and both were results of those marvelous evolutions in electrical science which characterized the earlier years of the century.

We have seen how the simple glass cylinder or sulphur roll became, when rubbed, a generator of electricity. In a later chapter of electrical history, we saw a new and more powerful generator of electricity in the voltaic cell, by means of opposing metals acted upon chemically by acids. The greatest, grandest, most powerful, and most economic of all generators of electricity was yet to come in the shape of the dynamo. We see its beginnings in those investigations of Faraday which led to the discovery of the induction coil and the principles of magneto-electric induction. In 1831, he invented a simple yet, for that date, wonderful machine, which was none the less the first dynamo in principle, because he modestly called it “A New Electrical Machine.” He mounted a thin disk of copper, about twelve inches in diameter, upon a central axis, so that it would revolve between the opposite poles of a permanent magnet. As the disk revolved, its lower half cut the field of force of the magnet, and a current was induced which was carried away by means of two collecting brushes, fastened respectively to the axis and circumference of the disk. This was the first electric current ever produced by a permanent magnet. The Faraday machine and others that derived the mechanical energy which was converted into electric current from a permanent magnet were classed as magneto-generators. Soon the electro-magnet took the place of the permanent magnet, because it produced a much stronger field of force. But then the electro-magnet had to have a current to excite it. This current was supplied by a magneto-generator, placed somewhere on the dynamo. Now came the thought, suggested by Brett in 1848, that the induced currents of the dynamo could themselves be turned to account for increasing the strength of the electro-magnets used in inducing them. This was a most progressive step in the history of the dynamo. It led to rapid inventions, whose principle was based on the fact that every dynamo carried within the cores of its magnets enough of unused or residual magnetism to render the magnets self-exciting the moment the machine started. So the outside means of magnetizing the fields of force of the dynamo passed away.

The dynamo speedily grew in size and importance. The electro-magnets37 or fields of force were greatly increased in number, size, and power. There were great improvements in the construction and efficiency of the wire coils or armatures which cut the fields of force, and a corresponding increase in their number. Commutators and brushes underwent like improvement. So, at last, the well-nigh perfect and all-powerful dynamo of the end of the century was evolved, with a capacity for delivering, in the form of electricity, ninety per cent of the mechanical energy which set it in motion. In the application of steam to machinery, eighty per cent, and sometimes more, of the energy supplied by a ton of coal is lost.

With the perfection of the dynamo, its uses multiplied. It became a prime factor in electric lighting. Trolley systems sprang up in city, town, and village, taking the place of horse and traction cars. In certain places, as in the Baltimore tunnel, the dynamo superseded the engine for hauling freight and passenger cars. The mighty dynamos which convert the inexhaustible energy of Niagara Falls into electricity send it many miles away to Buffalo, to be applied to lighting and to every form of machinery. The end of the century sees a power plant in operation in New York city capable of furnishing one hundred thousand horse-power, or enough to supply the lighting, rapid transit, and thousand and one mechanical needs of the entire municipality. The essential parts of an ordinary dynamo are: (1.) The electro-magnets, which,38 however numerous, are arranged in circular form upon part of the framework of the machine. (2.) The iron coils or armatures, mounted in a circle upon a wheel. When the wheel revolves, the armatures pass close in front of the electro-magnets, cutting through their fields of force, and thereby inducing electric current. (3.) The commutator, which consists usually of a series of copper blocks arranged around the axle of the armatures, and insulated from the axle and from each other. The current passes from the armatures to the commutator. If the current be an alternating one, the commutator changes it into a continuous one, and the reverse may also be accomplished. (4.) The brushes, which are thin strips of copper or carbon, are brought to bear at proper points upon the commutator, making connection with each coil or sets of coils. They carry the corrected current to the outside line or lines. (5.) The outside line or lines, to carry the current away to the motor. (6.) The pulley for strap-belting, by means of which the water or steam power used is made to turn the dynamo machine.

But we must not forget the motor as a companion of the dynamo, as its indispensable brother, in turning to practical account the electricity sent to it. As we have seen, the motor is the reverse of the dynamo, at least in its effects. It is fed by the dynamo, and it imparts its power to the machinery which it is to set in motion. It is to the dynamo what the water-wheel is to the water. In one sense it is an even older invention than the dynamo, but its extended commercial application was not possible until the dynamo had reached certain stages of perfection. It is generally agreed that the first motor of importance was that constructed by Professor Jacobi, through the liberality of the Czar Nicholas, of Russia. Jacobi used two sets of electro-magnets, by means of whose mutual attraction and repulsion he rotated a wheel on a boat with a power equal to that of eight oarsmen. But as Jacobi’s electro-magnets required an electric current to magnetize them, and as there were then no means of producing such current except by the costly use of the voltaic battery, his invention was unripe as to time.

In 1850, Professor Page, of the Smithsonian Institution, constructed a motor which worked ingeniously, but was still open to the objection of cost in supplying the necessary electric current for the electro-magnets. Though various inventions came about having for their object a commercially successful motor, such a thing was impossible till Gramme produced his improved and effective dynamo in 1871. This dynamo was found to work equally well as a motor, and hence it became necessary for electricians to greatly enlarge their understanding of the nature of electro-magnetic induction. They soon discovered many curious things respecting the behavior of induced currents, with the result that rapid and simultaneous improvements were made in both dynamos and motors. One of the most curious of these discoveries was that a motor automatically regulates the amount of current that passes through its circuit in proportion to the work it is called upon to do; that is, if the work the machine has to do is decreased, the motor attains a higher speed, which higher speed induces a counter electro-motive force sufficient to check up the amount of current passing through the motor. So when the motor is required to do increased work, the machine slows up; but with this slowing up, the counter electro-motive force decreases, and consequently the current passing through the motor increases.

39 As with the dynamo, one of the marvels of the motor is its efficiency. In perfect machines, ninety to ninety-five per cent of the electrical energy supplied can be converted into mechanical energy. For this reason it has become a competitor with, and even successor of, steam in countless cases, and especially where water-power can be commanded. A prime motor, in the shape of a water-wheel, may be made to drive scores of secondary motors in places hundreds of miles away. The power developed by the waterfall at Lauffen, Germany, is transmitted one hundred miles to Frankfort, with a loss of only twenty-five per cent of the original horse-power.

In its adaptation for practical use, the motor, like the dynamo, assumes all sizes and embraces a host of ingenious devices, yet its power and usefulness always centre around, or are contained in, its two efficient parts, its armatures and fields of force. We have seen how in the dynamo the armatures became the source of induced currents by being made to cut the fields of force of electro-magnets. Now, a dynamo can be made to work in an opposite way; that is, by making the magnetic fields of force rotate in front of the coils or armatures. In the motor, the field of force is mostly established by the current directly from the dynamo. This current passes also through the armature, which begins to rotate, owing to the force of the field upon it. This rotation of the armature through the field of force produces in the armature conductors an electro-motive force, which is the measure of the power of the motor, be the same great or small.

Mention of the “candlestick of pure gold” (Ex. xxv. 31) may lead to the inference that the primitive artificial light was that of the candle. But “candlestick” in connection with the lighting of the temple is clearly a misnomer. The lamp was the original artificial light-giver, unless we choose to except the torch; and if less indispensable than in patriarchal times, it is still a favorite dispenser of nightly cheer. Prior to the middle of the eighteenth century, the lamp had practically no evolution. It was the same in principle at that date as when it illuminated the desert tabernacle. Even the splendid enameled glass or decorated Persian pottery lamps of Damascus and Cairo, and the magnificent brass or bronze lamps of Greece, Rome, and the European cathedrals, gave forth their dull, unsteady flame and noisome smoke by means of a crude wick lying in a saucer or similar receptacle of melted lard, tallow, oil, or some such combustible40 liquid. A prime improvement was made in lamp-lighting in 1783, by Leger, of Paris, who devised the flat, metallic burner, through which he passed a neatly prepared wick. A further improvement was made in 1784 by Argand, of Paris, who introduced a burner consisting of two circular tubes, between which passed a circular wick. The inner tube was perforated so as to admit of a draught of air to feed the flame on the inside of the wick. In order to similarly feed the flame on the outside of the wick, he invented the lamp chimney, which was at first a crude thing of metal. It, however, soon gave way to the glass chimney, which has up to the present taken on many improved forms, designed to secure more perfect combustion and a brighter, steadier glow.

Improvement in lamp-lighting during the nineteenth century has consisted of an indefinite number of inventions, all aiming at economy, brilliancy, steadiness, convenience, beauty, and so on. But in no respect has this improvement been more rapid and radical than in the adaptation of lamps to the various combustible fluids that have bid for favor. While the various oils, animal and vegetable, were almost solely in vogue as illuminants at the beginning of the century, they were largely superseded at a later period by the burning-fluid known as camphene. This was a purified oil of turpentine, which found great favor on account of its economy, convenience, cleanliness, and brilliancy of light. But it was very volatile, and its vapors formed with air a dangerously explosive mixture. Yet with all this it might have held its own for a long time, had not Gesner, in 1846, discovered that a superior mineral oil, which he called “kerosene,” could be readily and profitably distilled from the coal found on Prince Edward Island. This kerosene or hydrocarbon oil speedily displaced camphene as an illuminant. Its manufacture rapidly developed into an important industry in the United States, and large distilling establishments arose, both on the Atlantic coast, where foreign coal was used, and throughout the country, wherever cannel or other convertible coal was found. With the discovery of petroleum in paying quantities on Oil Creek, Pa., in 1859, there came about a great change in kerosene lamp-lighting. It was found, upon analysis, that crude petroleum contained about fifty-five per cent of kerosene, which constituted its most important product. The manufactories of kerosene from cannel or other coal, therefore, went out of existence, and new ones, larger in size and greater in number, sprung up for the manufacture of kerosene or, popularly speaking, coal oil, from petroleum.41 This illuminant came into almost universal favor for lamp use, owing to its cheapness and brilliancy. It is not free from danger when improperly distilled, but under the operation of stringent laws governing its preparation and testing, danger from its use has been reduced to a minimum. In rural districts, in smaller towns and villages, wherever economy and convenience are essentials, and when beauty in lamp effects is desirable, the kerosene illuminant has become indispensable.

The discovery of petroleum helped further to light the world and distinguish the century. It gave us gasolene, naphtha, gas oil, astral oil, and the very effective “mineral sperm,” which is almost universally used in lighthouses and as headlights for locomotives. With the addition of kerosene, a favorite light of the beginning of the century—the tallow dip of our grandmothers—began to fall into disuse. The homelike pictures of housewives at their annual candle-dippings, or in the manipulation of their moulds, became venerable antiques. Candle-light paled in the presence of the higher illuminants. Though still a convenient light under certain circumstances, it plays a gradually diminishing part amid its superiors.

One of the signal triumphs of the century has been the introduction of gas-lighting. Though illuminating gas made from coal was known as early as 1691, it did not come into use, except for experiments or in a very special way, until the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1809, a few street lamps were lit with gas in London. An unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce gas into Baltimore in 1821. Between 1822 and 1827, the gas-light began to have a feeble foothold in Boston and New York. Other cities began to introduce it as an illuminant in streets and, eventually, in houses. But the process was very slow, owing to intense opposition on the part of both savants and common people, who saw in it a sure means of destruction by poison, explosion, or fire. It was not much before the middle of the century that prejudice against illuminating gas was sufficiently allayed to admit of its general use. But meanwhile many valuable experiments as to its production and adaptation were going on. The most productive source of illuminating gas was found to be bituminous coal. Though gas could be produced by distillation from other substances, such as shale, lignite, petroleum, water, turf, resins, oils, and fats, none could compete in quality, quantity, and economy with what is known as ordinary coal gas, at least, not until the time came, quite late in the century, when it was found that non-luminous gases, such as water gas, could be rendered luminous by impregnating them with hydrocarbon vapor. This became known commercially as water gas, and it is now largely used in place of coal gas, because it is cheaper and, for the most part, equally effective as a luminant.

Gas-lighting has, of course, its limitations. It is not adapted for use beyond the range of cities or towns whose populations are sufficient to warrant the large expenditures necessary for gas plants. It is a special rather than general light. Yet within its limited domain of use it has proved of wonderful utility,—a source of cheer for millions, a clean, safe, and economic light, a convenience far beyond the candle, the lamp, or any previous lighting appliance. In the street, it is a source of safety against thieves and way-layers. In the slums, it is both policeman and missionary, baffling the wrong-doer, exposing the secrecy that conduces to crime, laying bare the hotbeds of42 shame. It is as well a source of heat as light, and consequently convertible into power for light mechanical purposes. In the kitchen, it is more and more becoming a boon to the housewife, who by means of the gas range escapes, in cooking, much of the dust, smoke, worry, and even expense of the coal cook stove and range. In the parlor, library, or sick-room, it is a cheerful and effective substitute for the coal grate, and may be made to assume the cosy qualities and fantastic shapes of the old-fashioned wood fire. Coincident with the discovery of petroleum, its inseparable companion, natural gas, came into prominence as a source of both light and heat, or this became true, at least, after it was ascertained that natural gas regions existed which could be tapped by wells, and made to give forth their gaseous product independent of the oil that may have at one time existed near or in connection with it. This natural source of light and heat became as interesting to the geologist, explorer, and capitalist as the source of petroleum itself, and soon every likely section was prospected, with the hope of finding and tapping those mysterious caverns of earth in which the pent-up luminant abounded in paying quantities. It was found that workable natural gas regions were numerous in the United States, especially in proximity to petroleum or bituminous coal deposits, and little time was lost in their development. As if by magic, a new and profitable industry sprang into existence. The natural gas well became almost as common as the oil well, and at times far more awe-inspiring as it shot into space its volcanic blasts which, when ignited through carelessness, as sometimes happened, carried to the vicinage all the dangers and terrors of Vesuvius or Stromboli. Powerful as was the force with which natural gas sought its freedom, wonderful as was the phenomenon of its escape from the subterranean alembic in which it was distilled, human genius quickly harnessed it by appliances for conservation and carriage to places where it could be utilized. Sometimes great industries sprang up contiguous to the wells; at others, it was carried through pipes to cities many miles distant, where it became a light for street, home, and store, and a prodigious energy in factory, furnace, forge, and rolling-mill. In fact, no marvel of the century has been at once so weird and inscrutable in its origin as natural gas, or more potential as an agency within the areas to which its use is limited. The question is ever uppermost in connection with natural gas, will it last? The gas springs of the Caucasus Mountains have been burning for centuries. But that is where nature’s internal forces have their correlations and compensations. Where it is quite otherwise, that is, where the vents of natural gas reservoirs are abnormally numerous, or where those reservoirs are drained to the extreme for commercial purposes, not to say through sheer wastefulness, the geologist is ready to surmise that the natural gas supply cannot be a perpetual one.

But one of the most magnificent triumphs of the century in the matter of light came about through the agency of electricity. We have already seen the beginnings of electric lighting in the discovery of Sir Humphrey Davy, in 1809, that when the ends of two conducting wires, mounted with charcoal pieces, were brought close together, a brilliant light, in the shape of an arc or curve, leaped from one piece of charcoal to the other. Davy’s charcoal pieces or carbons were consumed by the fierce heat evolved; but the principle was established that an electric current, so interrupted, was a vivid light-43producer, and might be made permanently so if a substance capable of resisting the heat could be substituted for his charcoal tips, and a generator of electricity of sufficient power and economy in use could be substituted for his voltaic batteries or cells.

Upon these two essentials hung the future of the electric light. The first essential, that of a substance at the ends of the wires or in the midst of the electric circuit which would resist the heat, was soon met by the use of specially prepared and hard graphite carbon tips, in the shape of candles. But the second essential, a generator of electricity cheaper and more powerful than the voltaic cell, was not met with till the dynamo machine reached an advanced stage of perfection; that is, about 1867.

The two grand essentials now being at command, invention of electric light appliances went on rapidly upon two lines, eventuating in two systems, which became known as arc lighting and incandescent lighting. By 1879–80, the arc light was sufficiently advanced to meet with favor as an illuminant for streets, railway stations, markets, and any large spaces, in which places it became a substitute for gas and other lights. The essential features of the arc light are: (1.) The dynamo machine, situated in some central place, for the generation of electricity. (2.) Conducting wires to carry the electricity throughout the areas or to the places to be lighted. (3.) The arc lamp, which may be suspended upon poles in the streets, or upon wires in stores and other covered places. Its mechanism consists of two pencils or candles of graphite carbon, very hard and incombustible, adjusted above and below each other so that their tips or ends are very close together, but not in contact. By means of a clockwork or simple gravity device these carbon tips are brought into contact at the moment the electric current is turned on, and then are slightly separated as soon as the current has heated them. The air between the heated tips, having also reached a high temperature, becomes a conductor, and the electricity leaps in the form of an arc or curve through it, rendering it brilliantly incandescent. Should the current be diminished in strength for any reason, the above-mentioned clockwork or gravity device brings the carbons a little closer together; and should the current be increased, the carbons are separated a little wider; thus the steadiness of the light is regulated. There are also various automatic devices for thus regulating the proximity of the carbons and maintaining the evenness of the glow. The power of an arc light is measured by candles. An ordinary arc light under two amperes of current gives a light equal to twenty-five candles, while under fifty amperes of current it gives a light equal to twenty thousand candles. In searchlights on board vessels, and where very large areas are to be lighted, both heavier currents and larger carbons are used than in the arc44 lamps for ordinary street purposes. No light surpasses the arc light in brilliancy, excepting the magnesium light. There are few cities in this country and Europe that do not employ the arc lamp as a means of street, station, and large-area lighting, owing to its superiority as an illuminant and the wonderful policing effect it has upon the slum sections.

The incandescent lamp, or electric lighting by incandescence, underwent a somewhat longer evolution at the hands of inventors than the arc lamp, owing to the difficulty of finding a substance suitable for the production of the necessary glow. The discovery of such substance may be accredited to Edison more fully than to any other. The incandescent or glow lamp is a glass bulb from which the air is exhausted. There passes into the bulb a filament of carbon, which, after a turn or two inside the bulb, passes out at the end through which it entered. When a current from a voltaic battery is sent through this carbon filament, it brings it, in the absence of oxygen within the bulb, to a high white heat without combustion. The portion of this high white heat which is radiated is the light-giving energy of the incandescent lamp. Metal filaments were at first tried in the bulb, but they quickly burned out. Carbon filaments were at length found to be the only ones capable of resisting the heat. They moreover had the advantage of cheapness, and of greater radiating energy than metals. Many substances, such as silk, cotton, hair, etc., were used in the preparation of the carbon filaments, but it was found that strips cut from the inside bark of the bamboo gave, when brought to a white heat by an electric current and then properly treated, the most tenacious and best conducting carbon filament.

The quality of light produced by an incandescent lamp is a gentler glow than that produced by the arc lamp, and in color more nearly resembles the light of gas or the oil lamp. The incandescent light speedily became for the home, hotel, hall, and limited covered area what the arc light became for the street and railway station, and, if anything, the former outstripped the latter in the extent and value of the industry it gave rise to.

In the arc lamp, the carbon pencils have to be renewed daily. In the incandescent lamp, the carbon filament, though very delicate, may last for quite a time, because incandescence takes place in the absence of oxygen. If the favor in which the electric light is held, and the great extent of its use, rested solely on the question of cheapness of production, such question would give rise to interesting debate. And, indeed, the debate would continue, if the question were the superior fitness of electric lighting for lighthouses and like service, where extreme brilliancy does not seem to penetrate a thick atmosphere as effectively as the more subdued glow of the oil lamp. But the debate ceases when the question is as to the beauty and efficiency of the electric light in the home, street, station, mine, on shipboard, and the thousand and one other places in which it has come to be deemed an essential equipment. In all such places the question of economy of production and use is subordinate to the higher question of utility and indispensability.

The dawn of the nineteenth century saw, as vehicles of locomotion, the saddled hackney, the clumsy wagon, the ostentatious stage-coach, the primitive dearborn, the lumbering carriage, the poetic “one-hoss shay.” The45 universal energy was the horse. A new energy came with the application of steam, and with it new vehicular locomotion,—easier, swifter, stronger, for the most part cheaper, rendering possible what was hitherto impossible as to time and distance.

This signal triumph of the century may not have been eclipsed by the introduction of subsequent locomotive changes, but it was to be supplemented by what, at the beginning, would have passed for the idle dream of a visionary. The horse-car came, had its brief day, and went out with all its inconveniences, cruelties, and horrors before, in part, the traction-car, and, in part, the rapidly revolutionizing energy of electricity.

The first conception of a railway to be operated by electricity dates from about 1835, when Thomas Davenport, of Brandon, Vt., contrived and moved a small car by means of a current from voltaic cells placed within it. In 1851, Professor Page, of the Smithsonian Institution, ran a car propelled by electricity upon the steam railway between Washington and Baltimore, but though he obtained a high rate of speed, the cost of supplying the current by means of batteries—the only means then known—prohibited the commercial use of his method.

With the invention of the dynamo as an economic and powerful generator of electricity, and also the invention of the motor as a means of turning electrical energy to mechanical account, the way was open, both in the United States and Europe, for more active investigation of the question of electric-car propulsion. Between 1872 and 1887, different inventors, at home46 and abroad, placed in operation several experimental electric railways. Few of them proved practical, though each furnished a fund of valuable experience. An underground electric street railway was operated in Denver as early as 1885; but the one upon the trolley plan, which proved sufficiently successful to warrant its being called the first operated in the United States, was built in Richmond, Va., in 1888. It gave such impetus to electric railway construction that, in five years’ time, enormous capital was embarked, and the new means of propulsion was generally accepted as convenient, safe, and profitable.

The essential features of the electric railway are: (1.) The track of two rails, similar to the steam railway, (2.) The cars, lightly yet strongly built. (3.) The power-house, containing the dynamos which generate the electricity. (4.) The feed-wire, usually of stout copper, running the length of the tracks of the system, and supported on poles or laid in conduits. (5.) The trolley-wire over the centre of the track, supported by insulated cross-wires passing from poles on opposite sides of the tracks, and connected at proper intervals with the feed-wire. (6.) The trolley-pole of metal jointed to the top of the car, and fitted with a spring which presses the wheel on the end of the pole up against the trolley-wire with a force of about fifteen pounds, and which also serves to conduct the electricity down through the car to the motor. (7.) The motor, which is suspended from the car truck, and passes its power to the car axle by means of a spur gearing. The power requisite for an ordinary trolley-car is about fifteen horse-power. The speed of trolley-cars is regulated in cities to from five to seven miles per hour, but they may be run, under favorable conditions, at a speed equal to, or in excess of, that of the steam-car.

As a means of city transit, and of rapid, convenient, and economic intercourse between suburban localities and rural towns and villages, the electric traction system ranks as one of the greatest wonders of the century. The speed with which it found favor, the enormous capital it provoked to activity, the stimulus it gave to further study and invention, the surprising number of passengers carried, go to make one of the most interesting chapters in electric annals. The end of the century sees thousands of these electric roads in existence; a comparatively new industry involving over $100,000,000; a passenger traffic running into the billions of people; a prospect that the trolley will succeed the steam-car for all utilizable purposes within the gradually extending influence of cities and towns upon their rural surroundings.

In speaking of the passing of the horse-car and its substitution by the trolley, a distinguished writer has well said: “Humanity in an electric-car differs widely from that in the horse-car, propelled at the expense of animal life. It is more cheerful, more confident, more awake to the energy at command, more imbued with the subtlety and majesty of the propelling force. The motor confirms the ethical fact that each introduction of a higher material force into the daily uses of humanity lifts it to a broader, brighter plane, gives its capabilities freer and more wholesome play, and opens fresh vistas for all possibilities. We applaud Franklin for seizing the lightning in the heavens, dragging it down to earth, and subjugating it to man. Let this pass as part of the poetry of physics. But when ethics comes to poetize, let it be said that electricity as an applied force lifts man up toward heaven,47 quickens all his appreciations of divine energy, draws him irresistibly toward the centre and source of nature’s forces. There is no dragging down and subjugation of a physical force. There is only a going out, or up, of genius to meet and to grasp it. Its universal application means the raising of mankind to its plane. If electricity be the principle of life, as some suppose, what wonder that we all feel better in an electric-car than any other? The motor becomes a sublime motive. God himself is tugging at the wheels, and we are riding with the Infinite.”

Enthusiasts say the trolley is only the beginning of electric locomotion, and that there is already in rapid evolution an electric system which will supersede steam even for trunk-line purposes. In vision, it presumes a speed of one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour instead of forty; greater safety, cleanliness, and comfort; and what is most momentous and startling, an economy in construction and operation which will warrant the sacrifice of the billions of dollars now invested in steam-railway properties. The proposition is not to sacrifice the steam-railway track, but to add to it a third rail, which is to carry the electric current. Then, by means of feed-conduits alongside of the track, and specially constructed electric locomotives and cars, the system is supposed to reach the practical perfection claimed for it. Experiments with such an electrical system, made upon branch lines of some of our trunk-line railways,48 as the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and New Haven & Hartford, give much encouragement to the hypothesis that it may become the next great step in the evolution of electrical science.

Another means of electric propulsion was provided by the investigations of Planté, which resulted in his invention of the “accumulator” or “storage battery,” in 1859. His battery consists of plates of lead immersed in dilute sulphuric acid. By the passage of an electric current through the acid, it is electrolytically decomposed. By continuing the current for a time, first in one direction and then in another, the lead plates become changed, the one at the point where the current leaves the cell taking on a deposit of spongy lead, and the one at the point where the current enters the cell taking on a coating of oxide of lead. When in this condition, the battery is said to be stored, and is capable of sending out an electric current in any circuit with which it may be connected. After exhausting itself, it can be re-stored or re-charged in the same way as at first. Faure greatly improved on Planté’s storage battery in 1880, by spreading the oxide of lead over the plates, thus greatly reducing the time in forming the plates. Subsequently, further improvements were made, till batteries came into existence capable of supplying a current of many hundred amperes for several hours. One of the first practical uses to which the storage battery was put was in the propulsion of street-cars; but its weight proved a drawback. It was found better adapted for the running of boats on rivers, and, in the business of water-freightage for short distances, has in many instances become a rival of steam. It found one of its most interesting applications in helping to solve the problem of the automobile, or “horseless carriage,” either for pleasure purposes or for street traffic. In this problem it has, at the end of the century, an active rival in compressed air; but as the “horseless carriage” is rapidly coming into demand, means may soon be found to utilize the strong and persistent energy of the storage battery, without the drawback found in its great weight.

An astounding electrical revelation came during the last years of the century through the discovery of the X, or unknown, or Roentgen ray. A hint of this discovery was given by Faraday during his investigation of the effect of electric discharges within rarefied gases. He also invented the terms anode and cathode, both of which are in universal use in connection with instruments for producing the X rays; the anode being the positive pole or electrode of a galvanic battery, or, in general, the terminal of the conductor by which a current enters an electrolytic cell; and the cathode being the negative pole or electrode by which a current leaves said cell.

Geissler followed Faraday with an improved system of tubes for containing rarefied gases for experimentation. He partially exhausted his tubes of air, introduced into them permanent and sealed platinum electrodes, and produced those wonderful effects by the discharge obtained by connecting the electrodes with the terminals of an electric machine or induction coil, which from their novelty and beauty became known as Geissler effects, just as his tubes became known as Geissler tubes. In the attenuated atmosphere of the Geissler tube, the current does not pass directly from one platinum point or electrode to the other, but, instead, illuminates the entire atmospheric space.49 When other gases are introduced in rarefied form, they are similarly illuminated, but in colors corresponding to their composition. In his further experiments, Geissler noted that the gases in the tube behaved differently at the anode, or positive terminal, and the cathode, or negative terminal. A beautiful bluish light appeared at the cathode, while the anode assumed the same color as the illuminated space in the tube. It was also noted that after the electric discharge within the tube, there remained upon the inner surface of the glass a fluorescent or phosphorescent glow, which was attributed to the effect of the cathode.

This brought the study of the cathode rays into prominence, and through the investigations of Professor William Crookes, in 1879 and afterwards, a conclusion was reached that a “Fourth State of Matter” really existed. He perfected tubes of very high vacuum, by means of which he showed that molecules of gas projected from the cathode moved freely and with great velocity among one another, and so bombarded the inner walls of the tube as to render it fluorescent.

Subsequently, Hertz showed that the cathodic rays would penetrate thin sheets of metal placed within the tube or bulb; and soon after, Paul Lenard (1894) demonstrated that the cathodic ray could be investigated as well outside of the tube or bulb as within it. He set an aluminum plate in the glass wall of the bulb opposite the cathode. Though ordinary light could not penetrate the aluminum plate, it was readily pierced by the cathodic rays, to a distance of three inches beyond its outside surface. With these rays, thus freed from their inclosure, he produced the same fluorescent effects as had been noted within the bulb, and even secured some photographic effects. These cathodic rays produced no effect on the eye, which proved their dissimilarity to light. Lenard showed further that the cathodic rays outside of the tube could be deflected from their straight course by a magnet, that they might pass through substances opaque to light, and that in so passing they might cast a shadow of objects less opaque, which shadow could be photographed. Now Professor Roentgen came upon the scene. He had been conducting his experiments in Germany, along the same lines as Lenard, and had reached practically the same results as to the penetrative, fluorescent, and photographic effects of the cathodic rays. But he had gone still further, and, in 1896, fairly set the scientific world aflame with the announcement that all the effects produced by Lenard in the limited space of a few inches could also be produced at long distances from the tube, and with sufficient intensity to depict solid substances within or behind other substances sufficiently solid to be impermeable by light. Professor Roentgen claims that his X ray is different from the cathodic ray of Lenard and others, because it cannot be deflected by a magnet. This claim has given rise to much controversy respecting the real nature of the X ray, a controversy not likely to end soon, yet one full of inspiration to further investigation.

The essential features of the best approved apparatus designed to produce the X ray and to secure a photograph of an invisible object, are: (1.) A battery50 or light dynamo as a generator of the electric current, accompanied, of course, by the necessary induction coil, which should be so wound as to give a spark of at least two inches in length in the tube where a picture of a simple object, as a coin in a purse, is desired; a spark of four inches in length where pictures of the bones of the hands, feet, or arms are desired; and a spark of from eight to ten inches in length where inside views of the chest, thighs, or abdomen are desired. (2.) The second essential is the glass tube. The one in common use is the Crookes tube, usually pear-shaped, and resting upon a stand. Into it is inserted two aluminum electrodes or disks, the one through the smaller end of the tube being used as the cathode, and the one from below and near the large end being used as the anode. (3.) A fluoroscope with which to observe the conditions inside the tube necessary to the production of the X ray, to decide upon its proper intensity, and to establish the proper degree of fluorescence. The favorite fluoroscope for this purpose is the one invented by Edison. It is in the form of a stereopticon, in which is a dark chamber after the manner of a camera. In front are two openings, admitting of a view within of both eyes. At the opposite, and greatly enlarged, end is a screen which is rendered fluorescent by means of a new substance (tungstate of calcium) discovered by Mr. Edison after some eighteen hundred experiments. Such is the power of this fluoroscope that it may be used as an independent instrument in cases of minor surgery to locate bullets or other objects buried in the flesh, even before a photograph has been taken. (4.) The photographic plate, which is prepared with a sensitized film and mounted in a frame as in ordinary photography. Upon this film the object to be photographed is laid, say, for instance, the human hand, care being taken to have the film or plate at a proper distance from the Crookes tube. Current is now turned into the tube, the X ray is developed, the film is exposed to its effects, and the result is a negative showing the interior structure of the hand,—the bones or any foreign object therein. This negative is developed as in ordinary photography.

The discovery and application of the X ray has proved of immense value in medicine and surgery. By its means the physician is enabled to carry on far-reaching diagnoses, and to ascertain with certainty the whole internal structure of the human body. Fractures, dislocations, deformities, and diseases of the bones may be located and their character and treatment decided upon. In dentistry, the teeth may be photographed by means of the X ray, even before they come to the surface, and broken fangs and hidden fillings may be located. Foreign objects in the body, as bullets, needles, calculi in51 the bladder, etc., may be localized, and the surgery necessary for their safe removal greatly simplified. The beating of the heart, movement of the ribs in respiration, and outline of the liver may be exhibited to the eye. It has been boldly suggested that in the X ray will be found an agent capable of destroying the various bacilli which infest the human system, and become germs of such destructive diseases as cholera, yellow fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and consumption. Even if this be speculative as yet, there is still room for marvel at the actual results of the discovery of the X ray, and its future study opens a field full of the grandest possibilities.

The novel idea of keeping time by means of electricity originated quite early in the century, and culminated in two kinds of electric clocks, one moved directly by the electric current, the other moved by weights or springs, but regulated by electricity. The former have the advantage of running a very long time without attention, but as it is impossible to keep up an unvarying electric current, they are not so accurate as the latter in keeping time. Though the latter are popularly called electric clocks, they are really only clocks regulated by electricity, and in such regulation the electric current comes to be a most important agent, as is proved at all centres of astronomical and other observations, as at Greenwich and Washington. At such centres the astronomical time-keeper is set up so as to run as infallibly as possible. This central time-keeper, say at Washington, is electrically connected with other clocks, at observatories, signal-service stations, railway stations, clock-stores, city halls, etc., throughout the country. Should any of these clocks lose or gain the minutest fraction of time as compared with that of the central time-keeper, the electric current corrects such loss or gain, and so keeps all the clocks at a time uniform with one another and with the central one. Electrical devices are also often attached to individual clocks, as those upon city hall towers and in exposed places, for the purpose of meeting and correcting inequalities of time occasioned by weather exposure, expansion and contraction by heat and cold, etc.

The fatherhood of the very useful and elegant arts of electrotyping and electroplating is in dispute. Daniell, while perfecting his battery, noticed that a current of electricity would cause a deposit of copper. In 1831, Jacobi, of St. Petersburg, called attention to the fact that the copper deposited on his plates of copper by galvanic action could be removed in a perfect sheet, which presented in relief, and most accurately, every accidental indentation on the original plates. Following this up, he employed for his battery an engraved copper plate, caused the deposit to be formed upon it, removed the deposit, and found that the engraving was impressed on it in relief, and with sufficient firmness and sharpness to enable him to print from it. Jacobi called his discovery galvanoplasty in the publication of his observations in 1839. It was but a step from this discovery to the application of the electrotyping process to the art of printing. A mould of wax, plaster, or other suitable substance is made of an engraving or of a page of type. This mould is covered with powdered graphite (black lead) so as to make it a conductor of electricity. It is then inserted in a bath containing a solution of sulphate of copper. An electric current is passed through the bath, and the copper is52 deposited on the mould in sufficient quantity to give it a hard surface capable of offering greater resistance in printing than the types themselves, and also of producing a clearer impression. In electroplating, practically the same principle is employed. The bath is made to contain a solution of water, cyanide of potassium, and whatever metal—gold, silver, platinum, etc.—it is designed to precipitate on the article to be electroplated. The current is then passed through the bath, and the article—spoon, knife, fork, etc.—to be electroplated receives its coating of gold, silver, German silver, platinum, or whatever has been made the third agent in the bath.

The various modern submarine devices for the destruction of ships, known as torpedoes, submarine mines, etc., depend upon electricity for their efficiency. It is the lighting or firing agent, and is carried to the torpedo or mine by means of stout wires or cables from some safe shore-point of observation.

In railroading, electricity has become an indispensable agent for the operation of signal systems, opening and closing of switches, and limitation of safety sections. It moves the drill in the mine, sets off the blast, and supplies the light. It enables the dentist to manipulate his most delicate tools and do his cleanest and least painful work. In medicine it is a healing, soothing agent, boundless in variety of application and wondrous in results. It is a stimulus to the growth of certain plants, and has given rise to a new science called Electro-horticulture. It may be made a prolific source of heat for warming cars, and even for the welding of iron and steel. The electric fan cools our parlors and offices in summer, and the electric bell simplifies household service. In fact, it would appear that, in contrasting the electrical beginnings with the electrical endings of the nineteenth century, the space of a thousand rather than a hundred years had intervened, and that in measuring the agents which conduce to human comfort and convenience, electricity is easily the most potential.

Out of the various discoveries and applications of electricity almost a new language has sprung. This is especially so of terms expressive of the measurements of electric energy, and of the laws governing the application of electric power. For a time, various nations measured and applied by means of terms chosen by themselves. This led to a jargon very confusing to writers and investigators. It became needful to have a language more in common, as in pharmacy, so that all nations could understand one another, could compute alike, and especially impart their meaning to those whose duty it became to apply discovered laws and actual calculations to practical electric operations. This was a difficult undertaking, owing to the tenacity with which nations clung to their own nomenclatures and terminologies. But the drift, though slow, finally ended at the Electrical Congress in Paris in 1881, in the adoption of a uniform system of measurements of electric force, and an agreement upon terms for laws and their application, which all could understand.

Three fundamental units of measurement were first agreed upon,—the Centimetre (.394 in.) as a unit of length; the Gramme (15.43 troy grains) as a unit of mass; the Second (1/60 of a minute) as a unit of time. These three53 units became, when referred to together by their initial letters, the basis of the C. G. S. system of units. Now by these units of measurement something must be measured, as, for instance, the electric force; and when so measured, an absolute unit of force must be the result.

Dyne:—This is but a contraction of dynam, force. It was adopted as the name of the “Absolute Unit of Force,” or the C. G. S. unit of force, and is that force which, if it act for a second on one gramme of matter, gives to it a velocity of one centimetre per second.

Ampere:—Electrical force produces electrical current. Current must be measured and an absolute unit of current strength agreed upon. The “Absolute Unit of Current” was settled as one of such strength as that when one centimetre length of its circuit is bent into an arc of one centimetre radius, the current in it exerts a force of one dyne on a unit magnet-pole placed at the centre. But the absolute unit of current as thus obtained was decided to be ten times too great for practical purposes. So a practical unit of current was fixed upon, which is just one tenth part of the above absolute unit of current. This practical unit of current was called the ampere, in honor of the celebrated French electrician, Ampère. It may be ascertained in other ways, as when a current is of sufficient strength to deposit in a copper electrolytic cell 1.174 grammes (18.116 grains) of copper in an hour, such current is said to be of one ampere strength; or a current of one ampere strength is such a one as would be given by an electro-motive force of one volt through a wire offering one ohm of resistance.

Volt:—This was named from Volta, the celebrated Italian electrician, and was agreed upon as the unit of electro-motive force. It is that electro-motive force which would be generated by a conductor cutting across 100,000,000 C. G. S. lines in a field of force per second; or it is that electro-motive force which would carry one ampere of current against one ohm of resistance.

Ohm:—So called from Ohm, a German electrician. It is the unit of resistance offered by a conductor to the passage of an electrical current. As an absolute unit of resistance, it is equal to 1,000,000,000 C. G. S. units of resistance. As a practical unit, and as agreed upon at the International Congress of Electricians (Chicago, 1893), it represents the resistance offered to an electric current at the temperature of melting ice by a column of mercury 14.451 grammes in mass, of a constant cross-sectional area, and 106.3 centimetres in length. This is called the international ohm. The resistance offered by 400 feet of ordinary telegraph wire is about an ohm.

These three units—ampere, volt, and ohm—are the factors in Ohm’s famous law that the current is directly proportional to the electro-motive force exerted in a circuit, and inversely proportional to the resistance of the circuit; that is,—

Current = Electro-motive force / Resistance

or,

Electro-motive force = Current × Resistance

or

Resistance = Electro-motive force / Current.

54 Erg:—From the Greek ergon, work, is the unit of work required to move a force of one dyne one centimetre. One foot-pound equals 13,560 ergs.

Calorie:—Latin calor, heat, is the unit of heat; being the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree centigrade.

Coulomb:—In honor of C. A. de Coulomb, of France. It is the practical unit of quantity in measuring electricity, and is the amount conveyed by one ampere in one second.

Farad:—From Faraday, the physicist. It is the unit of electric capacity, and is the capacity of a condenser that retains one coulomb of charge with one volt difference of potential.

Gauss:—From Carl F. Gauss (1785–1855). The C. G. S. unit of flux-density, or the unit by which the intensity of magnetic fields are measured. It equals one weber per normal square centimetre.

Gilbert:—The unit for measuring magneto-motive force, being produced by .7958 ampere-turn approximately.

Henry:—From Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. The practical unit for measuring the induction in a circuit when the electro-motive force induced is one international volt, while the inducing current varies at the rate of one ampere per second.

Joule:—The C. G. S. unit of practical energy, being equivalent to the work done in keeping up for one second a current of one ampere against a resistance of one ohm. Named from J. P. Joule, of England.

Oersted:—From Oersted, the electrician. It is the practical unit for measuring electrical reluctance.

Watt:—The practical electrical unit of the rate of working in a circuit, when the electro-motive force is one volt, and the intensity of current is one ampere. It is equal to 107 ergs per second, or .00134 horse-power per second. Named from James Watt, of Scotland.

Weber:—The practical unit for measuring magnetic flux. Named from W. Weber, of Germany.

55

The share of navies in the great movements which have moulded human destiny and shaped the world’s progress, although long obscure and undervalued, has met in our time full recognition. Within a decade the influence of sea power upon history has become the frequent theme of historians and essayists who, in clear and striking form, have shown the cardinal importance, both in war and commerce, of the fleet—the nation’s right arm on the sea. It is fitting, therefore, that in the retrospect of a hundred years navies should have their place; that, in looking backward with history’s unclouded vision, we should mark, not only their growth and change, but, as well, their achievement in some of the most memorable conflicts of our race.

The century had but begun when, at Copenhagen, Nelson, with one titanic blow, shattered the naval strength of Denmark and the coalition of the Northern powers. His signal there, ever for “closer battle,” told in few words the life story of the Great Admiral, and foreshadowed his end. Four years later, at Trafalgar, the desire of his eager heart was satisfied, when he met in frank fight the fleets of France and Spain. Amid the thundering cannonade of that last victory his life-tide ebbed, bearing with it the power of France upon the seas and the broken fortunes of Napoleon. In the war of 1812, our disasters upon the land met compensation in victory afloat. The United States was then among the feeblest of maritime powers; and yet Macdonough and Perry on the lakes and our few frigates on the ocean opposed, with success, the swarming squadrons of a nation whose naval glory, as Hallam says, can be traced onward “in a continuous track of light” from the days of the Commonwealth. The oppression of the Sultan was ended for a time when, in 1827, the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were annihilated, in sudden fury, by the allied squadrons in that brief engagement which Wellington termed the “untoward event” of Navarino.

A generation later, the command of the sea enabled England and France to despatch, in unarmed transports, 63,000 men and 128 guns to the Crimea, and to land them, without opposition, for the red carnage of the Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. Following closely upon the disease and death, the fatuity and the glory, of the Crimea, came the great war of modern times, in which the gun afloat played such a gallant part, as the blockade, with its constricting coils, slowly starved and strangled the Confederacy to death, and Farragut, on inland waters, split it in twain. Passing over the sea-fights of Lissa,—in which imperial Venice was the stake,—of South America and the Yalu, we note, lastly, the swift and fateful actions off Santiago and in Manila Bay, which destroyed once again the sea power of Spain, won distant territory for the United States, and opened up for us a noble pathway of commercial expansion to the uttermost island of the broad Pacific and the56 vast Asian littoral beyond. Who will say, in the retrospect of the century, that the fleets of the world have not had their full share in the making of its history?

The United States fleet, in the year 1800, comprised 35 vessels, 10 of which were frigates mounting 32 guns or more. In 1812, America entered the lists against a navy of a thousand sail, with a fleet of but 20 ships, the largest of which was a 44-gun frigate. The operations of the Civil War were begun with but 82 vessels, 48 of which were sailing craft. Before the close of that gigantic struggle there were added, by construction or purchase, 674 steamers. In 1898, during the war with Spain, there were borne on the Naval Register, as building or in service, 13 battleships and 176 other vessels, including torpedo craft, with 123 converted merchantmen. The total naval force during hostilities was 22,832 men and 2382 officers, excluding the Marine Corps.

At London, in 1653, there was printed “A List of the Commonwealth of England’s Navy at Sea, in their expedition in May, 1653, under the command of the Right Honorable Colonel Richard Deane and Colonel George Monk, Esquires, Generals, and Admirals.” This quaint record of that early time gives the force afloat as 105 ships, 3840 guns, and 16,269 men. In Britain’s strife for that ocean empire, which is world empire, that fleet had grown, by the year 1800, to 757 vessels, built or building, with an aggregate tonnage of 629,211, and carrying 26,552 guns, 3653 officers, and 110,000 men. The stately three-decker, with its snowy canvas and maze of rigging, has vanished with the past; but, despite time and change, that mighty fleet still dominates58 the seas. Its strength, on February 1, 1898, was 615 vessels—61 of which were battleships,—carrying a total force of 110,050 officers and men.

Colbert, when the Grand Monarch was at the zenith of his power, found France with a few old and rotten vessels, and left her with a noble fleet of 40 ships of the line and 60 frigates, which, under D’Estrée, Jean Bart, Tourville, and Duquesne, carried her flag to every sea. A state paper of the time gives the force at the beginning of this century as 61 ships of the line, 42 corvettes, and a numerous, although unimportant, flotilla of small craft. With Aboukir and Trafalgar, the maritime power of France wasted away; and, by the year 1839, there were afloat but three effective sail of the line. In 1840, however, the revival began, and during the modern era the French fleet has, at times, been a formidable rival of that of England. It comprised, in 1898, 446 vessels, including torpedo craft, 26 of the total being battleships. The force afloat numbered 70,925, of all ranks and ratings.

Germany’s navy is of modern creation. It began, a little less than half a century ago, with one sailing corvette and two gunboats; and, in 1898, comprised 13 battleships and 179 other vessels of all types, carrying 23,302 officers and men. The fleet of united Italy had its inception, also, within the age of steam. It was on March 17, 1860, that Italian national life began with the ascension of the throne by Victor Emmanuel. From the beginning, the kingdom has been lavish with its fleet, its expenditures within the first six years reaching $60,000,000. In 1898 there were in the Italian navy 265 vessels of all types, 17 of which were battleships. The force afloat was 24,200, of all ranks and ratings.

59 The Crimean war found Russia but little advanced, either on the Black Sea or the Baltic, in the substitution of steam for sail. Since that time, however, she has re-created her battle fleet, which is now especially strong in torpedo craft and cruisers of great steaming radius. Her navy, in 1898, comprised 20 battleships and 263 other vessels, with a force of 32,477 officers and men. Japan began her fleet in 1866 with the purchase of an armor-clad from the United States. In 1898, she had a total of 145 vessels, built and building—8 of which were battleships—carrying 23,000 men of all ranks and ratings.

Of minor navies little need be said. Austria had, in 1898, a fleet of 115 vessels of all types, including 13 battleships and 79 torpedo craft. Holland’s force was 185 vessels, 3 being battleships and 93 torpedo craft. The fleets of Turkey, Greece, Spain, and Portugal are “paper-navies” mainly. Norway and Sweden have a combined strength of 171 vessels of all types. Denmark, which began the century with overwhelming naval disaster at Copenhagen, has now a force of 3000 men borne on 50 vessels, half of which are torpedo craft. Argentina, Brazil, and Chili have afloat 102 torpedo vessels and 49 of other types. The vast growth in naval armaments during the century may be measured from the fact that the personnel of the leading navies of Europe, with those of Japan and the United States, comprised, in the year 1898, 368,028 officers and men, with a total force of 2749 vessels of all types, including torpedo craft.

60

In tracing the evolution of the modern man-of-war, it will be instructive to compare with her the type of the sailing age. There are two ships of the old time which hold chief places in the memory of the Anglo-Saxon race,—the Victory, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, and the Constitution, whose achievements under Hull, Bainbridge, and Stewart, rang around the world. There were, even before the days of steam, war-vessels twice as large and powerful as “Old Ironsides,” but over no sea, in any age, has there sailed a ship with a more gallant record. Plate I shows her as she was in her prime—before the wind, with all sail set. On Plate II there is given a side view of her hull, which is of historic interest, in that it is reproduced from the original drawing made in October, 1796.

When her power and dimensions are compared with those of the Oregon, our sea-fighter of to-day, one sees what time has wrought. The frigate carried 456 men, the armor-clad, 500; and yet, with this approximately equal force, the Oregon has a displacement 6½ times that of her famed predecessor; and although the number of the guns—44—is the same in each, she discharges a broadside 8.3 times heavier and in energy overwhelmingly superior. The speed of the battleship is one half greater than that of the Constitution, and she carries armor varying from 18 inches to 4 inches thick, which the frigate wholly lacked. The longitudinal section of the Oregon indicates the immense advance in other directions. Her hull is, for safety, minutely subdivided, and is provided with engines for propulsion, steering,62 lighting, drainage, and ventilation, numbering in all 84, with miles of piping and hundreds of valves. The time-honored frigate was but a sail-propelled gun-platform, whose wants were as few as her construction was simple; the steel-clad battleship is a mass of mechanism, a floating machine-plant, which for full efficiency must be manned by a personnel not only brave and daring as of old, but expert in many arts and sciences, which in the age of sail were but rudimentary or unknown.

“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, Engineer, which you have sent me much too late, since it is one which may change the face of the world.”

So, in the beginning of the century, wrote the first Napoleon from his Imperial camp at Boulogne. Wrapped in his day-dream of a descent upon the Thames, he saw, with prophetic vision, in the plans of the American engineer, the future of navigation, and he strove to grasp—but too late—the opportunity which might have made his armada victorious over wind and tide.

His words, however, rang truer than he knew. On the sea, as on the land, the engineer has indeed “changed the face of the world;” and in no department of human progress has his influence been more radical or more far-reaching than in the mechanism, the scope, and the strategy of naval war. Fleets move now with a swiftness and surety unthought of in the days of sail. Over the same western ocean which Nelson, in his eager chase of Villeneuve, crossed at but four knots an hour, the United States cruiser Columbia swept, ninety years later, at a speed nearly four and three quarters times that of his lagging craft. When, in 1898, war came, the great battleship Oregon, although far to the northward on our western coast, was needed in the distant battle-line off the Cuban shore. In 79 days she steamed 14,500 miles, making a run which is without parallel or approach by any warship of any navy in the world’s history. The magnificent manhood, the unconquerable pluck, the engineering skill, which brought her just in time off Santiago, won their reward when the Colon struck her flag. Speed has been a determining factor in many a naval action. It was that which gave the power to take and hold the old-time “weather-gauge.” None knew its value better than Nelson, the chief fighter of the age of sail. Once he said that there would be found, stamped upon his heart, “the want of frigates,” the swift and nimble “eyes of the fleet” in his day. If his career in warfare on the sea had been a century later, he would be found foremost among the advocates of high-speed battleships and quick-firing guns.

It is, however, not only in the speed of warships that steam and mechanism have revolutionized fleets. For example, the displacement of the battleship of to-day is fully three and one half times greater than that of her heaviest ancestor of the sailing age. With due limitation as to length of hull, it is evident that the wind would be, at best, a wholly inadequate and untrustworthy motor for this huge structure with its great weight of armor. It is true that, during the era of transition, sail and steam were both applied to iron-clads—this absurdity reaching its climax in the British Agincourt and her sisters, which were 400 feet long, 10,600 tons’ displacement, and were fitted with five masts. It is said that a merchant steamer narrowly escaped64 collision at night with one of these vessels, believing from her length and rigging that there were two ships ahead, between which she could pass. What these large displacements mean, in contrast with those of past days, will be, perhaps, best illustrated by the statement that the Italia of 13,600 tons—a ship with which, in her day, Italy challenged the criticism of the world—carries on her deck a weight, in armor and armament, of 2500 tons, or one fourth more than that of Nelson’s flagship Victory.

Again, the largest naval gun in the year 1800 was one firing but a 42-pound shot, while in the United States navy we have now the 13-inch rifle of 60 tons, with a projectile of 1100 pounds, and Great Britain has afloat 1800-pounder breech-loaders which weigh 111 tons. Before monster ordnance such as this, the strength of man, unaided, is but crude and futile. He must call to his help—as he has done—steam as the source of power for the electric, hydraulic, or pneumatic engines, which load, elevate, and train the gun.

In summing up the service of steam, directly or indirectly, to the ship-of-war, it will be seen that the speed of the battleship has been increased by fully 50 per cent., and that of the cruiser has been doubled; that the displacement of the battleship is now three and one half times that of her sailing predecessor; and that, since the century’s birth, the gun has grown to such extent that the projectile for the Oregon’s main battery weighs 26 times that of the heaviest shot in the year 1800. This, however, is not all. Steam acts primarily, as well, to raise the anchor, to steer the ship, and to effect her lighting, heating, drainage, and ventilation. To the genius of James Watt there must be ascribed the possibility for the growth and change which have produced the modern man-of-war.

Closely allied with mechanism in this evolution, has been the transformation of the structural material of the hull, which has passed from the hands of the shipwright in wood to the engineer who works with steel. The reasons for this are not far to seek. They lie, firstly, in the greater strength of the metal construction to withstand the vibration of swift and heavy machinery, and the strains arising from the unequal distribution of massive weights in a hull which pitches or rolls with the waves. With wooden ships, the present proportions would have been unattainable. Again, there is a marked saving in the weight of the hull proper of the steel vessel, which is not only stronger but lighter. This weight in the days of timber averaged fully one half of the displacement; while in the Oregon, whose tonnage, at normal draught, is 10,288, the hull percentage is 44.06, leaving a gain over the wooden vessel of 611 tons to be applied to armor, armament, or equipment. Finally, the durability of the metal vessel, with adequate care, greatly exceeds that of the wooden war steamer, whose average life was but 13 years.

The creation of the steam machinery of navies has been the achievement of the engineers of practically but three great nations. The daring of France, the inventive genius of America, and the wide experience and sound judgment of Great Britain, have united in this work. Our country has led time and again in the march of improvement; although our progress has been fitful, since, more than a generation ago, we turned from the sea to the development of the internal resources of this continent. Limits of space permit but brief review of a history which has had its full share of triumphs, not only in battle, but over wave and wind.

65

66 A contemporary authority states that, when British Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren ascended the Potomac River, during the war of 1812, his expedition was reconnoitred by an American steamer. This appears to be the first record of the use of such craft for military purposes. In 1814 the United States built the first steam war-vessel in the world’s history. She was called the Demologos, later the Fulton, and her completion marked truly, as her commissioners said, “an era in warfare and the arts.” She was a double-ended, twin-hulled floating battery of 2475 tons, carrying twenty 32-pdr. guns, protected by 4 ft. 10 in. of solid timber. She was driven by a single central paddle-wheel; her speed was 5½ miles per hour; and she was both handy and seaworthy. France, in 1820, sent a commission to America to report upon steam vessels of war; and in 1830 the French had nine armed steamers afloat and nine building. In 1821, the Comet, a small side-wheeler, was commissioned as the first steam war-ship in the British navy, and in 1840, at the bombardment of Acre, steam vessels fought their first battle.

The growth of steam in navies had been retarded by its application solely to paddle craft, whose wheels and machinery were incapable of protection in action. During the years 1842–43, however, the United States built the sloop-of-war Princeton, of 954 tons. This vessel was the product of the genius of John Ericsson, the ablest marine engineer the world has ever seen. She was the first screw-propelled steam warship ever built, and, in other respects, foreshadowed the advances which were to come. Thus, her machinery was the first to be placed wholly below the water-line beyond the reach of hostile shot; her engine was the first to be coupled directly to the screw shaft, and blowers, for forced draft, were with her first used in naval practice. She was virtually the herald of the modern era.

The Princeton was followed closely by the Rattler, the first screw vessel of the British fleet, and in 1843–44 the French 44-gun frigate Pomone was fitted with propellers. In 1843, also, the English Penelope was the first man-of-war to be equipped with tubular boilers, and the year 1845 was notable for the building of the ill-fated Birkenhead, the first iron vessel of the British67 fleet. In 1850, when the French constructed the screw line-of-battle ship Napoleon, the English became alarmed, and began with vigor the renovation of their navy with regard to screw propulsion.

France, in 1854, laid the keels of four armored batteries, three of which, forming the first ironclad squadron in history, went into action a year later under the forts of Kinburn in the Crimea. They were of 1600 tons’ displacement, carried 4⅓ inch armor and sixteen 68-pdr. guns, and had a speed of four knots. In 1862, Ericsson launched the famous Monitor, the first sea-going ironclad with a revolving turret, and an “engineers’ ship” from keel to turret top.

The Civil War found us with a sailing navy, and left us one of steam. Passing over its victories, in which steamers played always the chief part on sea and river, we come to that most notable triumph of Chief Engineer Isherwood, the cruiser Wampanoag of 4200 tons’ displacement. This vessel, phenomenal in her day, steamed in February, 1868, from Barnegat to Savannah, over a stormy sea, in 38 hours. Her average was 16.6 knots for the run, and 17 knots during a period of six consecutive hours—a speed which for 11 years thereafter was unapproached by liner or by warship. In 1879, the British despatch vessel Mercury, of 3730 tons and 18.87 knots, wrested the palm from America; but, in 1893, it was won again for the United States by the triple-screw fliers Columbia and Minneapolis of 7475 tons, with speeds respectively of 22.8 and 23.073 knots. The laurels rest now with the Buenos Ayres, which,69 though built in England in 1895, flies the flag of Argentina. She has a tonnage of 4500 and a speed of 23.202 knots.

The British ironclad Pallas, completed in 1866, was remarkable for having the first successful naval engines on the compound principle, in which the steam is admitted at high pressure to a small cylinder, and passes thence to a larger one which it fills by its expansion. To Great Britain the world owes also the development of triple expansion, i. e., the use of steam successively in three cylinders. This system was inaugurated in naval engines by the British, in 1885–86, and is now universally employed. Prior to 1879, the boilers of all modern war-vessels had been those of the Scotch type, in which the flame passes through tubes fixed in a cylindrical shell containing water. In that year, however, France began a revolution in the steam generators of navies by equipping a dispatch-vessel with the Belleville tubulous boiler, in which the water to be evaporated is contained within tubes surrounded by flame confined in an outer casing. The water-tube principle, also, bids fair to become of universal application. It has had its most noteworthy naval installation in the British cruisers Powerful and Terrible, of 14,200 tons and 25,886 horse-power, completed in 1895.

The use of more than one screw for propulsion dates back to 1853. During our Civil War multiple screws figured, to a small extent, in the “tin clads” and larger monitors. The application of twin screws, in the modern era, begins with the British ironclad Penelope of 1868. France, in the years 1884–85, blazed the way for another naval advance of much importance in conducting a series of trials with the launch Carpe, equipped with triple screws. The system, however, although of much value, from engineering and tactical points of view, was not adopted in large, high-powered vessels until the advent of the French armored cruiser Dupuy de Lôme in 1890, and the protected cruisers Columbia and Minneapolis of the United States navy in 1893. It has now won full approval in the navies of continental Europe, and triple-screw ships, aggregating 500,000 tons, are built or building there.

The limits of space forbid more than a passing note of the triumphs of the engineer in torpedo craft, the light cavalry of the sea. With steamers of normal proportions, the speed and power depend largely upon, and increase with, the displacement. As has been stated, the maximum performance of large cruisers is now 23 knots on a tonnage of 4500. These particulars give a faint glimpse of the extraordinary problem which has confronted the torpedo-boat70 designer in driving hulls of, at present, about 150 tons at a speed which now approximates to 30 knots. With the brilliant record of success in this task, there will be linked always the names of Yarrow and Thornycroft in England, of Schichau in Germany, and of Normand in France. The achievement but recently of a British inventor, the Hon. Charles Algernon Parsons, in giving the Turbinia of 44.5 tons a speed of over 31 knots, has drawn the attention of engineers the world over to the possibilities of the steam turbine on the sea. This performance is phenomenal with such a displacement. The French Forban, of 130 tons, has made 31.2 knots, and a reported speed of 35 knots gives a Schichau boat her temporary laurels as the fastest craft afloat.

A brief glance at the improvements which have made possible these extreme speeds in cruisers and torpedo craft will be of interest. The progress which has been made has been, firstly, in the economy in the use of steam arising from higher pressures and multiple expansion; secondly, in the reduction of weight, per horse power, due to increase in strength of materials and in engine-speed with the employment of forced draft—which was reintroduced by France—and the water-tube boiler; and, finally, in the application of a more efficient propelling instrument. The advances of half a century in propelling machinery are shown, in some respects, by Plates III and IV, which contrast, on the same scale, the side-wheel machinery of the United States war-steamer Powhatan, of 1849, with the engines of the United States torpedo boat Ericsson of to-day. The data of the former vessel are: horse-power, 1172; steam pressure 15 lbs.; weight of machinery per horse-power 972 lbs.; while, for the Ericsson, the figures are: horse-power, 1800; steam pressure, 250 lbs.; weight of machinery per horse-power, 56 lbs. This comparison, however, must be qualified by the statement that the older engine was for a steamer of about 3760 tons, while the torpedo boat is but 120 tons in displacement. The contrast lies, therefore, only in the reduced weight of material per horse-power developed and in the increased steam pressure, which, however, are in themselves most striking.

At Trafalgar, the Victory drifted before the wind into action. In her slow advance, at a speed of one and one half knots through but 1200 yards, she was for half an hour under the prolonged fire of 200 guns, and yet she closed, practically unhurt, with her foes, and lived, not only to win the day, but to bring undying glory to the English flag. What a contrast the latest sea-fight of the century presents in the power of modern ordnance as compared with the puny guns of Nelson’s time! Our battleship Oregon, at a range of nearly five miles, with one 1100-pound shell, drove the Colon, an armored cruiser, not only shoreward, but to surrender, stranding, and wreck.

The largest naval guns in the year 1800 were the long 32 and 42-pounders, smooth-bore muzzle-loaders, with a range of about 1200 yards. Carronades—short pieces with a heavy shot but limited range—found favor also, especially with British sailors, eager for that close-quarter fighting in which the “Smasher”—as General Melville called his carronade—would be most effective in shattering timbers and in sending clouds of splinters among the foe. The projectiles were spherical shot, canister, and grape, the diabolical shriek of the shell being yet unheard. Both gun and shot were of cast metal,72 and the mount was a wooden carriage on low trucks. The training, or horizontal angle of the gun, was effected by rope tackles, and the amount of elevation of its muzzle depended upon the position of a “quoin,” or wooden wedge, thrust beneath the breech. The recoil was limited by rope “breeching,” passing through the cascabel,—a knob behind the breech,—and secured to ring-bolts in the ship’s side. The gun was harnessed, as a horse is, in the shafts.

Aiming was largely a perfunctory process, since the gun had no sights and the shot had excessive “windage,” its calibre being from one fifth to one third inch less than the bore, making its outward passage a series of rebounds and its final direction a matter of chance. “Windage,” however, was essential to facilitate muzzle-loading and to provide for the expanded diameter of red-hot shot. It is true that in 1801 a proposition to use sights was made to Lord Nelson. He, however, rejected it with the words:—

“I hope we shall be able, as usual, to get so close to our enemies that our shot cannot miss the object.”

His blind courage in this cost his countrymen dearly when, in 1812–14, their shot flew wild, while their ships were hulled and their gallant tars fell before the then sighted guns of the United States.

To ignite the charge the slow-match was still used, as is shown by the sharp words of a sailor of that time. Hailed in the darkness by a British ship and ordered to send a boat, his quick answer was:—

“This is the United States frigate Constitution, Edward Preble, commodore, commanding, and I’ll be d—d if I send a boat!”

Then to his men, silent and eager by the shrouded battle-lanterns:—

“Blow your matches, boys!”

A full crew for a 32-pounder consisted of 14 men. An old rule as to this was one man to every 500-lbs. weight of the gun, which would give the Oregon 1100 men to handle the four 13-inch rifles of her main battery, or more than twice her whole crew. Steam and mechanism have wrought a magic change in this.

The slow-match remained in use until well into the nineteenth century, although, until 1842, the flint lock was generally employed in the British navy, having replaced the priming horn and match in 1780. In 1807 there was discovered a composition which could be ignited by friction or concussion, and in 1839 the French had adopted the percussion lock, which exploded the cap and retracted, uncovering the vent before the backward rush of the gas could strike it. Later, a similar composition was used with “friction-primers,” or tubes filled with mealed powder and capped with composition, the tube forming a train leading to the charge, and the composition being fired by the friction of a rough wire drawn briskly through it. Percussion and friction have been in turn largely displaced by the electric primer, which consists essentially of a fine wire, or “bridge,” passing through a highly inflammable mixture. The bridge offers a resistance to the electric current, is heated thereby, ignites the composition, and fires the gun.

The older type of the cast-iron smooth-bore gun for solid shot reached its ultimate development in the 68-pounder, which endured until the advent of armor. In 1819 the system of firing shells loaded with gunpowder from smooth-bore guns was suggested by General Paixhans, of France. In 1824, it74 was introduced into the French navy, and about 1840 into that of the United States. At Sinope, in 1853, the terrible effect of shell fire upon wooden ships startled the world, when a Russian fleet destroyed absolutely 11 Turkish vessels, with their force of 4000 men. The Paixhans gun was modified and its form improved by Admiral Dahlgren, U. S. N., and in the late 50’s the armament—designed by him—of United States vessels was superior to that of any other in the world. The 9, 11, and 15-inch Dahlgrens formed the bulk of our guns afloat during the Civil War, the remainder being almost wholly rifles of the Parrott type.

The resistance which spherical projectiles met from the air, their deviation in flight, owing to the frequent lack of coincidence of the centres of gravity and form, their excessive “windage,” and their light weight relatively to calibre, led to the adoption of the rifled gun and the cylindrical projectile. The principle of the former—making the shot act as a screw-bolt and the bore as a screw-thread—is very old, there being at Woolwich a barrel of this type bearing date of 1547. The objects aimed at in rifling are to give a pointed cylindrical shot rotation on its axis that it may keep steady during flight, and secondly, to obtain increased weight in the projectile from its elongated form. As to the latter consideration, it may be noted that the old 32-pounder smooth-bore was of 6-inch calibre, while the United States 6-inch rifle of to-day throws a shot of 100 lbs. weight.

France, during the Crimean War, brought out the first heavy rifled gun. In 1860–61, Armstrong rifles were introduced in the British navy. The labors of Krupp met such success that at Paris, in 1867, he exhibited a rifle weighing 50 tons with a projectile of 1080 pounds. The Parrott rifle was brought out about 1856 in the United States, and was so developed that in 1862 it was the most powerful gun, for its weight and size, in existence. The adoption of rifling was the first great step on the road which engineering had laid toward the growth in power of modern ordnance.

Having thus secured a projectile of great weight and moderate calibre which would bore through the air a true path to the distant mark, there remained to seek but four chief elements in the magnificent advance made within a generation by the naval artillery of our day. These factors were: 1st. Increased strength in the material of the gun. 2d. A method of construction which would not only permit enormous pressures in the powder-chamber, but would make possible the continuous acceleration of the projectile during its passage through the bore. 3d. An explosive which would satisfy the objects of the method of construction; and, 4th. A system of loading which would enable guns of great length to be charged with ease. The mounting of ordnance of any weight, its control, and its rapid and facile handling were but minor matters of engineering.

In a paper such as this, of limited length and addressed to laymen, it is possible to give but a glance at the progress in the various elements of gun-construction which have been noted. Of material, little need be said. The rifle of Crimean days was a cast-iron piece; Parrott ordnance was of cast and wrought iron; and the first Armstrong gun was built of wrought iron and steel. Cast and compound materials, however, have vanished with the past. Steel—hardened and toughened to the last degree by every refinement of manufacture—forms the “reeking tube” for the “iron shard” of the century’s close.

75 The method of construction is the “built-up” process, shown by the partial section on Plate V., the barrel being reinforced by tubes which are shrunk on—like the tire of a wagon-wheel—so as to produce initial compression. The explosion in the powder chamber strains and expands temporarily the barrel, and the application of the shrinkage principle enables a portion of the strength of the tubes to be employed in preliminary internal pressure. The barrel thus supported can be strained by the charge, not only to its own limit of safety, but to an additional amount equal to this initial compression. The all-steel, built-up gun has a possible rival in wire-wound ordnance, a system which replaces the tubes, to a greater or less extent, by layers of wire, wound while in tension around the barrel.

Powder is the soul of the gun; it transforms the huge inert mass into a flaming engine of death. The great development of explosives began but a generation since. The researches of Robins and Rumford in the last century, and of Hutton in the dawn of this, formed the world’s knowledge of the gun’s internal ballistics until the year 1870. To the genius of Noble and Abel is due the stimulus to growth since then. The powders have kept pace with gun-construction in its advance. The increased strength of the chamber has been met by heavier and slow-burning charges—cocoa, brown prismatic, and the like—which have given not only greater initial velocity, but a continuous acceleration through bores whose maximum length has exceeded 47 feet. Indeed, to the production of this lingering combustion is due the great linear dimension and power of modern guns. Initial pressure had its limit; advance lay only in the subsequent acceleration given by late ignition of a portion of the charge.

Gunpowder, however, after a reign of more than five hundred years, has been dethroned. The “villainous saltpetre” of the monk, with its allies, charcoal and sulphur, yields now to nitro compounds, which produce not only far greater energy, but are as well smokeless. The sea-fights of our war with Spain saw the last contending fleets to be wrapped in a cloud, lingering and baffling, of their own making. Cordite, one of these compounds in use abroad, is prepared in long “cords” from di-nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine. The new smokeless “powder” of the United States navy is made from nitro-cellulose dissolved in ether alcohol. France was the first in employing explosives such as these, which, in their offensive and tactical advantages, form one of the signal triumphs of the century’s last years.

The long gun of modern days is of necessity breech-loading. The development of other elements gave, as a resultant, great length; and this, in turn, required a system of charging which would permit protection for the men while loading, and would obviate the intolerable inconvenience of ramming home powder and shot in a long muzzle-loader—an operation which was, in fact, impossible beyond a certain limit of length. The advocates of the older construction, especially in England, urged long and earnestly its simplicity and the superior strength of a solid breech; but the logic of events was against them, and the breech-loader won a complete triumph. It is worthy of note that it, like rifling and the principle of building up, was but a revival. From the warship Mary Rose, sunk in 1545 in action off Spithead, there were recovered in 1836 a number of guns, some of which are of wrought iron, built-up and breech-loading. There are in use two methods of closing the76 breech when the gun is loaded from the rear. In French, English, and American ordnance an axial screw-plug is inserted; in the Krupp system a cylindro-prismatic breech-block slides in a horizontal opening cut across the bore. The former, or interrupted screw mechanism, was first set forth in the United States’ patent of 1849 to Chambers.

In projectiles the tendency of the modern era has been towards simplification. Bar-shot, chain-shot, and grape have disappeared, while canister and solid shot are becoming obsolete. There remain shrapnel as the “man-killer” of this age, and explosive shell, differentiated into armor-piercing and that for attack on unarmored structures. Lieutenant Shrapnel, in 1796, invented the projectile which bears his name. In its modern form, it consists of a steel case containing lead or iron balls and a light bursting charge of powder, ignited by a time-fuse carried in the head. This projectile is most formidable against bodies of men, boats, and the embrasures of forts, since, when it is ruptured, the balls are dispersed, covering a wide area.

The use of explosive shell in high-angle discharge dates back to the fifteenth century. From Paixhans’ works, “La Nouvelle Arme,” published in 1821, came the stimulus to its development and to its deadly service, in our time, in horizontal fire. The “common shell” for the United States 13-inch rifle is made of forged steel, weighs 1100 pounds, and carries within it a bursting charge of 50 pounds of powder, ignited by a percussion fuse set in its base. It will penetrate 6 or 7 inches of armor and then explode within the ship. The United States “armor-piercing shell” is manufactured from crucible steel, alloyed with chromium; it is tempered to extreme hardness at the point, which carries a cap of soft metal. The function of the latter would appear to be that of a support to the shoulder of the projectile, or as a lubricant thereto, since, without the cap, the shell is broken or deformed in the attack on armor of surface hardened steel. To resist the crushing strain in its passage through massive plate, the walls of this shell must be so thick that no charge of gunpowder will burst it. Hence, as a rule, the shell is fired unloaded, although recently there have been adopted to some extent bursting charges of some high explosive, such as gun-cotton, joveite, or picric acid.

In closing this brief review of the progress of ordnance, but passing mention can be made of matters minor, but in themselves of much importance. Gun carriages, or mounts, are now intricate mechanisms, practically the whole service of large ordnance being performed by electric and hydraulic machinery. The rapid fire principle has been extended to pieces of 6-inch calibre, and bids fair to pass beyond that limit. Its success in increasing largely the number of shots within a given time lies in special breech-blocks, aiming devices, and prepared cartridges. Machine guns of rifle-calibre, partly or wholly automatic, have been so developed as to be capable of firing 1200 rounds per minute. The discharge of high explosives in large quantity was effected with success by the United States steamer Vesuvius off Santiago. The torpedo-gun afloat, however, would appear to be still in a tentative condition.

A brief lapse into technical terms may be permitted in summarizing the gun’s growth in power. The term “muzzle energy” is used to describe the work which the projectile is capable of performing when it leaves the bore.77 It is expressed in foot-tons, i. e., the number of tons which the energy stored in the shot would lift to a height of one foot. The figures as to this for the 32-pounder of the century’s beginning, for the United States 13-inch rifle and for the 111-ton English gun, are, respectively, 642, 33,627, and 54,690 foot-tons. Again, the round shot from the 32-pounder lost from the resistance of the air, in a range of 1200 yards, 76 per cent of its energy; while this loss, with the United States 13-inch, in a range of 1000 yards, is but 11 per cent. Finally, if the cast-iron shot of the 32-pounder were fired against armor-plate, it would lose, in breaking itself up, two thirds of its remaining energy, leaving at 1200 yards but 51 foot-tons for effective work; while with the modern armor-piercing shell the entire energy left at the end of the range is expended upon the armor-plate.

It will be seen then that the immeasurable superiority of modern guns is owing both to their great increase in energy and to their wiser disposition of that which has been attained. The gun has maintained fully during the century its primacy among naval weapons. It is true that, in theory and on paper, its supremacy has at times been questioned; but as to its two rivals, the ram would seem to be rather the weapon of accident than action, and the torpedo has yet to score in battle against ships in motion, while the precision, rapidity, and power of the gun grow more deadly with every passing year.

Armor and the gun are natural and now hereditary foes. The function of the one is to resist, that of the other ever to attack. Since the beginning of the modern era in navies, there has been ceaseless strife for mastery between these two elements of warship design, the gun ever becoming more powerful, and the armor—at first through growing thickness and later through improved material—opposing a steadily more stubborn front. The official report of an English committee made in the year 1860 states that,—

“Vessels clothed in rolled-iron plates of four and a half inches’ thickness are to all practicable purposes invulnerable against any projectile that can be brought to bear against them at any range.”

The advance which forty years have seen may be shown by the single statement that the Krupp 15.7-inch gun develops sufficient energy to penetrate at the muzzle 47 inches of wrought iron. The battleship is at best but a series of compromises, each factor of the structure yielding or growing as the skill or whim of her designer may indicate. In the present stage of this unceasing change, the gun would appear to be the victor, and the power of this mighty 132-ton rifle seems scarcely needed on the sea. The distinguished chief of ordnance of the United States navy, in his annual report for 1898, says:—

“The development of the 12-inch gun has been so great and its power so much increased that the Bureau is of opinion that hereafter it will be the maximum calibre that it will be advisable to install on future battleships.”

With armor, as with the torpedo, the talent of Europe reaped where the genius of America had sown. John Stevens of New Jersey was the first inventor of modern times to suggest the application of armor to a floating80 battery, his plans being submitted to the United States government during the war of 1812. They received, however, no serious consideration, and to France, forty-two years later, fell the honor of attaining the first practical results in the building of ironclads. Members of the Stevens family, however, continued the experiments of its founder, until by the year 1841 they had determined the thickness of iron necessary to stop spherical projectiles at point blank range, and the comparative resisting powers of iron and oak. These results led to an appropriation by Congress, in 1854, of $500,000 to begin work upon an ironclad,—the Stevens battery,—which vessel, however, never left the ways and was eventually broken up.

General Paixhans, who revolutionized naval artillery by the invention of the modern shell, prophesied, in an official letter to the French government in 1824, that the new projectile would force the creation of armored ships. In 1841 he recommended officially the clothing of vessels with iron armor, as a protection against his own missiles; and in 1853 his words of warning met complete and terrible fulfillment in the annihilation by shell guns of the Turkish fleet at Sinope. This action was the immediate cause of the introduction of armor in modern navies.

The British admiralty, in 1843, had duplicated the Stevens experiments, using a target of 14 plates of boiler iron riveted together, which gave a total thickness of 6 inches; and experiments on laminated plating had been also at this time carried on at Gavres, in France. In 1845 Dupuy de Lôme, the famous naval architect, submitted to the French government the first European design for an armored frigate. His plans were, however, rejected; and only with the outbreak of the Crimean War was the construction of armored vessels begun. On October 17, 1855, the three French batteries which were the first results of this new departure went into action off Kinburn, in the Crimea, silencing in four hours forts which had held at bay the combined fleets of England and France. Armor had won its first victory, and had shown most signally its position as one of the main factors in the warship design of the years which were to come.

These vessels, with three similar batteries constructed immediately thereafter by the British government, were clad with solid iron plates 4½ inches thick, backed by 27¾ inches of oak, comparative experiments at Vincennes, France, having shown the marked superiority of solid over laminated plating. They were, however, in but a most limited sense sea-going ships, their low speed and other inferior qualities being radical defects as to this. France led in a further advance, beginning in 1857 and completing in 1859 the transformation of the wooden line-of-battle ship Napoleon into the armored vessel of 5000 tons, which, as La Gloire, is famous as the first sea-going ironclad. She carried a strake of 4¾-inch plating at the water line, and 4½-inch plates in wake of the battery. England answered the challenge of her hereditary foe with the Warrior, an iron vessel of 9210 tons, completed in 1861. While her rival had a fully armored side, but 212 of the Warrior’s 380 feet of length carried plating. Its thickness was 4½ inches.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States, the government appointed a special naval committee to report upon types of ironclads. The conclusions of this board are of interest, in showing the state of armor development at that period. They required rolled armor of solid iron, whose82 minimum thickness was 4½ inches. Ericsson’s Monitor, however, carried laminated plating from 3 to 5 inches thick on her low sides, and 11 layers, each one inch thick, on her turret. This construction, which the difficulties in the manufacture of solid plate necessitated, made the record of endurance of this type far from good. The defect lay mainly with fastening bolts, which broke frequently, thus loosening or detaching the side armor, and the heads or nuts of which, flying off with violence when the armor was struck by shot, became sometimes fatal missiles against those within the turrets. In contrast with this, the behavior of the New Ironsides, clothed with solid armor, was most excellent. She was a casemated ironclad frigate with unarmored ends, her plating was 4½ inches thick, and inclined throughout the citadel, at an angle of 30° from the perpendicular. For two years she was subjected to the most severe test that a war-vessel must meet, the tossing and straining of blockade duty and the fiery ordeal of close action with fortifications. In one engagement, she sustained alone a fight against the combined fire of the forts in Charleston harbor, and, although struck on her side-armor sixty times, came out of the struggle unhurt. The record of this ship is one which does honor to the flag.

The achievement of the Confederacy during this war, in the matter of armor, was remarkable. With iron worth almost its weight in gold, and with most limited facilities for manufacturing, they yet succeeded in constructing some of the most formidable ironclads of their day. The Merrimac, for instance—with 3-inch armor, in two layers of narrow bars, at an angle of 30° with the horizontal—sustained no material damage to her plating from the fire of the Monitor; although had the full charge of 30 lbs. of powder been used in the 11-inch smooth-bores of the latter, the story would have been different. Every fair blow would have smashed a hole completely through the armor, and driven a shower of splinters about the battery-deck. Again, the armor of the Atlanta and the Tennessee—both casemated ships, with the sides of the citadel inclined at a sharp angle to the horizontal—was sufficiently strong, with the former vessel, to withstand, at 500 yards, the 11-inch projectile fired with a 20-lbs. charge, and, with the latter, the same shot practically at the muzzle, although the 15-inch projectile broke through completely in both cases.

It is unnecessary to follow in detail, through its many tests in peace, the advance of iron armor. Its growth in strength, as the power of the gun developed, came almost solely from increase in thickness, the latter reaching its maximum with the British Inflexible, completed in 1876, which carries from 16 to 24 inches of iron on her belt and citadel. This plating, however, is divided and “sandwiched” with wood, there being, exterior to the skin, 6 inches of teak, then 12 inches iron, 11 inches teak, and an outer 12-inch plate. As armor, iron received its death-blow in the famous tests at Spezia, Italy, during the autumn of 1876, when the 100-ton gun, with a full charge, at a range of 100 yards, attacked solid and “sandwich” targets of iron and solid targets of steel—the single or aggregate thickness of metal in each case being 22 inches. These trials were undertaken through Italy’s desire to build, in the Duilio and Dandolo, the most formidable vessels afloat. Steel won the day, and the roar of that mighty gun, thundering from the Spezia firing ground, sounded the knell of iron armor, deprived the as yet83 unlaunched Inflexible of her crown of invulnerability, and demanded, with success, a revolution in the armor manufacture of Europe.

As a compromise, compound armor, i.e., iron faced with steel, became popular for a time. As with steel, its beginnings were old, dating back at least to the year 1857. The first perfected compound plate, made by Cammel & Co., of England, was tested at Shoeburyness in 1877. It was composed of 5 inches of iron with a 4-inch face of steel; the iron being raised to a welding heat and the molten steel poured on its top. The great heat partially fused the contact face, the two metals were united, and the combination was assured by immediate rolling. Compound plates sprang in 1877 from obscurity to popularity; by 1879 iron armor had become obsolete with progressive naval powers, and, in 1880, both compound and steel plates had reached such development that they were close rivals, the leading competitors being Cammel in England and Schneider in France. Steel, however, slowly forged ahead during the next decade; and, at its close, compound armor was practically out of the race. In steel’s victory, its alloy with nickel, in minute proportions, has materially aided; the combination imparting hardness without decreasing the toughness of the plate. This material gave superior results from the beginning. Its first plate, tested in 1889, was 9⅓ inches thick; it was pierced by a Holtzer shell, whose body did not pass wholly through and whose energy was 1.6 times that just necessary to perforate a wrought-iron plate of the same thickness. To the increased strength given by nickel there has been added a further gain through the application of face-hardening processes—such as that of the American, Harvey—which produce superficial carbonization, transforming the surface into a high grade of very hard steel, without the pronounced plane of demarcation between the two qualities of metal, as in the weld of the compound plate. A 10¼-inch nickel steel Harveyized plate, tested at the Indian Head Proving Grounds in 1892, showed a strength which previously had never been equaled in the history of armor, and established beyond question the value of the face-hardening process, which, by various methods, is applied to the nickel-steel plating of to-day. The distribution of armor in the development of battleship construction is shown by the shaded sections on Plates VI and VII, and its relative thicknesses, on various vessels during this progress, by Plate VIII.

For two thousand years the ram—the razor-edged “beak” of the swift galley—was the chief naval weapon. With the advent of sail-power and the employment of gunpowder, it vanished from the seas; but to reappear when the coming of steam gave again controllable propulsion. In 1859 there was built into the French frigate Magenta a sharp spur,—the first modern ram. British construction of the modern era, from the Warrior down, has also recognized this weapon, and it is to-day a factor, although a minor one, in the design of all vessels of high speed.

The ram has, however, but a scant record of service in action, while in accidental collision it has wrought more than once appalling disaster. The ironclad Merrimac rammed and sank in Hampton Roads, in March, 1862, the United States sailing sloop-of-war Cumberland, which, under the gallant Morris, went down with guns thundering and ensign flying. On July 20,84 1866, during the action off the island of Lissa, in the Adriatic, the Austrian flagship Ferdinand Maximilian rammed the Italian armorclad Re d’ Italia, which, with many of her 800 men, sank with a swiftness that chilled the blood of those who watched. Like this, in its sudden tragedy, was the destruction of the British battleship Victoria by her consort, the Camperdown, off Tripoli, Syria, in the summer sunlight of a June day in 1893. The ram of the latter vessel cut a deep and fatal gash in the Victoria, which within ten minutes turned bottom upward and went down, bow first, bearing with her 321 officers and men, whose unfaltering discipline gave a heroic splendor to their end. Despite these occasional instances of its deadly power, the ram holds a secondary place among naval weapons. To strike a modern vessel at high speed will require more than the skill of the swordsman.

The torpedo, like the ironclad, was an American invention, whose neglect by the United States government brought retribution when this deadly engine of war in 1861–65 destroyed not a few war-vessels flying our flag. Bushnell of Connecticut during the Revolution appears to have invented both the submarine boat and the marine torpedo, the latter being fired by clock-work. Fulton also met success in similar work during the period extending from 1801 to 1812. All of the elements of modern torpedo warfare, excepting the use of steam, compressed air, or electricity as a motive power, had been thus conceived by the early dawn of this century. The torpedoes of our day are practically of but two classes: the “mine,” or stationary (either “buoyant” or “ground,” as its position in the water determines), and the automobile, or “fish” torpedo. The former type is fired either by closing an electric circuit in a station on shore, or by the ship herself in contact, or in electric closure. During the Civil War nearly thirty vessels were sunk by mines, usually wooden barrels filled with gunpowder and fired by hauling lines or slow-burning fuses. It was a mine-field over which Farragut charged at Mobile Bay, when he uttered his famous oath and went “full speed ahead,” with the cases of the fortunately impotent torpedoes striking the Hartford’s bottom; it was a mine which, it is claimed, sunk the Maine; and it was a mine-field which kept Sampson’s battleships from entering the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. The stationary torpedo is now charged with gun cotton or other high explosive.

The origin of the most prominent of the automobile torpedoes is due to Captain Lupuis of the Austrian navy, and its development from 1864 onward to Whitehead, an Englishman. It is a cigar-shaped submarine vessel from 14 to 19 inches maximum diameter and from 14 to 19 feet long, which is blown from a torpedo-tube or gun within the ship by compressed air or an impulse charge of gunpowder. Twin-screw engines contained within its hull, and driven by compressed air stored in a reservoir therein, drive it at about thirty knots speed through an effective range of 600 yards. In its nose or “war-head” there is carried a large charge of gun cotton or other high explosive, which is fired by contact with the enemy’s hull. It is provided with both horizontal and vertical rudders, the depth of immersion being regulated by intricate machinery contained in the “balance-chamber.” The Whitehead has a somewhat formidable rival in the United States in the torpedo invented by Rear Admiral Howell, U. S. N. The automobile torpedo has never yet scored in battle against ships in motion.85 Its position in the naval warfare of the future is yet unfixed. The one certainty is, that its blow when struck home is almost surely fatal to ship and crew. The development of the submarine torpedo-boat, whose weapon is the Whitehead, has in recent years received much attention through the labors of the American Holland and others. France, in the Gustavus Zede, of 260 tons, has a diving boat of this character, for which much is claimed.

Until the advent of the ironclad, the ships of the United States were equal, if not superior, in seaworthiness and fighting qualities to any in the world. The high standard set by the Constitution and her class of 1797 was maintained for sixty years; and, especially during the period from 1840 to 1860, the officers and men of the United States navy trod the decks of the finest ships afloat. They felt—as their successors feel—that, ton for ton and gun for gun, they had no foe to fear. The early steamers of the Powhatan class built in the late 40’s were a credit to the nation; the five screw frigates of the Merrimac type (1856–57) aroused the admiration and imitation of foreign experts, and the five corvettes which followed them in 1858–59–60, of which the noble Hartford was the chief, bore their full share in the war which was so soon to come. The gallant Kearsarge was the leader of a new class introduced in 1859.

During the Civil War two vessels, the Monitor and the New Ironsides, appeared which have left lasting traces on all battleship construction since their day. The great fleet of monitors, “tin-clads,” “90-day gunboats,” “double-enders,” and the like, which preceded and followed them during those dark years, served their country well. With the ending of that war, in the internal task of reconstruction and development, our maritime power was neglected and our fleet dwindled away. Its renaissance dates from the appointment of the first Naval Advisory Board in June, 1881. The growth since then has been so much a matter of national interest and pride that it needs no detailed recounting here; its results have been summarized previously herein.

The sea-going personnel of the United States navy includes the line, medical, pay, and marine officers, the chaplains and warrant officers—a total on March 1, 1899, of 1589, with an enlisted force of 17,196 blue-jackets and 3166 marines. The officers who serve on shore are the naval constructors, civil engineers, and the professors of mathematics, a total of 69.

Line officers are the commanders, navigators, gunners, and, by recent law, the engineers of our ships of war. Marine officers have charge of the policing of ships and shore-stations and of the guns of light calibre afloat. The duties of the remaining officers are indicated by their titles. The titles of line officers and their relative rank, as compared with that of officers of the army, are:—

Line and marine officers and naval constructors are educated at the United States Naval Academy; all other officers are appointed from civil life. The Academy was founded in 1845 and is located at Annapolis, Md. The course comprises four years at the school and two years at sea on a naval vessel. The number of cadets at Annapolis is usually about 260.

It is by reason of wars that navies exist, and a few words as to our—now happily ended—conflict with Spain, may fitly close this review of naval progress. The military lessons of that struggle have been fully set forth by able writers. More important, by far, than these is its teaching as regard to our state and future as a nation. The world has learned that the people of these United States are stirred still by the same stern and dauntless spirit which, in Revolution and Civil War, has made and kept us a nation. Furthermore, with one swift stroke, the bounds which in theory and in territory circumscribed us have been swept away, and the United States have passed from a continental to a world power. This is not chance. It is but the leading onward to a destiny whose splendor we may not measure now, whose light and peace and prosperity shall traverse a hemisphere. The one note of sadness in it all is the memory of the gallant dead, of the heroes who fell that this might be. To them, in Cuba and the Philippines, Columbia—with a smile of pride and a sob of pain—drinks in the wine of tears to-day, as the smoke of battle fades.

87

Astronomy, the oldest of all the family of sciences, is not a whit behind its sister branches in activity of research and brilliance of discovery. The assiduity and zeal of its devotees are marvelous. The celestial field is so wide, the depths of space between the stars so vast, that no assurance can ever be given to an astronomer that a lifetime of faithful and intelligent research will be rewarded with even a single discovery of importance. In this respect it differs materially from other branches of science.

Nevertheless the patient labor of those who serve in its temple has rarely failed to receive an adequate reward. The discovery made in August, 1877, by Professor Asaph Hall, of Washington, that the planet Mars is attended by two satellites, is a convincing illustration of this peculiarity of the pursuit of astronomy as a study. An indefatigable watcher of the skies for many years, Professor Hall, looking at this planet at its opposition in 1877, when it was unusually near to the earth, was surprised to note two tiny points of light quite close to it; seeing them again the next evening, changed in their positions relative to Mars, it flashed upon him that the firm tradition that Mars had no moons was now disproved. His name will be forever associated with these two bodies, Deimos and Phobos, as their discoverer, although they are but wee orbs, only seven miles in diameter.

The end of the eighteenth century found the Copernican theory of astronomy well established, the principles laid down by Kepler and Newton fully elaborated, and the application of the higher mathematics to the needs of astronomy complete. But there were, as yet, no large telescopes, and observatories were few. In Germany, a great disposition to make observations in this science and in meteorology was displayed in 1783 and for a few years following, and the records then made have proved of much value in confirming discoveries announced at later periods.

When Sir William Herschel, on March 13, 1781, pointed out a little star in the constellation of the Twins, and found that it had a perceptible disk and a slight motion, and was therefore not a star, but a newly found planet, to which the name Uranus was soon given, a careful inspection of the notebooks of previous observers showed that Uranus had been observed and recorded as a fixed star on twenty previous occasions in that century. One man had seen it twelve times, and made his record of it on a paper bag purchased at a perfumer’s. Had he been a man of sufficient order and method to have penned what he saw on the regular records of his observatory, to him would have come the glory of the great discovery of that century.

88

An erroneous guess, if it is a good guess, sometimes produces excellent results. In 1778, Bode, of Berlin, published a “law” that states the distances of the various planets from the sun. It is often expressed simply in this way: Set down 4, and add to it successively the numbers 3, 6, 12, 24, etc., and the sums obtained, viz., 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, etc., represent the relative distances of all the planets from the sun, viz., Mercury 4, Venus 7, Earth 10, Mars 16, [Asteroids 28], Jupiter 52, etc. In reference to all the planets then known to exist, the correspondence of the alleged law to the facts was remarkable. The one point in which the alleged system utterly failed was in requiring the existence of a planet to fill the gap between Mars and Jupiter. So boldly did Biela press his convictions of the correctness of this law upon the notice of his fellow-workers, that they resolved, in 1800, to divide the zodiac into twenty-four zones, to be apportioned among them, for the express purpose of searching for undiscovered planets. This well-organized effort was, erelong, rewarded by the surprising discovery of four new planets, the first one on the first night of the new century, January 1, 1801, and three more soon after. As no more seemed to be forthcoming, the search was relinquished in 1816. A fifth was found in 1845, and nearly five hundred since. Since 1891 photography has been wondrously serviceable in finding these bodies. A sensitive plate, on being exposed toward that part of the sky which it is desired to examine, will record all the perceptible stars as round disks; while any planets that appear in the field of view will, by their motion, leave their trace in the form of elongated trails or streaks, thus betraying themselves at once on the photographs. In this way Charlois, of Nice, Italy, has found nearly ninety small planets. All these planetoids, as the minor planets are often termed, are quite small, being but twenty to one hundred miles in diameter, and not consequential members of the solar system. Bode’s law thus fulfilled its temporary mission; but egregiously failed when Neptune claimed admission to a place in the solar system, for its distance from the sun was utterly out of harmony with that required by the law of Bode.

The patience of Job had a strong parallel in the labors of those tireless toilers to whose minute computations we owe our knowledge of Neptune’s path in the skies. For this far-off planet was discovered not by the use of a telescope, or any optical instrument, but simply by a process of mathematical reasoning. The story is simply this. For sixty years after Uranus was recognized, there were irregularities in its motion that could not be satisfactorily accounted for. In the orbit that it was believed to pursue, it was sometimes in advance of its proper position, and sometimes it seemed to fall behind. Sometimes it appeared to be drawn a little to the right, and at other times as far the other way.

The thought at last came separately to several penetrating minds, not that the observations of its position were in error, but that Uranus must be drawn away from its supposed path by the attraction exercised upon it by some unseen body. And if such an object existed, was it a planet? Where was it? How large was it? What was its path in the far-off ether?

89

In the year 1842, the Royal Society of Sciences of Göttingen proposed as a prize question the full discussion of the theory of the motions of Uranus. It was specially sought to learn the cause of the large and increasing error of Bouvard’s Tables that had been relied upon to show its motion and its precise position at any time. Several able mathematicians undertook this intricate problem. Among them were John C. Adams, of Cambridge University, England, Sears C. Walker, of Washington, a man whose sad fate it was to pass away ere his magnificent abilities could receive extended recognition, and M. Le Verrier, of Paris. Working unknown to each other, they reached similar conclusions almost at the same time. Though not the first to solve the problem, the brilliant Frenchman was the first to announce his result, which he did by writing a letter to Dr. Galle, of the Berlin Observatory, where there was one of the largest telescopes in Europe, and asking him to search for his computed planet, and assigning its supposed place in the heavens. The very night he received the letter Dr. Galle found the planet within one degree of the point designated. The next night it had moved one minute of space, and was also seen to have a perceptible disk. This settled the question, and stamped it as a planet. Le Verrier well merited the title bestowed upon him, “First astronomer of the age.”

90

The nineteenth century will be forever memorable for its witnessing the closing career and final destruction of a famous comet. First noticed in France, in 1772, and rediscovered, in 1826, by an Austrian officer named Biela, it bears his name. His computation showed that it traversed its orbit in six and one half years. When it reappeared in 1846, and again in 1852, it was seen to have split into two unequal fragments. It has not been seen since; but at every time when its return should have taken place the earth has passed through showers of meteors supposed to be its constituent particles, and to indicate its entire disintegration.

During the meteoric shower of 1885, on the 27th of November, a large iron meteorite fell in Mazapil, Mexico, and chemical and physical investigation joined to pronounce it a part of the lost Biela’s comet.

The large cabinets of the world contain hundreds of specimens of meteorites, known to be such by their chemical composition, but only a few have actually been seen to fall. The most remarkable fall ever witnessed was that of May 10, 1879, in Iowa, in which the heaviest stone weighed 437 pounds. On April 8, 1893, an aerolite fell near Osawatomie, Kansas, and struck the monument to John Brown that had been erected through the efforts of Horace Greeley in 1863. The meteor broke off the left arm of the statue. A Texas meteorite, owned by Yale University, weighs 1635 pounds. A meteorite that fell in Jiminez, in 1892, now deposited in the city of Mexico, weighs twenty tons; and one lying on the coast of Labrador, which it is proposed to bring to the United States, is said to be still more massive.

It must not be thought that meteors usually strike the earth. In truth, but few of them do. The earth is surrounded by them, cold, dark, invisible, because unillumined. It is only when they become heated by rapidly impinging on the atmosphere that they can be seen at all; and unless they come near enough to become subject to the dominant power of the earth’s attraction, they pass off into space unnoticed, and their presence unsuspected.

A case in point is the brilliant “fire-ball” of July 20, 1860, that moved rapidly over the United States, from Wisconsin to Cape Cod, and then passed off into the skies. The entire time of its visible flight over a path of thirteen hundred miles was about two minutes. It was seen about ten o’clock in the evening. It was estimated to be from one hundred to five hundred feet in diameter, allowing for an increase as it expanded by reason of its striking with such velocity the lower and denser layers of the air. Its size and brilliancy were such as to arrest the attention of hundreds of persons, some of whom crouched in fear, and even alleged that they heard it hiss as it flew over their heads. Some fishermen in Lake Huron had ropes over the sides of their boat, ready to spring into the water if it came too near.

James H. Coffin, LL. D., then Professor of Astronomy in Lafayette College, made an exhaustive study of this unusual phenomenon, and, under the patronage of the Smithsonian Institution, published a volume containing many observations that he collected, with the mathematical results derived from91 them. Professor J. Hann, of Vienna, the highest authority on this subject, said that it was the most comprehensive study of a meteor’s path ever accomplished. Six years were spent in making the computations.

Self-illumined by the heat evolved in striking the various layers of the earth’s atmosphere, it became sufficiently bright to be first seen when seventy miles above the surface of the earth. It was within forty miles of touching us at the time it was over the Hudson River, when the great heat acquired by its rapid transit caused it to burst into two masses, which—like Biela’s comet—continued to pursue separate courses, side by side, until they were lost to view in their ascending flight, being last seen from the deck of a vessel off the island of Nantucket.

No part of the fire-ball struck the earth. Its orbit was an hyperbola, a curve not often found in nature, such that it can never come near us again unless, by the superior attraction of some celestial body, its course may be changed, and a new orbit result.

The Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, England, was founded by Charles the Second in 1675. Its main purpose was to extend astronomical knowledge, so that navigators might better find the position of their ships at sea. This institution retains its prominence. All the longitudes on our maps are reckoned from it, and Greenwich time is used on every ship that traverses the ocean. The “Nautical Almanac,” issued by the Observatory, was an indispensable part of the outfit of every sea captain until, in 1852, the United States provided its own American Ephemeris, a collection of tables of the motions and places of the sun, moon, and planets for every day and hour, and occultations of the stars, with rules for calculating longitude and the like.

Many valuable observations of the transit of Venus in 1769 were made at points near Philadelphia; but almost seventy years ensued before America witnessed the erection of any permanent buildings devoted to the purposes of this science.

President John Quincy Adams, who was highly versed in science, and held the position of president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston for twenty years, often urged this matter on the attention of Congress, but without success.

President Thomas Jefferson, who was also a man of no small scientific information, as evidenced in his keeping a systematic weather record at his92 home in Monticello, Virginia, proposed an elaborate survey of the national coast. This was authorized by Congress in 1807. In the year 1832, in reviving an act for the continuance of the Coast Survey, Congress was careful to append the proviso “that nothing in the act should be construed to authorize the erection or maintenance of a permanent astronomical observatory.”

The expected return of Halley’s comet in 1835 again stimulated popular interest in the science, and aroused an intense desire to provide serviceable instruments, and to establish buildings suitable for their care and use. To Williams College, Massachusetts, belongs the honor of erecting, in 1836, the first astronomical observatory on this continent. Under its revolving dome was mounted an Herschelian telescope of ten feet focus, which later became the property of Lafayette College, where it is still preserved. In 1843, John Quincy Adams laid the corner-stone of the Longworth Observatory in Cincinnati, and delivered a commemorative address, his last great oration. The construction of the United States Naval Observatory at Washington soon followed, and before 1850 there were fourteen observatories established in this country. Nearly all the instruments they contained were made abroad, chiefly in Munich and London. Since then the number has risen to two hundred recognized observatories, of which twenty-four are of superior order, where systematic work is daily pursued, and the results are regularly published in book form. About two hundred observatories exist in other nations.

The great improvements in telescopes made during the century have been fruitful in two ways; a better knowledge of the surface of the moon and of the planets has been gained, and we have been enabled to learn with precision the exact motions and times of revolution of these bodies and of their accompanying moons. This information, by the use of the laws ascertained by Kepler and La Place, gives us their exact distance, dimensions, and mass. With the increase of telescopic power, the census of the starry host has been so augmented that the number of stars within reach of our modern instruments exceeds 125,000,000. But we had gone little beyond this sort of information until the invention of the spectroscope.

Previous to the year 1859 a few meteors, composed chiefly of stone or iron, some of which had been actually seen to fall from the sky, had been subjected to chemical analysis; but outside of this naught was known of the physical constitution of other worlds than ours. Our ignorance on this point was complete. All our attempts to become better acquainted with the structure of the planets, the composition of the sun, and the nature of the fixed stars would probably have been in vain but for the invention of the spectroscope. This surprising instrument is a master-key with which to unlock many of Nature’s mysteries; her recesses are brought to view, and the farthest star is subjected to an accurate chemical analysis, so far as the light that comes from it is sufficient to disclose the materials of which it is composed.

The wondrous use of electricity as an agent for the production of light, heat, and power is no greater achievement, in its way, than is Spectrum94 Analysis in bringing to our earthly laboratories the work of the Divine Hand performed in distant regions of space. Yet the story of the spectroscope is easily told. In its essential elements it is merely this: A ray of light, entering a darkened room through a hole in the window shutter, produces a bright beam on the opposite wall. A triangular glass prism held close to the crevice turns this beam into a band of rainbow hues. If the hole can be changed into a small slit, say one fourth of an inch high and one fiftieth of an inch wide, and if the light can further be made to pass in succession through several prisms, instead of through one, the band will be so elongated thereby that its various and surprising markings can be thoroughly traced and fully studied.

To this band of bright colors Sir Isaac Newton gave the name of the solar spectrum. The image formed by the light of any luminous body, after it has passed through a prism, is said to be the spectrum of that body.

The spectroscope consists essentially of three tubes joined in the form of the letter Y, one of which is a small telescope, in the focus of which a narrow slit is placed to admit the ray of light that is to be examined; a prism, or a ruled grating that disperses the light, so as to form a spectrum; and a view telescope, with which to observe the various parts of the spectrum.

By using a small telescope to view the spectrum of the sun, Fraunhofer, a German optician, in 1814, discovered that the whole length of the spectrum was crowded with dark lines, very narrow, indeed, but scattered all through the seven hues. He found that sunlight, whether taken directly or reflected96 from clouds or from the moon or planets, invariably gave the same spectrum; but in no case did light from the stars give a spectrum of the same sort as that from the sun.

Dr. Kirchhoff, of Heidelberg, in 1859, explained the origin of the dark lines, and showed that there are three kinds of spectra: first, that of an incandescent solid or liquid, which is always perfectly continuous, showing neither dark lines nor bright; second, the spectrum of a glowing gas, which consists of bright lines or bands separated by dark spaces. These lines are characteristic of the chemical elements that cause them; and so, from the composition of the bright lines in a spectrum, it is possible to tell their origin. Third, a spectrum crossed by dark lines; which occurs when an incandescent solid is viewed through absorbent vapors.

In the solar eclipse of 1868, M. Janssen first noticed that the solar prominences gave a spectrum of the second kind, and thus proved that the prominences consist of glowing gas. Since that time the march of discovery has been exceedingly rapid.

This simple instrument has thus led the way to a knowledge of the elements composing every heavenly body, no matter what its distance, provided only it is giving out light intense enough to reach our gaze. For the perfection both of the telescope and spectroscope we owe much to the optical skill and mechanical dexterity of the Clarks and Rowland, Hastings and Brashear, all Americans.

About forty chemical elements have now been recognized in the sun. The most prominent are iron, calcium, hydrogen, nickel, and sodium. A distortion, or displacement, of some of the lines in the spectrum enables us to calculate the speed at which the gases are rushing toward or from us. A given line in the spectrum of Aldebaran is displaced toward the violet in such a way as to show that the star is approaching the sun at the rate of thirty miles a second; while a similar line, in the case of Altair, so deviates toward the red end of the spectrum as to prove that it is receding from the solar system at a velocity of twenty-four miles a second. By this principle, recognized by Doppler in 1842, the motions of about one hundred stars toward or from the solar system have been ascertained.

There is no question but that the solar system, as a whole, is steadily moving away from Sirius, and toward the constellation of Hercules; whether faster than at a rate of twelve miles every second is still scarcely decided; but this rate would be about a million miles a day, or three hundred and seventy million miles a year.

A visitor who wants to know what is done in a great observatory might go to Harvard some evening. He would probably find the large refractor pointed toward the satellites of Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune, with a view of noting their precise places, so as to compute tables of their exact motions; or he might find a laborious observer watching such double stars as have considerable proper motion, and making drawings of conspicuous nebulæ, so that future astronomers may be able to decide whether time has wrought any changes in their constitution or figure. The great glass at Princeton, under the charge of Professor Charles A. Young, is largely used for spectroscopic97 work, examining the sun’s photosphere by day, and noting the spectra of the stars at night. Spectral observation is an important part of the routine at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.

Many faint comets have been successfully photographed at the Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton, California, and elsewhere by the use of very sensitive plates and a long exposure.

S. W. Burnham, of Chicago, is famed for his acuteness of vision, tested in having detected and measured over one thousand double stars which to other eyes had appeared only as single stars. The discovery of these objects belongs wholly to the nineteenth century; for in 1803, Sir William Herschel first announced the existence of sidereal systems composed of two stars, one revolving around the other, or both moving about a common centre. Some of these binary systems have periods of as great a length as fifteen hundred years; and some are as brief as four, and even two days. Some of them afford curious instances of contrasted colors, the larger star red or orange, and the smaller star blue or green.

Professor William Harkness, U. S. N., M. D., LL. D., is widely known as the author of numerous astronomical and physical papers and books. He has also designed a number of instruments and made important discoveries. He has long been connected with the United States Naval Observatory, and now holds the position of Astronomical Director. His report for the year 1898 shows that the twenty-six inch reflector at Washington is now nightly engaged in mapping the relative positions of Rhea and Iapetus, the fifth and eighth satellites of Saturn, with the intention of securing a new and final determination of the mass of that planet, which has been heretofore reckoned as one 3492d of the sun. The twelve-inch telescope is chiefly employed in studying comets and asteroids, and on Thursday evenings is at the service of the public. In the year 1898, 3778 observations were made with the nine-inch transit circle, for which two men were detailed, with the services of five computers.

A transit circle and an altazimuth instrument, each turned out of solid steel, have recently been added to the equipment, and are of a workmanship that compares favorably with anything ever manufactured in Europe. It is asserted that the latter instrument will give more accurate measurements of declination than a transit circle, which is an innovation on long-cherished ideas.

Professor Simon Newcomb, of the United States Navy, is about to issue98 new tables of Mars, Uranus, and Neptune, and a “Catalogue of Fundamental Stars for the Epoch 1900.” During the year 1898 three thousand copies of the American Nautical Almanac were published. This is but an illustration of the scientific labor accomplished at this busy hive of industry. During the year this observatory issued to the navy 230 chronometers, 200 sextants and octants, and 1400 other nautical instruments of value.

In the year 128 B. C. Hipparchus put out a catalogue of 1025 stars observed at Rhodes. Twenty such works succeeded this up to the year 1801, when Lalande, of Paris, brought out a list of 47,390 stars. It will be remembered that few stars have names, except those known to the Arabians of old, but are designated by their positions in the heavens. It is customary to refer to them by their declinations and right ascensions, as so many degrees north or south of the celestial equator, and so many degrees, or hours, east of the vernal equinox—fifteen degrees being the equivalent of an hour of right ascension—just like the latitude and longitude of cities on a common globe.

During the nineteenth century many celestial atlases and astronomical catalogues have been published. These contain lists of comets and nebulæ, and the places of the double stars and of the fixed stars. Of the latter alone over one hundred have appeared, of which Argelander’s is by far the largest, as it contains the places of more than 310,000 stars. The catalogue prepared by the British Association in 1845 is of great value, containing 8377 stars. Yarnall’s, of 10,658 stars, published in Washington in 1873, is most accessible to us.

Professor C. H. F. Peters, of the Hamilton College Observatory, Clinton, N. Y., the discoverer of so many asteroids, has prepared a valuable series of star charts. By dividing the heavens into small squares and carefully photographing each of them, the places of a vast number of stars can be recorded with far greater accuracy than by the old plan of a separate instrumental measurement of the position of the stars. By the use of microscopes the determination of their positions can be made with precision. These plates are preserved with care, and when those of the same region of the skies, made in different years, are compared, any variation in the relative positions of the objects can be detected with certainty. The perfection of this method of star-mapping is justly deemed one of the most important achievements of the century.

For an amateur star-gazer who is not provided with a set of maps, Whitall’s Planisphere is a very ready aid, as it can be instantly adjusted to any day and hour. The inexperienced, and those who have no instruments, can use it with ease and satisfaction to locate a thousand of the most conspicuous stars.

In England this attractive study has been popularized chiefly by the interesting works of the two Herschels, who were voluminous writers, the lectures of Proctor, and the admirable compend of facts so assiduously gathered by G. F. Chambers in his delightful treatise on astronomy.

99 In our own country the heights of theoretical astronomy have been scaled by such minds as Benjamin Pierce, the profound mathematician of Harvard University; James C. Watson, of Ann Arbor, whose early death was a great loss to science; and Simon Newcomb, the genial savant of Washington. Chauvenet and Loomis have taught us the meaning of practical astronomy; and Olmsted, Young, Todd, and not a few others of distinction have prepared text-books that fully present the elements of the science.

Nor is this fascinating study limited to the students of the 484 colleges and universities of the land. The last report of the United States Commissioner of Education shows that in the public and private high schools of the nation there are over nine thousand boys and sixteen thousand girls pursuing the study of astronomy.

The practical value of this science is best appreciated by the navigator, who sees in the sun and moon his clock, and in the stars and planets the ready means of learning his latitude and longitude. It is one of the first tasks of the midshipman to become familiar with the use of the sextant, by which he works out the problem of ascertaining the exact place of the ship upon the ocean. Navigation is helpless without the assistance of astronomy. Yet it is only the A, B, C of the science that the sailor has any use for; its higher mysteries are away beyond his needs and of no practical profit to him.

Nathaniel Bowditch, of Salem, Mass., in 1802, issued a book entitled “The New American Practical Navigator,” which is still a standard treatise for seamen. His rare acquirements as a mathematician were signally displayed, and in a form that has proved enduring, when, in 1814–17, he translated into English, accompanied with copious notes of his own, the profound work, “Celestial Mechanics,” penned by the gifted La Place in 1799. Although in name a translation of a foreign book with a commentary, it is in many respects an original work. Professor Elias Loomis, who left to Yale University three hundred thousand dollars as an endowment fund to aid in prosecuting astronomical research, said of him, in 1850, “Bowditch has probably done more for the improvement of physical astronomy than all other Americans combined.” Dr. Bowditch published the work in four ponderous quarto volumes wholly at his own private cost. These volumes he did not expose for sale, but generously gave them to such persons as proved to him their ability to appreciate and comprehend them. This outlay impaired the fortunes of his family, but became his own unique monument.

This work remains one of the most profound efforts of mathematical research on record. Bowditch’s accuracy has passed into a proverb. He gave the latitude of all the principal seaports of the world with marked precision; while some of the longitudes are now found to be slightly in error, it is surprising that his determinations of those of Boston and Philadelphia should be exactly the same as those obtained by the best methods in use to-day. But he makes San Francisco and Halifax seven miles too far to the east, and New York eight miles too far west. But we are to remember that for this computation the best available instruments were the chronometers of a century ago, and that lunar observations were made with the old-time sextant.

100

As applied to geodesy, astronomy has added a process of ascertaining geographical latitude with marvelous accuracy and speed by the use of the zenith telescope, an instrument devised by Major Talcott in 1835. This instrument can be set in a vertical direction with ease, and be pointed alternately to two stars that cross the meridian at a brief interval of time, the one north and the other south of the zenith. Difficulties that arise from refraction are avoided, and the resulting latitude is quickly computed. This method is largely employed in the surveys of the public lands, as also in establishing the boundary between the United States and British America.

101

Worth marking as epochs of the nineteenth century were such dates as October 10, 1846, when the first determination of difference of longitude of two places was made by the use of the telegraph wire. Sears C. Walker, in Washington, and E. Otis Kendall, in Philadelphia, compared their clocks by interchanging telegraphic signals, and thus found their respective longitudes.

In 1850, Professor William C. Bond, of Harvard College, invented the chronograph. Through the urgency of Sir David Brewster, it was shown in the great exhibition of that year in London, where a medal was awarded for it. The chronograph was speedily adopted throughout Europe, and together with other apparatus made by Bond constituted what there became known as the “American method” of recording observations. Through it the errors for which the “personal equation” is a partial remedy are largely eliminated, and a superior definiteness of record is obtained.

On August 7, 1869, the first application of the spectroscope to the examination of the corona of the sun was the beginning of the revelation of the inner mysteries of the constitution and activities of the great luminary. The transit of Venus that occurred on December 6, 1882, was fruitful in measurements, by which the estimates of the distance of the sun were reduced from the long-accepted figures, 95 to 92 millions of miles. Yet this loss of three millions of miles resulted from the apparently trifling change of reckoning the sun’s parallax at 8.82″, instead of 8.57″. An occurrence of vast practical advantage to the whole nation was that of November 18, 1883, when the four standard meridians of railroad time were adopted and put into use. From that day the clocks of the Union were set to keep either Eastern, Central, Mountain, or Pacific Coast time.

Professor Edward E. Barnard had used the magnificent telescope of thirty-six inches aperture, belonging to the Lick Observatory in California, but a short time before he astonished the world by discovering a fifth satellite of Jupiter, although it appeared as but a faint speck of light. Besides other honors for this achievement, in 1894 the French Academy of Sciences awarded him the Arago medal, of the value of a thousand francs, a distinction given but twice before, first to Le Verrier, for the discovery of Neptune in 1846, and to Asaph Hall, for finding the two moons of Mars in 1877.

“Personal equation” is the name given to the amount of error to which any person is habitually liable in attempting to note the time of a fixed occurrence. When the astronomer looks at a star passing the cross-wires of his transit, he is likely to make the record one or two tenths of a second after the true time, or possibly a like small amount of time before the actual occurrence, by anticipation. This is not a matter of wrong intention, nor due to willfulness. But in precise observations, especially where comparisons are to be made between the records of several persons, the “personal equation” must be determined, if possible, and allowed for. Various methods of correcting this inaccuracy have been used. But the best is that of Frank H. Bigelow, of the Nautical Almanac Office, Washington, who, in 1890, devised a process of taking star transits by photography. It entirely does away with this source of error, and has proved of great value.

102

A few generations ago an eight-day clock was to be found only in the homes of well-to-do people, and a gold watch was a symbol of wealth, such as to subject its wearer to a special tax. In this age of dollar clocks and Waterbury watches, almanacs are no longer indispensable. We do not regulate our time-pieces by the rising and setting of the sun; nor can a future Jay Gould lay the foundation of his fortune, as did the one best known by that name, by setting up rural noon-marks for a fixed fee.

Some pleasant dreams of past decades have vanished in the light of recent knowledge. The nebular hypothesis, that wondrous conception of Swedenborg, elaborated by La Place and espoused by William Herschel and so many others, as affording a full explanation of the method by which our worlds were shaped into their present forms, has ceased to have general acceptance. M. Maedler, director of the Dorpat Observatory in 1846, had a firm persuasion that the collective body of stars visible to us has a movement of revolution about a centre situated in the group of the Pleiades, and corresponding to the star Alcyone. But this notion of a central sun around which all the solar system is circling has lost ground.

The distortion in the orbit of the planet Mercury has been accounted for by the urgent suggestion that there must be some planet, as yet undiscovered, that disturbs the regularity of Mercury’s movements, but whose orbit is so near to the sun as to baffle all ordinary efforts to see it. It has received, by anticipation, the prenatal name of Vulcan. Many eyes have peered most intently into the region indicated, and some few have imagined they had found what they sought. A physician of the village of Orgeres, France, M. Lescarbault by name, on March 20, 1859, saw such an object pass over the sun’s disk. The skillful Le Verrier was much impressed by this physician’s minute account of the occurrence. But there was no confirmation of the alleged discovery. At the time of subsequent eclipses that part of the heavens has been repeatedly examined closely, but in vain. So we must wait longer before believing that Vulcan does exist.

When, in 1877, Professor Hall, through the powerful telescope at Washington, saw that Mars was attended by two tiny satellites, he put a permanent injunction on the further use of the once favorite phrase,

And so of the question oft discussed in the old-time debating societies, “Are the planets inhabited?” It may still be left in the hands of young collegians, notwithstanding the fact that our largest telescopes give only negative testimony.

In a solar eclipse in February, 1736, that was annular in shape, just before the sun was completely hidden, the narrow horn of light seemed to break into a series of dots, or luminous points, which, when noted again a century later and described by Francis Baily, received the name of “Baily Beads.” It was attempted to explain this as caused by the moon’s mountains cutting off the last rays of sunlight, or else as produced by irradiation. But with the advent of stronger telescopic power the phenomenon has come to an end.

David Rittenhouse, of Norristown, whom Thomas Jefferson considered “second103 to no astronomer living,” built an orrery worth a thousand dollars, to illustrate mechanically the motions of all the planets, and though the instrument is still treasured in the University of Pennsylvania, and its duplicate at Princeton, among the relics of a past age, it is assigned to the category of toys. Mural circles, much depended upon to measure the declination of heavenly bodies, have fallen into disuse, supplanted by improved transit instruments.

Many problems are in store for the future. The field for research still opens wide. How the solar activity is to be maintained was answered by Newton in the suggestion that comets falling into it kept up its supply of matter and energy. Waterston, in 1853, propounded the thought that meteoric matter may be the aliment of the sun. Now the prevalent theory is104 that a contraction of the sun’s volume, constantly in progress, but so slight as to be invisible to the most powerful telescope, is competent to furnish a heat supply equal to all that can have been emitted during historic periods.

Professor Newcomb answers the question, “How long will the sun endure?” by saying, “The physical conclusion to which we are led by a study of the laws of nature is that the sun, like a living being, must have a birth and will have an end. From the known amount of heat which it radiates we can, even in a rude way, calculate the probable length of its life. From fifteen to twenty millions of years seems to be the limit of its age in the past, and it may exist a few millions of years, perhaps five or ten, in the future.”

105

Botany, in its general sense, signifies the knowledge of plants. In the earlier periods of human history plants appealed to mankind as material for food or medicine; and down to comparatively recent times botanical studies were pursued mainly in these directions. Dioscorides, a Greek, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, is the earliest writer of whom we have knowledge that can lay a claim to botanical distinction, but the medical property of plants was evidently the chief incentive to his task. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that botany, in its broad sense, became a study, and Le Cluse, a French physician, who died in 1609, may be regarded as one of its patriarchs. Still the medical uses of plants were steadily kept in view. The English botanist, John Gerarde, who was a contemporary of Le Cluse, or Clusius, as botanists usually call him, wrote a remarkable work on botany,—remarkable for his time,—but this was styled a “Herbal,” as were other famous botanical works down to the beginning of the present century.

106 Following the year 1700, the knowledge of plants individually became so extended that systematic arrangement became desirable. The first real advance in this direction was made by Carl Von Linné, commonly known by its Latin form, Linnæus, a Swede, born in 1707, and whose talents for botanical acquirements seemed almost innate. In his twenty-third year he saw the need of a better system, and commenced at once the great work of botanical reform. He saw that plants with a certain number of stamens and pistils were correlated, and he founded classes and orders on them. Flowers with five stamens or six stamens would belong to his class pentandria or hexandria, respectively, and those with five pistils or six pistils pentagynia, or hexagynia, accordingly; and so on up to polyandria, or polygynia—many stamens or pistils—of which our common buttercup is an illustration. He further showed that two names only were all that is necessary to denote any plant, the generic name and its adjective, as, for instance, Cornus alba, the white Dogwood; and that the descriptions should be brief, covering only the essential points wherein one species of plant differed from another. This became known as the sexual system. It fairly electrified intelligent circles. People generally took to counting stamens and pistils, and large numbers took pride in being botanists because they could trace so easily the classes and orders of the plants they met. The grand old man died in 1778, and though his artificial system had to give way to a more natural method, he is justly regarded as the father of modern botany.

With the incoming of the nineteenth century, botany took a rapid start. It ceased to be a mere handmaid to the study of medicine. Chemistry, geography, teleology, and indeed the chief foundations of biology had become closely interwoven with botanical studies; and thus the progress of botany through the century has to be viewed from many standpoints.

In classification, what is known as the natural system has replaced the sexual. Plants are grouped according to their apparent relationships. Those resembling in general character the Rose form the order Rosaceæ; the Lily, Liliaceæ. Sometimes, however, a striking characteristic is adopted for the107 family name, as Compositæ, or compound flower, for the daisy and aster-flowered plants; Umbelliferæ, or umbel-flowering, as in carrot or parsley; Leguminosæ, having the seed vessels as legumes, like peas and beans.

Classification has, however, derived much assistance from a wholly new branch of the science known as Morphology. This teaches that all parts of plants are modifications of other parts. What Nature may have intended to be a leaf may become a stem; the outer series of floral envelopes, or calyx, may become petals; petals may become stamens; and even pistils may become leaves, or even branches. The green rose of the florists is a case in which the leaves that should have been changed into petals to form a perfect rose flower have persisted in continuing green leaves, though masquerading as petals; and it is not unusual to find in the rose cases where the pistils have reverted to their original destination as the analogue of branches, and have started a growth from the centre of the flower. So in an orange, the carpels, or divisions, are metamorphosed primary leaves. Two series of five each make the ten divisions. Sometimes the axis starts to make another growth, as noted in the rose, but does not get far before it is arrested, and then we have a small orange inside a larger one, as in the navel orange. Just the reverse occurs sometimes. The lower series is suppressed, and only the upper one develops to a fruiting stage, when the small red oranges known as the Tangerines are the results. Illustrations of these transformations of one organ to another are frequent if we look for them. The annexed illustration shows a condition of the white clover, which, instead of the usual round head, has started on as a raceme or spike.

These wanderings from general forms were formerly regarded as monsters, of no particular use to the botanical student, but are now welcomed as guiding stars to the central features of Morphology. The importance of this branch of botany, in connection with classification, can readily be seen.

The studies in the behavior of plants have made remarkable progress during the century, and this also derives much aid from morphology. The strawberry sends out runners from which new plants are formed; but, tiring of this, eventually sends the runner upward to act as a flower stalk. What might have been but a bunch of leaves and roots at the end of the runner is now converted into a mass of flowers and pedicels at the end of a common peduncle. In some cases Nature reverses this plan. After starting the structure as an erect fruit-bearing stem, it sends it back to pierce the ground as a root should do. This is well illustrated by the peanut.

In the common Yucca, the more tropical species have erect stems; but in the form known in gardens as Adam’s needle and thread—Yucca filamentosa—the erect stem is sent down under the surface of the ground, and is then a rhizome, instead of a caudex, or stem.

108

Modification in connection with behavior is further illustrated by the grapevine and Virginia creeper. The whole leading shoot is here pushed aside by the development of a bud at the base of the leaf, that takes the place of a leading shoot. The original leader then becomes a tendril, and serves in the economy of the plant by clinging to trees or rocks, or in coiling around other plants in support. Great progress has been made in this department of botany within recent years. Darwin has shown that the tendrils of some plants continue in motion for some time in order to find something to cling to. The grapevine especially spends a long time in this labor if there is difficulty in reaching a host. The plant preserves vital power all this time, but no sooner is support found, than nutrition is cut off, and the tendril dies, though, hard and wiry, it serves its parent plant as a support better dead109 than alive. The amount of nutrition spent in sustaining motion is found to be enormous. A vine that can find ready means of support grows with a much more healthy vigor than one that has difficulty in finding it. Many plants present illustrations.

Much advance has been made in the knowledge of the motions of plants as regards their various forms. Growth in plants is not continuous; but is a series of rests and advances. In other words it is rhythmic. The nodes, or knots, in the stems of grasses are resting-places. When a rest occurs, energy may be exerted in a different direction, and a change of form result. This is well illustrated by the common Dogwood of northern woods, Cornus florida on the eastern, and Cornus Nuttallii on the western slope of the American continent. On the approach of winter the leaf is reduced to a bud scale, and then rests. When spring returns these scales resume growth and appear as white bracts. In the annexed illustration the scales that served for winter protection to the buds are seen at the apex of the bracts. In other species of Dogwood the bud scales do not resume growth. Energy is spent in another direction. In this manner we have an insight as to the cause of variation, which was not perceived even so recently as Darwin’s time. We now say that variation results from varying degrees of rhythmic growth—force; and that this again is governed by varying powers of assimilation.

The Darwinian view, that form results from external conditions of which the plant avails itself in a struggle for existence, is still widely accepted as a leading factor in the origin of species. Those which can assume the strongest weapons of defense continue to exist under the changed conditions. The weaker ones do not survive, and we only know of them as fossils. This is termed the doctrine of natural selection.

The origin and development of plant-life, or, as it is termed, evolution, has made rapid advancement as a study during the century. That there has been an adaptation to conditions in some respects, as contended by Mr. Darwin and his followers, must be correct. The oak and other species of trees must have been formed before mistletoe and other parasites could grow on them. In the common Dodder—species of Cuscuta—the seeds germinate in the ground like ordinary plants. As soon as they find something to attach themselves to, they cut loose from mother earth and live wholly on the host. As a speculation it seems plausible that all parasites have arisen in this way. Some, like the mistletoe, having the power, at length, to have their seeds germinate on the host-plant, have left their terrestrial origin in the past uncertain. A number of parasites, however, do not seem to live wholly on110 the plants they attach themselves to. These are usually destitute of green color. The Indian pipe, snow plant of the Pacific Coast, and Squaw root of the Eastern States are examples; the former called ghost-flower from its paleness. These plants have little carbonaceous matter in their structure, and hence are regarded as having formed a kind of partnership with fungi. This is known now as symbiosis, or living together of dissimilar organisms, each dependent mutually. The fungus and the flowering plant in these cases are necessary to the existence of each other. They demand nitrogen instead of carbonhydroids. The Squaw root, Conopholis Americana, though attached to the subterranean portions of the trunks of trees, is probably sustained by the fungus material in the old bark, or even in the wood, rather than by the ordinary food of flowering plants. Lichens, as it is now well known, are a compound of fungi and water weeds (algæ), and this doctrine of symbiosis is regarded as one of the great advances of the century.

It is but fair to say that the doctrine of evolution by the influence of external conditions in the change of form, though widely accepted at this time, is not without strong opponents, who point to the occasional development or suppression of parts on the same plant, though the external conditions must be the same. For instance, there are flowers that have all their parts regular, as in the petals of a buttercup; and irregular, as in the snap-dragon or fox-glove. But it has been noted that irregular flowers have pendulous stalks, while the regular ones are usually erect. But once in a while, on the same plant, flowers normally drooping will become erect. In these cases the flowers are regular. In the wild snap-dragon or yellow toad-flax, Linaria vulgaris, one of the petals is developed into a long spur; the other four petals have, in early life, become connate and transformed into parts of the flower wholly unlike ordinary petals. But now and then the original petals will all develop spurs, resulting in the condition technically known as peloria.

Linnæus gave this name to this condition because it was supposed to be “monstrous,” or something opposed to law and order. Through the advance in morphological botany we have learned to regard it as the result of some normal law of development, innate to the plant, and which could as well be the regular as the occasional condition. In other words, there is no reason why Nature might not make the five-spurred flower as continuous in a wild snap-dragon as in a columbine. Many similar facts are used by those who question the Darwinian law of development.

That nutrition has more to do in the evolution of form than external111 forces has received much aid, as a theory, from the advance during recent times of a study of the separate sexes of flowers. On coniferous trees, notably the firs, pines, and spruces, the male and female flowers are produced separately. The female, which finally yield the cones, are always borne on the most vigorous branches. When these branches have their supply of nutrition shortened and become weak, only male flowers are produced. On the other hand, branches normally weak will at times gain increased strength, and then the male flowers give female ones. This is often seen in corn fields. The generally weak tassel will have grains of corn through it. It is not infrequent to find what should normally be perfect ears on stalks weaker than usual. In these cases the upper portion of the ear will have male flowers only.

In connection with the doctrine of development, much attention has been given during the century to fertilization of flowers and the agency of insects in connection therewith. On the one hand it is contended that in all probability the flowers in the earlier periods of the world’s history had neither color nor fragrance. In this condition they were self-fertilizers, that is, were fecundated by their own pollen. In modern phraseology they were in and in breeders. When the struggle for existence became necessary, those which could get a cross with outside races became more vigorous in their progeny, and thus had an advantage in the struggle. In brief, without an occasional introduction of new blood, as it might be termed, there was danger of a race dying out. To support this view, Mr. Darwin published the result of a number of experiments. Many of them favored either side, but the average was in favor of the view that crossing was advantageous. Against this it has been urged that an average in such cases is not conclusive. If a number, though the minor number of cases, showed superiority by close breeding in his limited experiments, a new set of observations might have changed the averages, so as to make the minor figures in one instance the major in others. Again, it is contended that to increase a plant by other means than by seeds must be the closest kind of reproduction; yet some plants, coeval with the history of man, have been continued by offsets and are as strong and vigorous as ever. The Banana is an illustration. Under cultivation it produces only seedless fruits. It is raised wholly from young suckers or offsets from the roots. Mythology gives it a prominent place in the Garden of Eden, and its botanical name, Musa paradisiaca, originated in this legend.

112 Though much has been recorded in this line to weaken the force of the speculations that flowers late in the history of the earth developed color and sweet secretions in order to attract insects to aid in cross-fertilization, they are strongly supported by the fact that a large number of species, notably of orchids, are seldom fertilized without insect aid in pollination.

But there are anomalies even here. Some plants capture and literally eat the insects that should be regarded as their benefactors. These are classified as insectivorous plants. Some seem to catch the insects in mere sport, while in the act of conveying pollen to them. These are known as cruel plants. There are numerous illustrations of this among the families of Asclepias and Apocynum, the milk-weed family. In our gardens a Brazilian climber, Arauga, or Physianthus albens, is frequently grown for its waxy flowers and delicious odor, but the treacherous blossoms are frequently strung with the insects it has caught.

In the northern part of America a common wild flower of one of these families, Apocynum androsmæfolium, has this insect-catching habit. Numerous small insects meet death, and hang to the flowers like scalps to the wild Indian.

Considerable advance has been made in vegetable physiology, though no one has as yet been able to reach the origin of the life-power in plants. The power that enables an oak to maintain its huge branches in a horizontal direction, or that can lift or overturn huge rocks, or split them apart as the lightning rifts a tree trunk, is yet unknown. On the opposite page is an illustration of a circumstance frequently observed, wherein even a delicate root fibre can pierce a potato or other structures.

Possibly the greatest botanical advance of the century is in relation to cryptogamic plants, those low organisms which as mildews and moulds are most familiar to people generally. As microscopes increase in power, new forms are discovered. Over forty thousand species have already been described, and we may fairly say that there are nearly half as many forms of vegetable life invisible to the naked eye as can be seen by our unaided visual organs. Their wants and behaviors are very much the same as in the flowering plants or higher orders, as they are usually termed. But there is one great difference in this, that they feed mainly on nitrogen, and have no use for carbon. They113 care little for light, but yet have an upward tendency under certain forms, as do those which seek the light. The agarics that revel in the darkness of a coal mine, yet curve upward as heartily as a corn sprout in the open air. Just as in flowering plants, also, they are mostly innocuous, and indeed many absolutely beneficial to man, a very small portion only being poisonous, or connected with the diseases of the human race. Even in these cases their power is closely guarded by nature. The spores of fungi are found to require such a nice combination of conditions before they germinate, that, unless these occur, they will retain their vegetative power many years in a state of absolute rest. The mycelium of the mushroom, as the real plant—the cobwebby portion under ground—only starts to grow when just so many degrees of heat, neither more nor less, with just so much moisture, and the proper food, are all at hand together; and large numbers are known to be very select in the kind of food they will make use of at all. One genus, known as Cordyceps, will only start when the spore comes in contact with the head of a caterpillar. And various species of the genus will avoid a kind of caterpillar that another would enjoy. In our own country we have one that feeds on the larvae of the May Beetle, and is known as Cordyceps Melolonthæ. In Australia is a very pretty species, which takes on the appearance of the antlers of a deer. This is known as Cordyceps Andrewsii.

The most minute of these are known as microbes. They are chiefly composed of a single cell, in the midst of which is the protoplasm, or material in which life resides, but the exact nature of which is still a mystery.

One of the most useful and fascinating studies in modern times is Geographical Botany. It is found to114 have a close relation to the history of man, and to the changes which have occurred on the surface of the earth. Plants follow man wherever he wanders; and though every other trace of man should be abolished on the American continent, the plants that came with him from the Old World would enable the future historian to follow his tracks here pretty well. No one has any historical evidence that what is now the Pacific Ocean was once land, and that the area between the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi was once a huge sea, but botany tells the plain story. Only for botany we should not know that the land now serving as the poles was once within the tropics; and mainly by fossil gum trees on the American continent, and the existence still of a few plants common to Australia, have we the knowledge of some land connection between these distant shores. Island floras, some of the species of which are now found only in very limited areas, tell of large tracts submerged of which only the mountain peaks are left as small islands, lonely in a wide expanse of water, while other islands, with only a limited number of well known species, tell of new upheavals within modern times.

It is in these lines chiefly that botany has advanced during the century. Herbariums for dry and botanic gardens for living plants are essential. The latter are not as necessary to the study as formerly, as the facilities for travel bring the votaries of the science to distant places in a short time. Nature furnishes the living material for study at a less outlay of time and money than in the old way of growing the plants for the purpose. Few modern botanic gardens have the fame of those of the past. It is the great Herbarium of Kew, rather than the living plants, that makes that famous spot the great school for botany to-day. In our own country, the Herbariums of Cambridge, Mass.; Columbia College, New York; the National at Washington; and that of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, are the most famous in America.

115

The whole woman question may be briefly summed up as a century-old struggle between conservatism and progress. Women are moving irregularly, and perhaps illogically, along certain lines of development toward a point that will probably be reached; while conservatism, halting and fearful, is struggling blindly to hold points and maintain lines that must be given up.

Unfortunately for the rapidity of women’s advancement, women themselves have no thoroughness, no clearness, as to the fundamental cause of their grievances or the ends to be attained, and are not yet alive to a consciousness of the fact that the question of woman’s rights is simply and purely a question of human rights, the basic solution of which, on the broad plane of justice, will solve all the social, political, and industrial problems of which the woman question forms a part.

The time when woman suffered silently and toiled patiently without once questioning the justice of her lot has happily passed forever. Confusion and antagonism are engendered because of misunderstanding of the real movement. Women are consciously or unconsciously struggling for that selfhood which has hitherto been denied them, and are seeking for opportunity to develop that personality which Browning, Ruskin, and other broad thinkers declare “is the good of the race.” The most discouraging feature of the situation is the fact that women as a whole do not realize that a politically inferior class is a degraded class; a disfranchised class, an oppressed class; and that her economic dependence upon man is the basic cause of her inferiority.

The grievances openly proclaimed by the advocates of woman suffrage as causes of hostility are too frequently childish, unreasonable, and unworthy of serious attention. In the majority of cases they centre around some fancied wrong that is a result rather than a cause. The keynote not only to the woman question, but to the labor question may be found in the words of that deep thinker and able writer, August Bebel: “The basis of all oppression is economic dependence upon the oppressor.” The widespread discontent with present social conditions is an augury of hope for the future. There is no element in the unrest which need excite grave apprehension. Thoughtful people perceive clearly that women are intensely human, nothing more, and that as human beings they are entitled not only to food, clothes, and shelter, but to an opportunity for development.

It is only as we are familiar with the oppression that has been the common lot of women since the beginning of time that we can realize that her lot has been sweetened, her condition ameliorated, and her progress within the century marvelous indeed. The woman question, historically considered, contains all the physical subjugation and consequent inferiority which constituted all the differentiation between the physical and mental powers of men116 and women. It contains all the humiliation, uncertainty, and ultimate hope of her future. The history of the woman question is analogous with the history of the labor question, with the difference that woman slavery had its origin in the peculiarities of her sexual being, while the laborer’s slavery began when he was robbed of the land which is the birthright of every human being. It will be seen, therefore, that woman’s slavery antedates the thralldom of the thrall, and “was more humiliating, more degrading, because she was treated and regarded by the laborer as his servant, his inferior.” This condition largely prevails among laborers to-day, and was indirectly given utterance to a few weeks ago, when some of the members of the American Federation of Labor formulated a traditional resolution demanding that “women be excluded from all public work and relegated to the home,”—a demand that would be to some extent reasonable, and no doubt acceptable, to the great army of working-women, had the chivalrous laborers who formulated the demand the ability and industry to provide a home for the women whom they would render paupers by deprivation of work, and for the children for whom their fathers were unable to provide. It is gratifying to know that this resolution was lost in the committee room, and that its formulation was greeted by the press of the whole country with a storm of deserved disapproval.

Inasmuch as the rapidly increasing number of bread-winners among women makes it evident that men are either unable or incompetent to provide for them, it remains for the working-women of the country to formulate a resolution demanding that men be excluded from all work that has hitherto been considered as belonging to or peculiarly adapted to women. What an army of mosquito-legged men from the eating-houses, laundries, and dry-goods establishments would rise up to proclaim the idiocy of women and protest against such injustice!

On the threshold of the world’s morning, says a distinguished writer and worker in the German Reichstag of to-day, we may correctly assume that woman was man’s equal in mental and physical power. But she became his inferior physically, and consequently dependent upon his bounty, during periods of pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing, when her helplessness forced her to look to him for food and shelter. In the childhood of the race might made right; brute strength was the standard of superiority; the struggle for existence was crude and savage; and thus this occasional helplessness became the manner of her bondage.

That nature is primarily responsible for the centuries of woman’s enslavement there can be no doubt. And as nature’s laws are unchanging, the advocates of woman’s political advancement would do well to remember that woman’s greatest importance as a public factor can only begin when the function of motherhood ceases. “In a real sense, as a factory is meant to turn out locomotives or clocks, the machinery of nature is designed in the last resort to turn out mothers. Life to the human species is not a random series of random efforts; its course is set as rigidly as the pathway of the stars; its laws are as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.” (Drummond’s Ascent of Man.)

Nature’s great work for the individual is reproduction and care of the species. The first, Drummond terms the cosmic process; the second, the117 moral process. Statistics show that one child out of every three dies before maturity, and nature’s task is incomplete unless at least two children be reared to the adult age by every family. Every couple, then, at marriage, assumes the responsibility to society and posterity of bringing three children into the world. Woman’s part in the stupendous economy of nature is first and distinctively most important, that of motherhood. She can only pay her debt to nature, fulfill her mission to the world, and discharge her obligations to humanity by faithfully discharging the duties of motherhood. But as the function of motherhood ceases when the woman is in the prime of life, ripened by experience and fortified by maternal ties, she may yet have ample opportunity to exert her far-reaching influence in public work when she has exemplified in her own life the words, Home, Love, Mother. And there is, there can be, no rational objection to granting the fullest suffrage to woman at this period.

Having located the basic cause of her dependence, it will be seen that the only solution possible for the complete emancipation and mental and physical development of woman is to render her, through industrial freedom, so economically independent in every way of man’s grudging bounty that she118 will scorn his pity, resent his abuse, and claim her right to fullest individuality and opportunity as a human being.

For countless ages women were separated from the world by a barrier as effective as the myriad-miled wall of China; vacillating between the condition of slave and superintendent of the kitchen; taught nothing but those flimsy accomplishments that would catch the eye of the prospective husband and master; sneered at, ridiculed, and abused whenever she attempted to cross the line which hoary prophets and patriarchal slaveholders had marked across her path; subject to man’s whim and caprice; her physical development, in time, became meagre and crippled. And as her mental faculties were repressed and imprisoned in the narrowest circle of feminine opinions, it became difficult for her to rise above the most commonplace trivialities of life. Thus it came about that the term “Weaker Sex,” originally used to convey only the acknowledged truth that women are inferior to men in physical strength, came to include the mind as well as body. Be this as it may, the position of women for long centuries was inevitably one of extreme cruelty and oppression. Countless bitter and unnecessary limitations hedged her pathway and obstructed her development from the cradle to the grave. It is not to be wondered at that she in time became so inured to her degrading servitude as to accept it as her natural position. Madame De Staël has truly said, “Of all the gifts and faculties which nature has lavishly bestowed upon woman, she has been allowed to exercise fully but one, the faculty to suffer.” The extent of this suffering and the deteriorating influence which it has exerted upon the race can never be estimated till Finis is written to the story of humanity.

In the noonday of Grecian power and learning, woman trod not beside man as helpmate and companion, but followed as his slave. Demosthenes defines the wife as the “bearer of children, the faithful watch-dog who guards the house for her master.” At the Council of Macon, held in the sixth century, the question of the soul and humanity of women was gravely weighed and debated, profound doctors of theology maintaining that “woman is not a subject but an object for man’s use and pleasure.” For centuries theological divines whetted their wit on helpless woman; and the church in holy zeal persecuted the woman who was guilty of a fault as a “daughter of the devil,” and held her up to public contumely as the concentration of all evil.

Christianity, indeed, offered emancipation to women. It proclaimed a startling doctrine,—the equality of the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, in the sight of God the Father. And it became evident that such teachings would inevitably break down the barriers of class and caste, eliminate injustice, and usher in a time when all should stand equal before the law. But alas, the world, with the exception of isolated and individual instances, has never been offered an opportunity to test the efficacy of the all-corrective principles of the religion which Christ gave to the world. The repression of women biased the reformatory tendencies of Christianity, and rendered it as ineffective as a medium of relief to the oppressed as our one-sided political system of to-day. Christianity, under masculine domination, was lost in the rubbish of churchianity, which, professing but failing to practice the religion of Christ, has held woman in the same contempt in which119 she has been held by all the ancient and idolatrous religions of the world. Yet despite the fact that the great Master, were He to come to-day, would scarcely recognize in the churches a trace of the code which He lived and died to exemplify, it must not be forgotten that the vital principle of religion never dies. It eventually attains fullest development, and becomes identified with the progress of civilization and the highest purpose of a people. Therefore, we may reverently believe that in the ultimate triumph and rehabilitation of practical Christianity lies the hope of the oppressed, and true liberty not only for women, but for every human being.

Even now the mists are lifting. The great change in the position of women—legal, social, and educational—within a hundred years is breaking even the hard shell of orthodox usage. Whole denominations have dropped the word “obey” from the marriage service. Many ministers frequently omit it, or, if administered, it is pronounced by the bride with mental reservation and looked upon as a word that has only the most remote and shadowy significance. The new wine is breaking the old bottles; the spirit of the nineteenth century is too progressive for the usages and traditions of the eleventh century. Modern churchianity, realizing that women constitute three fourths of its membership, no longer wages a merciless warfare upon them. It has relaxed its Pauline grip upon her throat, “I suffer not a woman to speak in the churches.” And the more advanced theological bodies have offered her the intellectual hospitality of the pulpit, where her eloquence is a pleasing change to those who have grown tired of preachers’ platitudes. Clerical decrees are no longer hurled at her defenseless head. The doors of churches, schools, and colleges are swinging wide at her approach, though they sometimes creak on their hinges. The ministers no longer openly advocate that the gates of opportunity be bolted and barred against her. There is everything to stimulate hope; the wings of feminine nature have expanded till a return to the chrysalis is impossible.

It is true that a very large number yet profess to believe that a woman fulfills her whole mission in the world when she makes herself as pretty and agreeable as possible, and devotes all her time and attention to the discharge of domestic duties. But there has been a wonderful modification of opinion since Schopenhauer declared that “woman is not called to great things. She pays her debt to life by the throes of birth, care of the children, and120 subjection to her husband.” Two things have tended to bring about this modification of opinion; the broader education and increased opportunities for development attendant upon the growth of individual liberty and republican forms of government; and the capability of self-maintenance due to improved mechanical appliances. It is not mere inclination on the part of the individual, nor is it the voice of the agitator, that is bringing about these changes; it is the irresistible logic of events.

One hundred years ago the education of women in the most progressive and wealthy families went little beyond reading and writing. In 1819, when Mrs. Emma Willard issued an address to the members of the New York legislature advocating the endowment of an institution for the higher education of women, there was not a college in the country for girls. In 1892, the colleges of the United States numbered more than 50,000 female students. In 1888, the ratio of female students to the whole number of students pursuing a higher course of education in universities and colleges in this country was 29.3 per centum, or a little more than one fourth. At the same time the ratio in England was 11 per centum; in France, 2 per centum; while in Germany, Austria, and Italy the ratio was so slight as to be but a mere fraction of 1 per centum.

Such a thing as a female president of a college was unknown and probably undreamed of in the eighteenth century; but we learn from the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1887–88 that there are in the United States forty-two colleges and institutions for the superior instruction of women having a woman for president.

In the high and secondary schools, in 1888, over one half of the students were girls. And in the same year, tabulated statistics reveal that 63 per centum of the teachers were women. And this percentage will become greater and greater as we grasp the truth that woman is, by gift of greater intuition and sympathy, the natural instructor of the human race. The salaries paid to women teachers are grossly unfair when compared to the pay of male teachers for the same or less work. But as the difference in compensation is growing smaller every decade, there is at least room for hope that this injustice will soon be righted.

The law of evolution is the discoverer and formulator of woman’s advancement. The invention and use of gunpowder placed the peasant on an equal war-footing with the mailed knight. The enormous increase in mechanical appliances and productive machinery has taken woman out of the rank of unpaid menials, has given her leisure for mental development, opportunity to receive recompense for toil, and is largely breaking down the physical barriers which had hitherto been considered unsurmountable. Statistics show that there are forms of machinery in the operation of which the production of a woman is even greater than that of a man, thus furnishing an actual proof of the falsity of the idea that woman is incapacitated for competition with man in the physical world. And the trend of events is indicated by the statistics given in the Report of the Commissioner of Labor, from which we learn that in some trades and professions the percentage of women engaged has increased fivefold in the last decade.

While woman’s work has always been a recognized factor in the world’s progress, yet her admittance to the field of remunerative work is limited to121 the last one hundred years; is, in fact, the prominent feature of the nineteenth century. There is overwhelming evidence that her work in every department to which she has been admitted is as capable, acceptable, and in every way as faithfully performed as the work of her brother man. In the last century it is estimated that not more than 1 per centum of artists and teachers of art were women; while in 1890 women comprised 48.08 per centum, or nearly one half of that profession. Nearly the same proportion of increase is found in the ranks of teachers and musicians,—women now forming over 60 per centum of the teachers of the United States.

There are now about three million women and girls in this country who earn their own livelihood. And the eleventh census reveals the startling information that in the city of New York there are twenty-seven thousand men who are supported by their wives. Yet these men, useless to society, a burden to the women who support them, are permitted the immunities and privileges of law and custom, while women have equality only in the duties and punishments.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were but few occupations in which women were permitted to engage. Their abilities and ambitions were restricted to the school and the home. In the latter they received food and shelter as compensation; in the former, but one half or one third the salary allowed to male teachers. The first noticeable change in woman’s condition, when she became something more than a mere household drudge, whose busy hands carded and wove, spun and knit, the family supply of cloth, dates from the first bale of cotton grown in this country in the early years of the eighteenth century. In that bale of cotton lay the seeds of not only a new movement in labor, but the beginning of a new epoch for woman, in which her work and wages were destined to take coherent shape and form. In all industrial progress since that time women have taken an active part while receiving a meagre share of the product. Forced by the course of events to emerge from seclusion and repression, she has passed from one stage of development to another, always a step or two behind man in the progress of social evolution, till the close of the nineteenth century reveals myriad changes and the actual realization of Tennyson’s prophetic lines in the “Princess,” “We have prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans.”

One hundred years ago it was the duty of a woman to efface herself. She was expected to make of herself a mental blank-book upon which her husband might inscribe what he would. Thus it is only lately that women have begun actively to compete with men in expression of any kind. Indeed, previous to that time, with a few notable exceptions, they were denied recognition122 of individual life. The woman, if unmarried, was merged in the family, or, if married, merged in the husband. Her name, her religion, her gods, were changed on marriage. But, married or single, the absorption was complete. So it has happened that woman, throbbing with poetic sympathy, has, with the exception of Sappho, produced less high and unmistakable poetry than man. With more harmony, more music in her nature, her very soul attuned to symphony and rhythm, she has been little known as a composer. With far vision and clear literary insight, she has been suppressed in art and literature. George Eliot gave her sublime literary productions to the world under a masculine nom de plume, because of the prejudice of even that not remote day. Fanny Mendelssohn was compelled by her family to publish her musical compositions as her brother’s. Mary Somerville met only discouragement and ridicule in her mathematical studies. In every sphere, in every department of science and art, abuse, injustice, and the croaking of reactionary frogs have greeted each step of her upward way. The wonder is, then, not that she has accomplished so little, but that she is not in the same condition to-day that she was when Paul thrust a gag in her mouth in the shape of a Corinthian text, “And if a woman would learn anything, let her ask her husband at home.” It will be seen, therefore, that the oft-repeated assertion that women have not given to the world as much evidence of genius as men is a Lilliputian assertion tainted somewhat with envy. “There has been no Shakespeare among women,” says the advocates of man’s supremacy. With all the world as their own, and the gates of boundless opportunities swinging wide, there has been but one Shakespeare among men. It has been asserted that George Eliot is the Shakespeare among women and Mrs. Browning the counterpart of Bacon. But their immortality has not been tested. They lived but a little while ago. But there is one woman, at least, who has established her claim thoroughly, and whose genius twenty-five centuries have tested. Sappho is truly immortal. Her fame and genius have been sealed by the approval of all the great literati of the centuries. Coleridge, who occupies no uncertain place in the world of letters, says of her, “Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literature, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable poetic perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and illimitable grace.” Swinburne, the greatest living master in the world of verbal music, declares that, “Her verses are the supreme success, the final achievement, of poetic art.” Sappho’s claim to immortality exceeds that of Shakespeare’s by twenty-three hundred years.

Men, viewing the literary productions of women, are apt to give them the color and bias of masculine thought. As instance the poetic critic of a New York periodical, who wantonly affronts the gifted author of “Poems of Passion” by declaring that her “fervent verses are but the burning of unseemly stubble that fails to give forth light or heat.” Yet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, all fair-minded critics will admit, has won a place in the ranks of poetic genius. Her poems throb with human sympathy, and from the exalted plane of her splendid womanhood she reaches down, fulfilling the law of Christly service, to lift up the fallen and soothe and bind the bruised and bleeding. Such masculine criticism is dying out, but it has not been uncommon in the past. Mrs. Browning and Jane Austen were accused of “breaking123 down by their writings the safeguards of society,” and they were admonished to “cease their literary efforts and devote themselves to sewing and washing dishes if they would retain the chivalrous respect of men.” “Jane Eyre” was pronounced too immoral to be ranked as decent literature. “Adam Bede” was classed as the “vile outpourings of a lewd woman’s mind.” Yet Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Mrs. Browning, and Jane Austen have won an exalted and enviable place in the ranks of literature. Their writings have thrilled, uplifted, and sweetened humanity.

The test of literary genius is to create a character of universal acceptance. The record of half a century has but one world-wide, world-known character of that kind. That character was created by a woman. In all literature, no book since the Bible has been so widely circulated, so extensively translated, or has so thoroughly commanded the profound attention of all classes as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Mrs. Stowe impressed her genius upon the race and time, and marked a new epoch for freedom. Previous to the publication of her book only a few men recognized slavery as wrong, but a woman’s sympathetic heart and throbbing genius laid bare the evil and disclosed to a horrified world the wrong underlying slavery.

In philanthropy and the domain of morals there is none who is doing more heroic and effective work than Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis. She deals not with theories, but with real conditions. Her sympathies, her broad work, her manifold charities, go out to flesh and blood, men and women. She has the intuitive faculty of probing deep into human nature, leading those she would reform to mourn real defects, rejoice in real victories, and hope and struggle for better things.

The constantly broadening sphere of woman’s usefulness is in a large measure due to the organized forms of intellectual activity among women known as clubs. Half a century ago club-life for women was unknown. Their social sympathies were limited to the political party that claimed the franchise of their male relatives, or the church at whose shrine the women worshiped. But so rapid has been woman’s development in this direction that to-day women’s clubs form a chain from ocean to ocean, binding them as one great whole. The effect upon the members is magical; nature is enlarged; charity broadened; capacity for judgment increased; and hitherto unsuspected faculties are called into life and power.

The first organized demand by women for political recognition in the United States was made in 1848, at what was known as the Seneca Falls Convention. Ridiculed, persecuted, kicked like a football from one generation to another, this brave demand for political recognition was destined to124 become an agency that would work a peaceful revolution. That the movement is progressing, and will eventually succeed, is evinced by the record of half a century. In that time school suffrage has been granted in twenty-three States and Territories, partial suffrage for public improvements in three States, municipal suffrage in one, and in four States full political equality. Wyoming was the first State to accord citizenship to her women, and she bears testimony to its efficacy in the progress, honor, and sobriety of her people. In 1893, the Wyoming state legislature passed resolutions highly commendatory of woman suffrage and its results, and among other things said, “We point with pride to the fact that after nearly twenty-five years of woman suffrage, not one county in Wyoming has a poor-house, that our jails are almost empty, and crime, except that by strangers in the State, is almost unknown.”

From the banks of the far-off Volga come the good tidings that even Russia is preparing to take a great step in advance by granting to women many legal and political privileges now enjoyed only by men. England granted municipal suffrage to women a quarter of a century ago, and has more recently granted partial parliamentary suffrage. And to the influence of English law, more particularly the Married Women’s Act, is largely due the betterment of the legal status of women throughout the world. In England we find women prominent in art, literature, politics, the school and the church. While in this country the middle classes have heretofore carried on the suffrage agitation, in England it finds active workers among the peerage.

Woman in politics meets with the opposition of job politicians, but she realizes that every step of her progress, from the unveiling of her face to a seat in the legislature of a State, has been taken in the face of fierce opposition and in violation of conventionalities and customs. Undismayed she advances for the ultimate betterment of humanity.

The historian of the future will record the nineteenth century as the Renaissance of womankind. And the ultimate effect upon the human race of having individuals, not servants, as mothers will surpass the progress made in science and in art.

The eighteenth century found woman an appendage; the nineteenth transformed her into an individual. The wonderful altruistic twentieth century, whose dawn even now is breaking, will so develop this individuality that women will contend for all the rights of the individual, coöperating with the nation in the fulfillment of its mission, and with the world in the development of the eternal law of progress.

125

Antiquity conceals nothing more completely than the origin of the textile industry. Back in the dark ages and beyond authentic records, evidence is furnished that this art was not unknown. Egyptian mummies shrouded in fine linen fabrics give their silent testimony of ancient knowledge, but when or where the art had its inception still remains wrapped in mystery. Nearly every nation of the earth lays claim to its invention at some epoch in traditional existence. Thus the Chinese attribute it to the wife of their first emperor, the Egyptians to Isis, the Greeks to Minerva; but probably it had its birth in the Orient, where the making of cloth was known and practiced from the earliest times.

Whatever the merits of rival claimants, certain it is that for many centuries the simple distaff and spindle were the only instruments used for spinning, while the warp and weft were woven together by hand implements not less primitive in structure.

In the first spinning device, a mass of fibre was arranged on a forked stick, and, as drawn therefrom by hand, it was twisted between the fingers and wound on a spindle. During the reign of Henry VIII. of England, however, the spinning-wheel replaced the distaff and spindle, and in every cottage and palace it became an indispensable article of household equipment. The young women in all walks of life were taught to spin. Spinning became the female occupation of the age, and it is interesting to note that the modern term spinster, meaning an unmarried woman of advanced age, here had its origin.

The spinning-wheel, though superior to the distaff and spindle, was yet a crude machine. It consisted of a stand on which was mounted in horizontal bearings a spindle driven by a band from a large wheel propelled by hand or foot, and as twist was imparted to the fibre drawn through the fingers, the resulting yarn was wound on the spindle.

The art of weaving was not more advanced. It is true that the middle of the eighteenth century found the hand loom developed from the original Indian structure to contain many of the essentials of the modern power loom. It embodied the heddles, the lay, the take-up and let-off beams, the shuttle for passing the weft, and in 1740, John Kay added the fly shuttle motion, whereby the shuttle was thrown through the shed by a sudden pull on the picking stick; then in 1760, Robert Kay, son of John Kay, invented the drop box, whereby several colors of filling might be employed.

Brilliant as these achievements were, the hand loom remained the crude embodiment of the simple principles of weaving until near the dawn of the nineteenth century, when, by the invention of Cartwright, a period of development was introduced in all lines of textile manufacture unsurpassed in the annals of industrial progress. The first great stride, and that which opened the door for further advance, was the creation of the spinning-jenny,126 in England, by Hargreaves, about 1767, whereby eight or ten yarns could be spun at one time. Drawing rollers were subsequently added by Arkwright, and then traverse motion was given the bobbins in order to automatically build the yarn into a cop. It has developed since that the drawing-rollers constituted one of the most important fundamental improvements in the spinning art. Their function was to draw out the fibres into a proper size of roving, and to feed this to be spun. Without them the modern spinning-frame would not have been possible. Arkwright’s drawing-rollers and Hargreaves’s spinning-jenny combined under the invention of Crompton to produce, in principle at least, the modern spinning-mule.

Fairly good machines were thus provided on the advent of the nineteenth century for spinning unlimited quantities of yarn, but this, in turn, required proper loom structures to use the same and a corresponding supply of raw material. Inventive genius was abroad, and the necessity met by Eli Whitney, who, while at the home of General Greene, of Georgia, built the first practical machine for separating cotton fibre from its seed.

Whitney’s gin was constructed on the broad and simple principle that cotton fibre could be drawn through a smaller space than the attached seed, and this same principle is the soul and spirit of every saw-gin of the present day. Prior to Whitney’s gin, cotton fibre was separated from the seed by hand, a day’s work being represented by two or three pounds of cleaned fibre. The daily product of the gin now reaches between three and four thousand pounds.

Such figures demonstrate the important position taken by the cotton gin among the developing agents of the cotton growing States. It has rendered possible and profitable the cultivation of large districts of otherwise waste lands; it has stimulated cotton production; given employment to thousands of idle hands; cheapened the price of cotton cloths, and placed within the reach of the humblest people wearing apparel of fine and beautiful texture.

Unlimited supply of raw material being thus provided, attention reverted to perfecting the machines for spinning it, and under the magical touch of Richard Roberts, of Manchester, England, in 1830, the crude mule of Crompton took practical shape. He gave to it the quadrant winding motion, provided for the harmonious working of the counter and copping faller wires, perfected the “backing off” and “drawing up” mechanisms, and gave attention to construction of details that placed the mule before the world as a practical success.

Equipped in its present form, the self-acting mule presents one of the127 most striking examples of complex automatic mechanisms that can be found in the industrial world. The work of the attendant is confined to piecing broken ends and supplying roving, the machine passing through the entire cycle of its complicated movements without human direction. An idea may be had of its delicate and accurate operation when it is considered that one pound of cotton has been spun by it into a thread one hundred and sixty-seven miles long. Improvements have been made, indeed, on Roberts’s mule, but aside from changes in details and form, the machine, as it left the hands of this mechanical genius in 1830, remains unchanged.

During this period, the fly frame was developed from the machines of Hargreaves and Arkwright, but while it constituted a great advance over these machines, it presented no radical departure in principle.

We may pause here, as we pass through the third decade of the present century, to witness the introduction of a spinning-frame, which, for originality of conception and far reaching influence on the textile industry, closely approximates the achievements of the pioneer inventions of this art. Reference is made to the ring frame in which the flyer is omitted, the bobbin being attached to the spindle and revolving with it. On the traverse rail, and surrounding each bobbin, is secured a flanged ring having loosely sprung thereon a light traveler, through which the yarn, as it comes from the drawing-rolls, is led to the bobbin. Revolution of the bobbin carries the traveler around the ring imparting twist to the yarn, and as it is spun it is wound on the bobbin in proportion to the feed of the drawing-rolls.

The invention of this machine is attributed to John Thorpe, of Rhode Island, in 1828, and so popular did it become by reason of decreased power necessary to drive it, incidental to the omission of the flyers, and good128 quality of yarn produced, that, between 1860 and 1865, it nearly replaced all other machines in America for spinning cotton.

The speed of the ring frame, as well as its output, appeared unbounded; but at high speeds, under unbalanced loads, the spindles were found to vibrate in their bearings, and the quality of yarn, in consequence, degenerated, the spindle bearings became worn, and the limit seemed to be reached at five thousand revolutions per minute. A careful examination of the ring frame revealed no vulnerable part of its general structure that could be improved so as to readily secure increased speed and steadiness of the spindles when unevenly loaded; but with admirable foresight, developing intellects set to improve the spindles themselves, and, in 1871, Jacob H. Sawyer introduced and patented a spindle and bearing, which was one of the most important improvements in the ring frame. He chambered the bobbin, and by carrying the bolster T well up inside supported the former near its load centre.

The evolution of the spindle was not yet complete. The Sawyer type, at more than seven thousand revolutions, would vibrate, and of the many attempts to cure the defect none succeeded fully until the very simple change made by Mr. Rabbeth in 1878. He gave the spindle a small amount of play by making the bolster loose in its supporting case, and placed a packing between the two.

A. H. Sherman improved upon the Rabbeth structure by making the bolster and step in one piece and omitting the packing, the cushioning being dependent upon the lubricating oil.

129

130 The acme of development in this small but most important part of the ring frame was now reached; and in its approved form it embodies the sleeve whirl extending into the bobbin, the loose, yet adjustable bolster, tapering spindle, removable step, and lubricating reservoir. Such spindles are capable of unlimited speeds,—twenty thousand revolutions per minute have been given,—and under absurdly unbalanced loads they run steadily and with less expenditure of power than the older forms at their slower speeds.

Increased speed in the spindles, however, brought increased breakage in the yarn, and although stop motion devices had been employed for several years, yet economy demanded ready means of piecing broken ends. This has been provided recently by mounting the stop clamp upon the roving rod well up near the first pair of drawing rolls, so that on pulling the stop wire into place the roving is at once fed between the drawing rolls and issues in front, over the spindle, to be easily pieced by one hand. Prior to this, the operative was required to reach over the machine, feed the roving to the rolls with one hand, hold the stop wire down with the other, and the broken end of yarn in his teeth.

Excessive ballooning was also incidental to the use of high speed spindles, and, while inventive skill has never mastered it, yet the injurious effects have been obviated by an ingenious mounting of separators, one between each two spindles.

Aside from minor details perfecting the mechanical construction, such has been the evolution of the modern spinning frame. In 1830, it required the constant attention of one spinner to oversee twenty slow-running spindles, whereas, in 1896, the same attendant could, with less effort, “tend” seventy-five or more of the high speed type; and whereas, in 1790, when the first American cotton mill was established by Samuel Slater in Rhode Island, there were only seventy-five spindles on cotton fibre, in 1830, the number had increased to 1,246,703, and in 1890, to 14,188,103.

Under such competition no wonder the spinning-wheel of our grandmothers has followed the economic law, that the fittest alone survive, and131 has been relegated to the wood-pile or garret, or, bedecked with ribbons, finds a resting-place in the chimney-corner as a decorated curiosity. Its mighty rival is here. Its attendants have been liberated to more ennobling pursuits. The homespun has been replaced by beautiful fabrics, and the monster spinning frames of to-day pour forth their hourly product in miles of spun fibre, where the wheels of our grandmothers were taxed to the utmost to produce a very small fraction of the amount. To appreciate the wonderful change, pause beside the domestic wheel used within the memory of the living, and compare its “whirr,” in slowly producing its single thread, to the “buzz” of the modern spinning frame turning out its product from a thousand spindles.

The production of yarn required something more than spinning. The fibres in the massed cotton or wool, as delivered to the manufacturer, must be opened, untangled, straightened out, and laid parallel by a series of preparing machines prior to being spun, among which the carding engine ranks first. In the incipient form, this machine dates as far back as the middle of the eighteenth century, when, by hand manipulation, two cylinders covered with small teeth and working in close proximity disintegrated the fibrous mass; but the fibres were much broken and not evenly arranged. The addition of the workers and strippers around a rapidly revolving swift gave increased utility to the machine, and Bramwell’s feed, in 1871, so regulated the amount of fibre fed at intervals that the resulting lap possessed the desired even character. This feed weighs the fibre as it is fed, stops the lifting apron while the scale pan dumps its load, resets the scale pan, and automatically starts the lifting apron to again feed the scale,—a cycle of operations indicating a near approach to human intelligence.

132 One additional machine at least, the comb, requires notice before passing to the all-important progress made in the loom structure. With advancing civilization and refinement came demands for superior fabrics, which could only be answered by a supply of better fibre. Such fibre could only be secured from the bale by separating the long from the short, a problem well calculated to tax the ingenuity of an enlightened age. Attempts had been made to do this by hand implements not unlike the curry-comb of to-day, except that the teeth were long and tapering. This remained the only means employed for years, while other textile machinery passed through its phenomenal period of development. At last, in 1841, it occurred to Heilman, while watching a lady comb her hair, that a machine might be constructed to comb wool by drawing a bunch of fibres over pins. He constructed a device on this principle, and in a developed form it is used still and known as the Heilman or nip comb.

In 1853, James Noble gave to the world the circle comb, wherein two flat circular rings, having projecting from one face vertical pins, were mounted, one eccentrically within the other, and revolved in the same direction, the object being to dab the fibre on the rings where they met; and then as they revolved and separated the short fibre would be drawn off the large ring, leaving the long fibre freed from the short. These machines were successful, and above all they were practical—the operation of the hand comber disappeared from the face of the earth.

The sudden birth and rapid development of mechanically perfect means for preparing and spinning fibres were due largely to the comparatively simple movements required to draw and twist the yarn, but in the loom no such problem was presented. Here the movements were complicated and varied,133 and the application of power to the manipulation of the delicate threads was not susceptible of sudden and successful solution. The warps, stretched in a sheet between two beams, had to be opened to form the shed, the shuttle had to be passed therethrough, the weft beaten to place, and means provided to feed the warp and to take up of the fabric an amount at each beat-up corresponding to the size of the weft. These were the movements necessary in the most simple kind of weaving, and though fully understood for many centuries, as evidenced by the Indian and Egyptian looms, and as embodied in hand machines of the seventeenth century, it was not till 1787 that they were clothed with the application of power. Even then the first embodiment did not emanate from the hands of a weaver or engineer, but from Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman in the church of England. It was not surprising that these looms failed of their expectations, for the shuttle would frequently get trapped in the shed, the driven power-lay would break out the warp threads, the take-up and let-off motions were not graduated to compensate for the decrease of the warp and increase of the cloth beams, resulting in thin and thick places in the cloth. But this application of power to the loom was the initial step in the industrial supremacy of the machine, which to-day works with the perfect cadence of an automaton.

134 The first years of the present century were of unsurpassed activity in the inventive field. The spinners were putting forth more yarn than the hand-looms could use. It remained for the loom to keep pace with the times. Miller, in 1800, Todd and Horrocks in 1803, Johnston in 1807, Cotton in 1810, Taylor in 1815, and many others, concentrated their efforts to develop the plain power-loom; but the second decade of the present century saw the old hand-loom with its slow and cumbrous movements still mistress of the art.

The name of Richard Roberts stands preëminent at this period, between 1820 and 1825, as giving to the power-loom several perfecting touches in the means for letting off the warp the small amount necessary at each pick, the means for taking up the finished cloth, the means for shedding the warp for the passage of the shuttle, and the adaptation of the stop motions of his predecessors. These changes gave practical life to the machine, and overthrew the barrier that obstructed the advance of the textile industry. They were, however, only a few of the improvements added in perfecting the power-loom, such as the automatic temple to hold the cloth extended and prevent drawing of the weft, the shuttle-guard to prevent accidental jumping of the shuttle from the race, the perfect weft-stop to bring the loom to a stand on breakage or failure of the weft, the protector mechanism to obviate a “smash” when the shuttle failed to box, and the loose reed, all of which stand out in bold relief as evidences of the progressive tendencies of the age, and combined in about the year 1838, more than a half century after Cartwright’s first conception of the idea, to complete the practical power-loom.

The loom had not reached a stage of mechanical perfection; much yet remained to be done, but the plain power-loom of this period was both a practical and financial success. By its immediate predecessor, the hand-loom, a good weaver and assistant could work from forty to fifty picks per minute, and weave plain cloth. By the power-loom of 1840, one weaver could “tend” two looms running from 100 to 120 picks per minute and produce the same cloth. Without passing through the various steps which culminated in the power-loom for plain cloth, now in use, and tracing the causes that led to perfection of details, the amazing advance from the ancient and 18th-century hand loom to the power-loom of 1840 and that of to-day may well be shown by comparing the machines themselves.

Such was the simple form of the power-loom. One half of the warps were alternately raised and lowered for the shot of weft; but as a woven fabric is one in which the warp and weft are united by passing them over and under each other, the figure or pattern of the cloth will be varied as the threads are crossed in different combinations, and this will depend on the order of raising and lowering the warp threads, and the introduction of different characters and colors of weft. This brings up for review the most important parts of the loom structure—the shedding mechanism and shuttle-box motions—through whose agencies the most beautiful and complicated designs are produced.

Shedding mechanism was present of course in all looms, but in the power-looms of the early part of this century it was confined to tappets adjusted on a revolving shaft, and the number of heddles was limited to six or eight. Fairly good twills and other like fabrics could be produced within the limits136 of the few heddles, but with the introduction of the “dobbie,” or that part of the loom which raises and lowers the harness-frames, a new era in fancy weaving was inaugurated. By this ingenious device as many as thirty-six or even forty heddles could be used and raised at will to form figures. The creation of the dobbie belongs to the 19th century, and it is found in practical form about 1863 in the United States under the name of the American or Knowles dobbie. The essentials are the two cylinder gears revolving constantly, the vibrating gears, carried on the end of pivoted arms and having teeth on a part of their periphery, the harness jacks connected to the heddle frames, and the links joining the vibrating gears and harness jacks in such manner that part revolution of the former causes the latter to move the connected heddle frame, and consequently the warp threads, up or down. A pattern chain determines what vibrator gears shall engage the cylinder gears, and, once the chain is fitted to the design to be woven, nothing remains for the loom tender but to oversee the operation of the machine.

Another form of dobbie, not less popular than the Knowles, developed into a perfect automatic device about fifty years ago in England. Here two137 reciprocating knives are engaged, under the direction of a pattern chain, by one of two hooked jacks connected to the harness levers, and the shed is again formed without human intervention. Other forms of dobbie structures have been evolved during the last fifty years, but these two, with some modifications and additions of details, have come extensively into practical use, and represent the zenith of development at the present time. By their aid great variety is rendered possible in the design on the resulting fabric. The figured tablecloths, damasks, twills, satins, bordered and cross-bordered fabrics, are now possible at a cost of a thousandth part only of that incurred when produced by any of the old types of machines.

The subject of shedding, i. e., of opening the warp-threads to afford a passage for the shuttle, is so inseparably connected with the name of Jacquard, that attention is now carried to that wonderful invention evolved in the first few years of the present century, and by the use of which it may truly be said that anything can be woven as figure in a fabric that can be designed by the hand of man. It is as well adapted for the finest silks as for heavy carpets and figured velvets, and by an operation theoretically so simple as to excite wonder that it remained hidden until this age. Jacquard138 was a native of France and exhibited his machine complete in 1804, but so bitter was the opposition that the first machine was destroyed and burned. Its merits were clear, however, and reconstruction and general adoption in France followed soon after. It has since been applied not only for shedding but for every purpose where mechanical operations could be controlled by a pattern. In brief, this machine simply controls each warp thread separately by a cord having a hook attached. These hooks are arranged near the path of a reciprocating griffe or frame carrying cross bars, and are controlled, as to engagement with the bars, by a card perforated according to a pattern; thus any one or any number of threads can be raised at will. The dobbie controls harness frames each carrying a large number of warp threads; the Jacquard controls every thread separately. The greatly increased capacity of the latter machine is apparent. Thus a 1500-hook Jacquard will do the work of thirty dobbies of fifty jacks each.

The hand-shuttle box mechanism of Kay’s time has developed into the machine operated as a sliding or revolving shuttle-box controlled by pattern devices, which, being added to a dobbie or Jacquard equipped loom within the last twenty-five years, presents the highest point of perfection attained in the textile art. In such looms the warp threads, arranged in any colors, may be raised at will collectively or individually, any one of ten or twelve different colored wefts may be introduced as desired, and combinations may thus be formed to produce designs of the most complicated nature.

Pile fabrics, cut, uncut, and tufted, represent a type quite distinct from those produced on the ordinary fancy loom just described, and, in the form of velvets, imitation animal skins, and Brussels carpet, were almost unknown prior to the invention of Samuel Bigelow of Boston, in 1837. Fabrics of this character, if made at all, were the products of tedious hand methods, and on account of the consequent high price were the exclusive property of the very wealthy. Carpets with pile surface had been made by the Persians and Turks ages ago, by tying pieces of woolen yarn around longitudinal or warp threads, and binding the whole together by a weft at intervals; and such tufts, being carefully selected as to color, were made to present rich designs, but, like all other hand-produced fabrics, these were the property of the few.

The pile fabric loom of Bigelow opened the way for an advance in the carpet industry which continues to the present time; its ultimate effect being to place carpets within the reach of the humble cottager; and floors which were strewn with brush, or at best concealed by the home-made rag carpet, now became covered by a soft and beautifully figured fabric. This loom was a practical machine, and at once commended itself to the manufacturer. It consisted of the old power-loom provided with a Jacquard, already well understood, to which was added an attachment to introduce wires at intervals as false weft, and bind the warp around them by the usual weft threads. The wires being withdrawn after a few shots had been woven, left the warp loops standing, and these loops being formed under the dictates of the Jacquard, any character of beautiful design could be produced. Velvets, brocades, even the fine imitation of sealskin, are the simple products of this form of power-loom when the pile loops are cut. Greater cheapness in weaving cut pile fabrics has been secured by a slight modification in the Bigelow loom, so that two fabrics could be woven at one time. This idea was introduced about139 1850, and it contemplated weaving the two fabrics face to face, keeping them separated by the usual pile wires of Bigelow, and passing the pile threads from one fabric to the other. Upon cutting the two cloths apart through the threads uniting them, two cut pile or velvet fabrics resulted. This loom required the service of two shuttles and double the number of warp-beams, but it worked well, and is to-day largely in use and well adapted to its purpose.

The demand for tufted pile fabrics, meaning those in which the pile is formed from tufts or yarns, individually tied to the foundation fabric, and of which the rich Turkish and Persian rugs are examples, had not been met by the Bigelow loom; in fact it was only about forty years ago that the mechanical production of such fabrics became possible. Smith and Skinner were the pioneers to enter this field, and the first, by the aid of machinery, to compete with the cheap hand-labor of the orientals. The invention of a machine that will select any desired color from a large number of yarns, carry it between the warp-threads at the exact spot necessary to form the figure, tie it around these threads, cut it off to the length necessary to form an even and smooth surface, return the unused portion to place, and do all quickly, accurately, and with little cost, is an achievement that may rightly claim the140 admiration of the industrial world. Yet this is what the machine inaugurated by Smith and Skinner does to-day. The general movements and complicated parts of the power-loom are present as for weaving a plain fabric, and on beams or large spools carried by a chain, under the control of a pattern, are arranged the tuft yarns, in the order in which they should appear in the figure. Through the pattern devices the proper spool or beam is brought into position to be seized by a pair of fingers which rise, take the spool from the chain, lower it to the warp, pass the ends of the tuft yarn through and around the proper warp thread, hold them till the insertion of a binding weft, then, when they have been properly cut to length, return the spool into its place in the chain. This creation of mechanical genius takes rank with the wonders of the spinning mule and, like that machine, passes through its entire operation with the precision of an automaton. By its aid close imitations of the oriental hand-made rugs are placed before the world at one quarter the former price, and, as a result, the fine moquette and axminster carpets lend their beauty to nearly every home in the land.

The credit for improving the power-loom so as to adapt it for weaving fancy cassimeres and suitings, belongs to William Crompton, a native of England, who came to the United States in 1836, and shortly thereafter, in the Middlesex Mills at Lowell, Mass., constructed and operated the first fancy cassimere power-loom, not only in this country, but in the world. Prior to this the harness for all woolen and worsted power-looms was worked by cams, and the cloth was woven plain; but Crompton’s loom of 1840 started a new era in the woolen industry, rendering it possible to produce any fancy weave by an arrangement of pattern chain and large number of harnesses in connection with the change shuttle-boxes. Improvements followed, by the substitution of the reverse shuttle-box motion in 1854, the perfection of the general loom structure in 1857, the addition of the upright lever harness motion in 1864, and the centre-stop in 1879, so that at the present time this machine is adapted to run at high speeds and weave at moderate cost the most complicated designs in woolen and worsted—such as shawls, checks, suitings, and all forms of fancy cassimeres.

The general industrial activity in all matters pertaining to textile manufacture between the years 1835 and 1860, brought forth many forms of looms of special adaptation to meet the increasing demands of society. The narrow-ware loom appeared in the third decade of this century, and the addition of the dobbie, or Jacquard, later, equipped this loom for the simultaneous production of several ribbons, or narrow fabrics, side by side, having plain or figured effect. The lay was divided into several reed spaces, and a corresponding number of shuttles, operated by rack and pinion, carried the weft-threads through the adjacent warp.

About the middle of this century, and until the adoption of the more rich and delicate fabrics, hair-cloth was the accepted covering for furniture, and power-looms for its production quickly answered the demand. They reached such a degree of perfection and efficiency in this country that almost the entire industry was centred here. This fabric was made from the hair of horses’ tails as weft, and a strong cotton warp; and as the weft could not be wound upon bobbins, as usual, each separate hair was inserted by an ingenious device made to reciprocate through the shed, and select one out of a bundle141 of hairs cut to the same length. The conception of a power device capable of the delicate operation necessary to weave hair-cloth, could never have been realized except in a highly intelligent manufacturing community; but in 1870, Rhode Island alone produced on such machines over 600,000 yards, consuming thereby the hair of about eight hundred thousand horse-tails.

The evolution of the lappet loom started between 1840 and 1850 in England and Germany. It sought to enhance the pleasing effect of plain fabrics, by placing an embroidered or raised figure over the surface during the weaving process. Near the lower edge of ladies’ skirts, on the ends of neckties and like articles, an embroidered effect was desirable; and this has been secured by the lappet attachment to the present power-loom. In this a needle is mounted in appropriate location, usually back of the lay, and through an eye in the end thereof the lappet thread is led from a suitable supply. This needle is normally either above or below the warp. When a spot or figure is wanted, it is caused to move into the plane of the opposite warps of the shed, under the direction of suitable controlling pattern mechanisms. The shuttle being then shot, the lappet thread appears upon the surface, and it may be made to thus appear as often as desired; its position being shifted as necessary under the guidance of a pattern-chain to form, in embroidery effect, any character of small design.

142 Closely allied to the lappet loom in the effect produced is the swivel-shuttle loom, which has come extensively into use during the last thirty years to supply demands for spotted or embroidered figures. The loom is of the plain type, having small swivel-shuttles movable in carrier blocks, which are secured to the supporting bar near the top of the lay-reed, in convenient location to permit the shuttles to be depressed into the shed. Each swivel-shuttle is provided with a rack engaging a suitable operating pinion to move the shuttles simultaneously from one carrier to the next. Normally these shuttles are held above the warp plane, and the loom in this condition weaves tabby or twill. At the desired moment, the supporting-bar is lowered by a cam or Jacquard to bring the shuttles in the shed; the shuttles are moved from one carrier to the next adjacent, and then all are raised to their normal position above the warp. The ground weft is laid and the beat-up takes place. Repetition develops a spot or figure at intervals across the entire fabric, and with the use of different colored swivel-threads the greatest diversity of embroidered effect is secured over the entire ground. Some of the most beautiful spotted silks for ladies’ dresses and fancy scarfs, never before contemplated, are now woven on this loom at prices that are very moderate for such a class of goods.

A radical departure from the paths traveled by prior inventors was inaugurated about 1859, in adapting the power-loom for weaving tubular fabrics, resulting twenty years later in perfecting a machine in which the warp threads were arranged in circular series and the weft laid in the circular shed by a continuously moving shuttle. Fire-hose and like tubular cloths resulted. Rapid development continued from the middle of the present century, so that nearly every conceivable form of loom, from the light running plain fabric and gingham looms to the heavy structures for weaving canvas and wire cloth, claimed the attention of the inventor; and in this last decade of the century looms are constructed to weave anything that can be woven. Wire, slats, cane, straw, and glass, as well as the light fibres of cotton, wool, or silk, are now easily manipulated on the power-loom and woven into cloths, mattings, baskets, cane-seats for furniture, bottle-covers, and ever so many irregular forms that, in the dormant condition of this industry prior to the nineteenth century, were quite beyond consideration of the most active enthusiast of the art.

Wonderful as these achievements have been, the restless ambition of inventive genius remains unsatisfied. Improvements continue—especially in the United States, under the fostering care of a liberal patent system—and attempts are now being made, and with success, to form the power-loom into a thoroughly automatic machine incapable of producing any but the best quality of cloth. Upon the breakage or undue slackening of a warp thread, the loom would continue to weave and produce imperfect fabric until the attendant had pieced the broken end or adjusted the slack thread. Means were devised some years ago to remedy this defect, but with only partial success until near the close of this century. Breakage or failure more often occurred in the weft, however, and though the weft stop-motion successfully detected the fault and stopped the loom, yet much valuable time was lost, and constant attention was needed to supply new filling. Progressive tendencies of the closing years of this decade have sought to meet this difficulty. As a result,143 means are now provided whereby, on failure or breakage of the weft, the loom discharges its imperfect filling from the shuttle, supplies itself with a new weft from the hopper, places it in the shuttle, and continues to weave. Such a loom provided with a warp stop-motion is almost incapable of producing imperfect cloth, and so long as the warps remain intact and the hopper is kept supplied with weft-bobbins, it will continue to weave. In fact, in many mills of the New England States these looms are now left to run during the dinner hour without an attendant, and no imperfect cloth is produced.

Such machines are almost independent of human attention, yet they are the evolution of the old-time hand loom. Just one hundred years ago the hand loom, running at 40 or 50 picks to the minute, required the watchful care of an expert weaver; in 1840, the same weaver could “tend” from two to four power-looms running 100 to 120 picks; to-day he oversees from 10 to 16 looms running from 150 to 200 picks.

The homespun, with its old familiar butternut dye, has disappeared. The spinning-wheel and loom no longer occupy a part of every home. In their stead, the farmer, as he looks beyond the thriving cornfields, beholds the reeking chimneys of a thousand mills as they proclaim the majesty of the power machines. The fabrics produced are beautiful and varied in design, and their cost so low as to excite wonder that such progress could have been the result of one hundred years of industrial activity.

The emancipation of knitting, as a domestic occupation, dates from the romantic experiences of William Lee, a subject of Queen Elizabeth, of whom it is related that while watching the deft fingers of his lady-love guide the144 knitting needle from loop to loop, conceived the idea of performing the operation by mechanical means. It is a singular coincidence also that the invention of this the first machine for knitting purposes, like that of the power-loom for weaving, should have emanated from the hands of a student and clergyman, unfamiliar with the art.

Lee’s device was naturally crude. It contained only twelve needles, arranged in a row with about seven or eight to the inch, but it successfully formed a knitted web. Further progress in the art was slow, on account of the strong opposition to all machines which seemed likely to deprive the hand artisan of occupation. The Queen refused to grant a patent to Lee for this reason, and knitting remained the exclusive prerogative of women for many years. Like the spinning-wheel, however, the hand knitting-needle beheld a rival, which in the diversity of human wants was destined to create one of the great industrial pursuits of the age.

Stockings, like all other garments, were first made by sewing together pieces of linen, silk, cotton, or woolen cloth, resulting in a poorly fitting article, prolific of uncomfortable seams. Knitting the entire hose in a single piece by hand needles overcame these defects to an extent, and the Lee machine opened the way for the production of such articles on a scale that now furnishes the civilized world.

Lee’s machine produced a straight web which required to be cut and sewn to shape; then to it was added the ribbing device and the narrowing and widening attachment, to shape the web to fit the body without cutting; but still a seam existed in the stocking where the edges united. In 1816, however, M. I. Brunel built a circular machine having an endless row of needles, and in 1831, Timothy Bailey, of New York, applied power to the knitting frame; the result being that at this time a tubular seamless fabric could be produced on a power machine.

The latch-needle, which has given to the knitting machine great capacity and diversity of product, was not invented until about 1847, by Mr. Aiken, of New Hampshire. A period of development then set in that continues to the present time. The needles by cam mechanism were made independently operative in a circular carrier; narrowing and widening devices to produce pouches, such as the heels and toes of stockings, were added, as was also feeding mechanism for the introduction of different colored yarn, or a reinforcing thread. Such machines, of 1868 and 1870, would form a stocking or undergarment well fitted to the form; but they required the constant attention of a skilled knitter, until pattern mechanism was introduced to control the time of introduction of the colored or additional thread, and the place for formation of the narrowed or widened web. In forming the heel and toe pockets, a part of the needles are thrown out of action, and the movements to operate the active needles are changed from round and round, or circular work, to reciprocating. At each reciprocation one or more needles, at the end of the series, are rendered inactive, until one half the required pocket is formed; then they are successively returned to action, and circular knitting resumed. It may be also an additional thread is introduced to reinforce the wearing qualities of the heel and toe, or a differently colored yarn may be thrown in to give figure, but all such movements are now automatically controlled by a pattern mechanism. The ribbed leg portion of a stocking is formed either145 in the same machine that fashions the foot or in a separate machine to which the foot is transferred, but in either case the pattern mechanism again controls.

Within the last twenty years this art has been so greatly improved, especially in the hosiery line, that the automatic machine of to-day passes through the entire operation of knitting the article, finishing it off, and starting afresh without other aid than a supply of yarn. Moreover, the machine now to be considered practical must be so constructed that it will continue thus to operate without repairs or loss of time from month to month; and its daily output will average more than the old hand machines could accomplish in a week. By hand knitting one hundred loops could be formed per minute; by Lee’s machine as many as fifteen hundred were possible in the same time; but to-day, the automatic machine will average between 300,000 and 400,000 loops, and at the same time will produce a finer web, shaped to fit the form of the wearer.

Such comparisons reveal the vitally important progress made in the knitting industry, through which most of our underwear, stockings, scarfs, neck-comforts, and woolen gloves are supplied. The labor and time saving devices developed in this class of machines, and the fact that unskilled workmen may “tend” from fifteen to twenty of them, largely accounts for the universal adoption of warm and comfortable wearing apparel by all classes of society.

The number of patents granted on textile machinery during the nineteenth century furnishes an index to the progress made. Prior to 1800, less than one hundred patents were granted in the United States, while since that time, and up until July, 1895, about 15,200 patents were issued, covering tangible and material improvements over the old structures. The beneficent effects of these inventions are attested by the wonderful and continuous reduction in cost to the consumer of all kinds of textile fabrics. For the manufacturer, these have made possible increased production in a given time with less manual labor. When it is remembered that the labor cost is about one half the total cost of production of textile fabrics, it will be apparent that the beneficial effects of any labor-saving device are felt as well by the consumer as the producer.

In 1870 the number of textile establishments in the United States was 3035, giving occupation to 146,897 employees, and consuming annually 359,420,829 pounds of textile fibres, while in 1890 the number of establishments had increased to 4114, employing 511,897 hands, and consuming the enormous amount of 1,572,548,933 pounds of fibres; representing progress and growth in the textile arts not excelled by any other manufacturing industry.

Food and clothing constitute the primary wants of man. The former grew ready for his use as a natural product of the soil. The latter he had to produce by artificial means to afford that protection which nature failed to146 provide. Next to agriculture, therefore, man’s early attention was directed to securing a covering for the body. Looking back through the vista of years dimmed by the mists of very remoteness, we find the animal and vegetable kingdoms destined to contribute to his needs. There were the blue flax-fields; cotton-bolls, scattered like powdered snow about the land, coquetting in wanton abandon with winds tempered by an all-wise Power to the shepherd-watched sheep; goats roaming the vale of Cashmere; silk-worms of Ceres, and the grasses of spring, overflowing with allurements of assistance for his adornment. With these essentials has man wrought a mighty miracle. The genius of Industrial Art, awakened by the fascinating influence of Nature, invoked the Goddess of Invention, approaching her temple not with loud acclaim, as marked the herculean strides in other arts and sciences, but modestly, though tenaciously and most effectually. For not more is woman emancipated by the sewing machine than both sexes by the doing away of the spinning-wheel, the household knitter, and hand-worked loom. Not more do electricity and steam power facilitate the various occupations of man than do the many textured fabrics add to his needs.

In all the phases of social life is this industry manifest. If the banquet hall is warmed and lighted by electricity, so, also, is it adorned with tapestries, silken and artistic, napery surpassingly smooth, and laces intricately wrought.

How like a fairy tale reads the evolution of textile progress! Conceptions, infinite in range and variety, alike pleasing to the eye and gratifying to vanity, have been spun, woven, knit, and embroidered, until, standing as we do at the dawn of another century, upon the summit of unparalleled achievements, we ask, “Can the mind conceive, the heart desire, or the hand execute more.”

147

The closing years of the nineteenth century, both in Europe and the United States, are characterized by a religious life as phenomenal with respect to development and influence as those of the eighteenth were phenomenal for lethargy and decline. “Never,” says a writer in the North British Review, “has a century risen on England so void of soul and faith as that which opened with Anne (1702), and reached its misty noon beneath the second George (1732–1760),—a dewless night succeeded by a sunless dawn. The Puritans were buried and the Methodists were not born.” In this opinion, all historians and essayists concur.

Among the clergy were many whose lives were of the Dominie Sampson order, described in Scott’s “Guy Mannering”—men whose lives were the scandal and reproach of the church; who openly taught that reason is the all-sufficient guide; that the Scriptures are to be received only as they agree with the light of nature; pleading for liberty while running into the wildest licentiousness. Montesquieu, indeed, did not hesitate to charge Englishmen generally with being devoid of every genuine religious sentiment. “If,” he says, “the subject of religion is mentioned in society, it excites nothing but laughter. Not more than four or five members of the House of Commons are regular attendants at church.”

From the colleges and universities, the great doctrines of the Reformation were well-nigh banished, a refined system of ethics, having no connection with Christian motives, being substituted for the principles of a divinely revealed law.

On every side faith seemed to be dying out; indeed, would have died out but for the tremendous reformation in life and morals induced by the self-denying and heroic labors of the Wesleys and their coadjutors, to whom, more than to any beside, England owes her salvation from a relapse into barbarism,—a service which in later years won for the Wesleys a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

On the Continent, religious conditions were no better. In France the masses were yet reeling amid the excesses of the Revolution. Voltaire and Rousseau were the oracles and prophets of their times,—the popular idols of the hour. Voltaire, indeed, openly boasted that he alone would laugh Christianity out of the court of public opinion, declaring the whole system to be outgrown and powerless. Germany, given over to theological speculation, crushed beneath the weight of the Napoleonic wars, and torn by internal dissensions, gave but little hope that upon her altars the dying fire of the great Reformation would ever again flame forth as in the older and more heroic days.

In the United States, similar conditions prevailed, especially during the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth. Forms of148 infidelity the most radical and revolting prevailed throughout the land. Many of the leading statesmen, in private at least, did not scruple to confess themselves atheists or deists. Thomas Paine was the popular idol; his “Age of Reason” almost as common as the Bible itself. The majority of the men taking part with him in the founding of the government, with but few exceptions, held theological sentiments akin to his, although declining to participate in his violent and brutal assaults upon the Scriptures and the institutions of Christian society.

Speaking of the earlier days of the century, Chancellor Kent, in one of his published works, declared that in his younger days the men of his acquaintance in professional life who did not avow infidelity were comparatively few. Bishop Meade, of Virginia, in his autobiography, states that “scarcely a young man of culture could be found who believed in Christianity.”

The colleges and universities were so filled with youthful skeptics that when, in 1795, Timothy Dwight assumed the presidency of Yale, he found but four or five willing to admit that they were members of churches. So far did they go in their devotion to the French infidelity prevalent at the time, that the seniors of the college were commonly known among themselves by the names of Diderot, D’Alembert, Robespierre, Rousseau, Danton, and the like. Harvard, Princeton, William and Mary, the University of Virginia,—all the colleges indeed,—were as thoroughly hotbeds of skepticism as nurseries of learning.

149 The period, too, was one of internecine strife among the feeble churches themselves. Divisions on doctrinal lines were incessant; departures from the faith as numerous as they were disastrous. Of the missionary spirit so gloriously characteristic of the nineteenth century there was not even a trace. Up to 1793, not a missionary society was in existence on either side of the ocean. The same was true of hospitals, asylums, of every form of organized effort for the reclamation of the masses or the amelioration of human ill.

In Boston, as late as 1811, men of literary or political distinction, eager to listen to the marvelous revival preaching of the celebrated Dr. Griffin, attended his services surreptitiously, or in disguise, fearful lest knowledge of attendance upon religious services of such vulgar character should detract from the dignity of their social standing.

If, however, the times were bad, the outlook for Christianity dark, the period, nevertheless, was not wholly without gleams of light. The spiritual leaven imparted by Whitefield in his mighty preaching tours, by Edwards, Dwight, Asbury, Griffin, and others of equally heroic stamp, gradually began to work,—slowly at first, but with ever accelerating movement,—until at last the triumphant successes of the present century began their stately march. By degrees a new life appeared among the churches, heralding the dawn of a new and brighter day. Revivals of religion, many of them powerful and sweeping, broke out in many parts of the country. Massachusetts, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, were in succession the theatres of movements which, before they had spent their force, had completely revolutionized the conditions of unfaith, immorality, and spiritual apathy so long prevailing. These upheavals of spiritual power, continuing during the first twenty-five years of the century, laid broad and deep the foundations of the mighty achievements of the church which we are now to consider. How extensive, how wonderful, have been these achievements can perhaps best be understood by a consideration of the changed conditions marking the close of the century.

In the first place, that the people of the United States are a religious people may be inferred from the amazing number and variety of religions abounding and flourishing within our borders. It may be doubted that in any other Christian country of the earth there can be found so many varieties of religion, so many church organizations, so many and diverse peculiarities of doctrine, polity, and usage, as here. It is a land of churches; churches for whites, churches for blacks; churches large and churches small; churches orthodox and churches heterodox; churches Christian and churches pagan; churches Catholic and churches Protestant; churches liberal and churches conservative, Calvinistic and Armenian, Unitarian and Trinitarian; representing nearly every phase of ecclesiastical and theological thought. As Americans have distanced the world in the extent and variety of their material inventions, so have they distanced the world in the extent and variety of their theological and ecclesiastical forms. The state cannot control the church, and the church is as free as the state. As a man may freely transfer his citizenship from one State to another, to each in turn, so may he, if he shall so desire, pass from one ecclesiastical communion to another, until he shall have exhausted the list. If, perchance, no one of the one hundred and forty-three distinct denominations enumerated in the census tables shall suit150 him, there remain innumerable separate, independent congregations, no one of which lays claim to denominational name, creed, or connection, in some one of which he yet may find an ecclesiastical home. The principle of division, indeed, has been carried so far in America that it would be a difficult task to find the religious body so small as, in the judgment of some, to be incapable of further division.

It is to be observed, however, that the differences of the one hundred and forty-three denominations into which our religious population is divided are, in many instances, so slight that, should consolidation be attempted, the one hundred and forty-three could easily be reduced to a comparatively small number, and this with but little change in doctrine, polity, or usage. Consolidation into organic union, however, is hardly likely to occur in the near future, even were such consolidation desirable. In the first place such a result would be contrary to the genius of Protestantism, based, as it is, on the absolute right of private judgment with respect to matters of faith and morals, and, in the second place, it would be contrary to human experience. “Religious controversies,” as Gladstone says, “do not, like bodily wounds,151 heal by the genial forces of nature. If they do not proceed to gangrene and mortification, at least they tend to harden into fixed facts, to incorporate themselves into laws, character, and tradition, nay, even into language; so that at last they take rank among the data and presuppositions of common life, and are thought as inexorable as the rocks of an iron-bound coast.” In religion, when men separate, the severance is like the severance of the two early friends of whom the poet speaks:—

If, however, the diversities are great—increasing rather than diminishing—the “unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace” with respect to all essentials of doctrine is as remarkable as the diversity in the outward form. Never, indeed, since the dawn of Christianity, were the members of the diversified bodies of the general church of Christ in such thorough accord, in such closeness of attachment, with such generous recognition of all that is good in each of the several bodies, as now. Even the Roman Catholic Church, intolerant in all lands where its sway is practically undisputed, in the United States, at least, has caught something of the broader toleration of Protestants, giving to its millions of communicants a better and truer gospel than in those countries where it does not come into contact with Protestantism, while freely coöperating with other churches in various works of philanthropy and reform.

In the next place, that we are a religious, a Christian people may be argued from the steady and enormous increase during the century of the material and spiritual forces of the church of Christ, an increase phenomenal even amid the wonders of a phenomenal century. Whether we look at the increase of edifices or the multiplication of communicants, the results in either case are sufficient for both congratulation and amazement. Were it possible to obtain from the earlier records exact statistics of the actual number of edifices and communicants existing at the opening of the century, comparison would be comparatively easy. Such, however, is not the case, the records having been imperfectly kept and indifferently preserved. The census of 1890, indeed, was the first to furnish exhaustive and really reliable results.

Taking that census as a basis, and adding to its figures those to be obtained152 from the year books of the various bodies up to and including 1894, the religious strength of the United States may be summarized as follows: Churches, 189,488; religious organizations, 158,695; ordained ministers, 114,823; members or communicants, 15,217,948; value of church property, $670,000,000; seating capacity of churches, 43,000,000, while in the 23,000 places where organizations which own no edifices hold their services, accommodations could be found for 2,250,000 more. In the majority of the Protestant churches, at least two services are held on each Sabbath; in the Catholic, six or seven.

Granting these premises, it is but reasonable to say that if, on any given day, the entire population of the country should desire to attend at least one religious service, accommodations could readily be found for the entire number,—ample proof that the spiritual interests of the millions are by no means neglected so far as privileges of worship are concerned. It is a showing all the more remarkable when we consider that all this vast provision is furnished on the basis of voluntary offerings, the state contributing not a dollar for religious purposes. It is probable that in these churches and edifices, on Sabbaths and on weekdays, not less than 15,000,000 services are held each year, to say nothing of sessions of Sunday-schools, meetings of Young People’s Associations, and gatherings of kindred character. In them, too, not less than ten millions of sermons and addresses on religious themes are annually delivered.

The number of enrolled communicants, or members, however, by no means expresses the real strength of the religious life of the nation. To get at that, we must multiply each Protestant communicant by the 2.5 adherents allowed in all statistical calculations. Proceeding on this basis, omitting for the time all Catholics, Jews, Theosophists, members of Societies for Ethical Culture, Spiritualists, Latter-Day Saints, and kindred bodies, and multiplying the 15,200,000 Protestant members by 2.5, we have over 50,000,000 as the total Protestant population of the country. Adding to these 50,000,000 the Catholic population, estimated by Catholic authorities as being 15 per cent. larger than the number of Catholic communicants, we have 57,062,000 as the total Christian population, leaving only about 7,000,000 who are neither communicants nor adherents. Of the 7,000,000 opposed, for various reasons, to the churches, comparatively few are to be reckoned as either infidels or atheists; while, on the other hand, it is true that of the 57,000,000 reckoned as either communicants or adherents, millions are Christians only in name, either never attending the services of the churches, or at the best only at rare intervals. Gratifying as is this splendid exhibit of religious devotion on the part of the American people, the fact that there are millions in our land whose allegiance to Christian doctrine is but nominal, with millions more upon whose lives religion exercises no appreciable influence whatever, is a sufficient proof of the enormous task yet confronting the churches of Christ, if we are to stand before the nations as the great distinctive Christian nation of the world. The stupendous gain, however, in ninety-four years, of over 14,853,076 in Protestant churches alone is a record of religious progress unparalleled in the history of the world.

Advancing to the question of distribution of the religious forces enumerated, we find that while these forces are distributed throughout every State153 and under one hundred and forty-three denominational names, they are, nevertheless, massed largely in a few denominations and in a comparatively few States. Competent authorities estimate that the five largest denominations comprise fully 60 per cent. of the entire number of communicants; the ten largest, 75 per cent. With respect to communicants, the Catholic Church is first, with 7,510,000; the Methodist (all bodies) second, with 5,405,076; the Baptist third, with 3,717,373; the Presbyterian fourth, with 1,278,332; the Lutheran fifth, with 1,233,072.

With respect to population, reckoning the Catholic population at 7,510,000—which figures include children under ten years of age—and adding to the communicant strength of the four other bodies mentioned the 2.5 adherents allowed for each communicant, we have the following: Methodist population, 18,918,466; Baptist, 12,990,805; Presbyterian, 5,525,162; Lutheran, 4,358,752; total Protestant population, 50,000,000; Catholic, 7,510,000.

With respect to value of church property, the Methodists are first with154 $132,000,000; the Catholics second, $118,000,000; the Presbyterians third, with $95,000,000; the Episcopalians fourth, with $82,835,000; the Baptists fifth, with $82,390,000. The total value of church property, reckoning all denominations, reaches the enormous sum of $670,000,000.

To further particularize with respect to the lesser groups into which the religious forces are divided is impossible within the limits allowed for this chapter. To do it would require a volume instead of a chapter. The following summary, however, may suffice to show the gain of a century of religious effort:—

When one remembers that one hundred years ago it was a common boast of infidels that “Christianity would not survive two generations in this country,” the above exhibit shows a religious progress unequaled in the history of the kingdom of God in any land or any age.

Turning to the field of missionary effort, we find that the spread of the Christian religion by missionary efforts, particularly during the last one hundred years, forms one of the brightest chapters in the records of human progress. Within this period, the triumphs of the first three centuries have been far more than repeated.

Following these early victories of the Christian faith came on, as all know, ages of darkness, dreary centuries, during the progress of which the power of the church gradually waned, and, with respect to purely spiritual activities, seemed to die away. The voice of exhortation ceased to be heard. Christian song was hushed. Even prayer closed its supplicating lips, and the church, overladen with corruption, worldliness, and human ambition, passed into the thick darkness of the long and disastrous eclipse of the Middle Ages. But amid the widespread darkness enveloping the world, even the ages known as the “Dark Ages” were not without their gleams of light. Among the Saracens and in the lands of the Orient, always were to be found heroic men and women toiling ceaselessly for the conversion of heathen nations to the Christ. Later on, subsequent to the thirteenth century, and especially during the centuries immediately following the discovery of the New World, the desire for the Christianizing of the world flamed into an all-absorbing passion. The tremendous labors of Xavier, of Loyola, and their followers, in every quarter of the globe, have long been the wonder and admiration of the world. Checked in Europe by the rise of the great Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church turned its energies to the acquisition of spiritual power in other lands, and with enormous success. Along the banks of the St. Lawrence,155 amid the wilds of Canadian forests, far away on the shores of the Great Lakes, thence southward to the Ohio, along the Mississippi, even to the Gulf; in far Cathay, in Ceylon, in Japan, in China, in Africa,—everywhere its missionaries could be found, heedless of hunger, of cold, of peril, reckless even of life, if by any means, whether by life or by death, they might “sprinkle many nations” and establish the holy emblem of the Christian faith.

Absorbed in the struggles going on in their own lands, Protestants made but little effort for the extension of the gospel in foreign fields, save the few but successful attempts made by the Moravians of Germany, always the most zealous of all Protestant bodies in lines of missionary service. What, however, was lacking in the way of missionary effort in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been more than made good in the glorious nineteenth, the distinctive missionary century of the Christian era. In the room of seven societies organized for world-wide gospel evangelization at the end of the last century, there are now in Europe and America between seventy and eighty organizations, employing a force of nearly three thousand American and European missionaries, and perhaps four times that number of native assistants. Full $10,000,000 are annually raised among the Protestant bodies alone for missionary service, while the great Roman Catholic Church prosecutes its work with a zeal equally unflagging. A brief survey of the progress of a hundred years of missionary effort will make it clear to all minds that the day is not far distant when the declaration of the prophet, “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, even as the waters cover the sea,” shall have abundant and magnificent realization.

At the beginning of this century, every island of the vast Pacific was closed against the gospel. To-day, nearly every one is under the influence,156 more or less extended, of Christian civilization. India, from Cape Comorin to the Punjaub, from the Punjaub to the Himalayas, from the Himalayas to Thibet,—at whose gates the gospel is now knocking,—has been covered with a network of mission stations, schools, colleges, and churches, closer by far in its interlacings than that which at the close of the third century had spread itself over the vast empire of the Cæsars. Of the Indian Archipelago, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Celebes, New Guinea, not to mention smaller groups of islands, are feeling the new life ever imparted by the advent of the Cross. Japan, too, hungry for reform, and full of the stir of the age, by granting entrance to the gospel, has within its borders already a numerous Christian population with scores of evangelical congregations. The same is true of the hermit nation, Corea. In the lands of Islam, from Bagdad to the Balkans, from Egypt to Persia, and throughout all Turkey, are to be found centres of missionary enterprise, the vast influence of which is now being sensibly felt in the changing life of those remarkable peoples. In Burmah, and recently in Siam, after years of patient and apparently hopeless service, fields are everywhere “white unto the harvest.” China, most populous of all heathen lands, is open to missionary effort from Canton to Peking, from Shanghai to Hon-Chow. Africa also, once, in its northern sections at least, the home of the learning, the art, the science, the religion of the world, awakening from the sleep of long and dreary centuries under the influence of Christian civilization, again demands the attention of the great nations of the world. Everywhere, east, west, north, south, it is being invaded all along the line of Cecil Rhodes’ great railway, stretching northward from Cape Town for three thousand miles, to meet the twenty-six hundred pushing down from the north,—from Senegal to Gaboon and from Gaboon to the Congo; on the shores of Tanganyika and along the banks of the Zambesi shine the lights of the gospel, which, wherever it has gone, has been the harbinger of a new and brighter day. Within the mighty domains of our own continent, upon the immense plains reaching from Labrador to the Pacific, upon the sterile coasts of Alaska, in the land of the Montezumas, in Central America, in South America, from Panama to Terra-del-Fuego, equally marvelous have been the steady gains resulting from a Christianity the forces of which, like the waters that enrich the continent, penetrate all the bays and estuaries of human society and influence all classes and conditions of men. Looking upon the transformations effected by the labors of a single century of Christian effort, one may surely say, “The peoples that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

Equally wonderful have been the vast contributions of the church in America to the great causes of education, philanthropy, and reform, particularly in the line of educational work. The service of the church in the great cause of education has never yet been fully recognized. Men forget, when charging the church with hostility to human progress, to freedom of thought and action, that until within a period of seventy years nearly everything accomplished for popular education was carried out under the auspices of the churches rather than under the direction of the state. Until 1825, the state had done next to nothing even in the development of its common schools. In the great State of Pennsylvania, the system had no existence until the157 year 1835. Even to-day, among the four hundred and fifty institutions of higher education in the various States, nearly all owe their foundation to the energy and sacrifice of Christian men and women. The total gifts of the churches to the cause of education, still existent in plant, in grounds and buildings, or in the form of endowment funds, reach the enormous aggregate of nearly $350,000,000, while the total of gifts to institutions of learning, largely from Christian sources, aggregate nearly $10,000,000 per year.

The religious activity of the century is further manifested in the enormous sums raised and expended for purposes of charity, reform, and general philanthropy. It would require an octavo volume of four hundred pages to catalogue the various benevolent and charitable organizations in the city of New York alone. Add to that volume the hundreds more which would be required to enumerate the additional thousands to be found in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston,—in fact in every city, town, and hamlet from the Atlantic to the Pacific, nine tenths of which are distinctively Christian,—and you have a faint idea, at least, of the vastness of the spiritual forces at work in158 these closing years of the century for the amelioration of human ill, the dispelling of moral and spiritual darkness, and the ushering in of the era of peace and good will, for the coming of which the church has so ceaselessly prayed. What these philanthropies are we cannot in detail enumerate. Classified, they are for the poor, for the laboring classes, for the sick, for fallen women, for free schools, for the aged, for the blind, the deaf, the insane, the impotent, the degraded, the outcast, for sailors, for the protection of animals, for city evangelization, for home missions, for foreign missions, for religious publications, for the publishing of the Holy Scriptures, for peace, for Young Men’s Associations, Young Women’s Associations, for every cause that appeals to the sentiment of brotherhood so characteristic of the age. In number they are legion. In origin, three fourths are the outgrowth of that spirit of Christian love without which they could not have been originated, and by which they are maintained and perpetuated. Those who assert that within this century Christianity has done more for humanity than in all the centuries preceding are doubtless correct. It has made men kind, made them humane. It has penetrated prisons, and with beneficent change. It has lifted the prisoner from damp and dreary dungeons into commodious structures, the pride of city and State. So far, indeed, have the reforms inspired by the gospel been carried, that men are beginning to inquire whether the limit has not been reached beyond which it may be dangerous to go.

Such are the general facts of the religious progress of a century in the United States. Reviewing them, we can easily discern the vast and commanding influence of religion—the Christian religion—upon the character and fortunes of our people. Among the forces working for the upbuilding of the Republic, religion stands preëminent, the most powerful, the most pervasive, the most irresistible of them all. A free church in a free state, all its edifices have been built by private contribution, all its magnificent benefactions sustained by voluntary offerings, induced in every instance by the principle of Christian love. A corporation, it holds its vast properties for the common good of all. A relief society, the scope of its sympathies is as wide as the wants of man. A university, it does more for the education of the masses than the public school system itself. An employer of labor, it utilizes the brains and energies of the most highly educated body of men to be found in the Republic’s broad domain. An organized beneficence, it outwatches Argus with his hundred eyes, outworks Briareus with his hundred arms. An asylum, it gathers within its protecting arms the halt, the maimed, the wounded of life’s great battle, comforting them in trouble, sustaining them in adversity, while ceaselessly pointing them to Him “who taketh away the sins of the world.” “Every corner-stone it lays,” as one has said, “it lays for humanity; every temple it opens, it opens for the world; every altar it establishes, it establishes for the salvation of men. Its spires are fingers pointing heavenward; its ministers are messengers of good tidings; its ambassadors, ambassadors of hope; its angels, angels of mercy.” Under all our institutions rest the Bible and the school-house,—Christianity and Education. Without them, the Republic is impossible; with them, we have Republican America for a thousand years.

159

Libraries are as old as civilization. Nothing marks civilized progress more distinctly than the collections of writings, whether on clay, stone, wood, papyrus, or parchment, which went to make up the libraries of ancient peoples. Such writings generally related to religion, laws, and conquests, and found their abode, in the form of archives, in capitals and temples. Recent explorations in Mesopotamia reveal collections, or libraries, of books inscribed on clay tablets, many of whose dates are beyond 650 B. C. These libraries seem to have found a home for the most part in royal palaces, and to have contained works abounding in instruction for the kings’ subjects. As unearthed and their contents deciphered, they throw much valuable light upon the remote history, as well as the arts, sciences, and literatures of Babylonia and Assyria.

In ancient Egypt collections of hieroglyphic writings were made in temples and in the tombs of kings from the earliest known dates. Some hieroglyphics still extant bear date prior to 2000 B. C., and one papyrus manuscript has been discovered whose supposed date is 1600 B. C. What were known as the sacred Books of Thoth—forty-two in number—constituted the Egyptian encyclopædia of religion and science, and became such a fruitful source of commentary and exposition, that by the time of the Grecian conquest they had grown in number of volumes to 36,325.

Of the libraries of the Greeks we have little positive knowledge, though it is abundantly asserted by late compilers that large collections of books (writings) once existed in the various Grecian cities. Pisistratus is said to have founded a library at Athens as early as 537 B. C. Strabo says that Aristotle collected the first known library in Greece, which he bequeathed to Theophrastus (B. C. 322), and which, by the vicissitude of war, finally found its way to Rome. At Cnidus there is said to have existed a special collection of works upon medicine. Xenophon speaks of the library of Euthydemus. Euclid and Plato are mentioned as book collectors. But by far the most renowned book collectors of the Greeks were the Ptolemies of Egypt, who gathered from Hellenic, Hebrew, and Egyptian sources that wonderful collection of volumes, or rolls, which became famous as the Alexandrine Library. This was composed of two libraries, one estimated at 42,800 volumes, or rolls, connected with the Academy, the other estimated at 490,000 volumes, or rolls, deposited in the Serapeum. It is said that these immense collections were regularly catalogued and kept under the supervision of competent librarians, till consumed by the Saracens at the time of their conquest of Egypt, A. D. 640.

The Romans at first paid little attention to literature. It is not until the last century of the republic that we hear of a library at Rome, and then it was not a native collection but a spoil of war. It was captured from Perseus of160 Macedonia and brought to Rome in B. C. 167. So Sulla captured the library of Apellicon, at Athens, in B. C. 86, and brought it to Rome. Lucullus brought to Rome a rich store of literature from his eastern conquests (B. C. 67). Wealthy men and scholars now began to form libraries at Rome, some of which became very large and valuable. It is here we first hear of the dedication of libraries to the public,—a step which made Rome for a time the resort of scholars from other nations, especially Greece. The most famous of the many imperial libraries of Rome was that founded by Ulpius Trajanus. It was called the Ulpian Library, and was at first founded in the forum of Trajan, but afterwards removed to the baths of Diocletian. In the fourth century there are said to have been as many as twenty-eight public libraries in Rome. Great, indeed, must have been their destruction under various vicissitudes, for when the Emperor Constantine moved the Roman capital to Constantinople, and founded his imperial library there, it numbered but a few thousand books. It was, however, greatly enlarged after his death—some say to 100,000 volumes. It was destroyed in A. D. 476, with the close of the Western Empire.

With the spread of Christianity there arose a new incentive to write and collect books. The church required both a literature and libraries as part of its organization. Pamphilus is said to have collected a library of 30,000 volumes, chiefly religious, at Cæsarea (A. D. 309), his object being to lend them out to readers. But as book-making and collecting became narrowed to the church, general literature was proscribed and libraries ceased to flourish, except as encouraged by the monastic orders. Such libraries were necessarily small and of a private character. Their books were manuscripts written or copied by the priests, up to the date of the invention of printing. The libraries of this class which grew in importance were those of the Swiss and Irish monasteries, not omitting those in England, as at Canterbury and York. The invasion of the Norsemen, in the ninth and tenth centuries, was generally fatal to the monastic libraries on both sides of the English channel.

In France, the library at Fulda seemed to retain its books and respect. It was greatly enlarged by Charlemagne, who also founded a more ostentatious one at Tours. With the revival of learning, and with the hope of opening a wider field to secular literature, Charles VI., of France, founded a royal library which numbered 1100 volumes by A. D. 1411. A similar library in England, that of the British crown, numbered 329 volumes at the time of Henry VIII. In contrast with these early royal efforts stood that of Corvinus, king of Hungary, whose library numbered 50,000 volumes, mostly manuscripts, in 1490. This imperial collection was burned by the Turks in 1540. About this time the nucleus of the modern Laurentian Library of Florence was formed.

In 1556, the Bibliothèque Nationale, or royal library of France, at Paris, was endowed by the king with power to demand a copy of every book printed in France. This power became the basis of the copyright tax, now universally levied by civilized nations, and which has been the means of greatly enriching all government libraries. In 1556 the royal library of France could boast of but 2000 volumes. In 1789 it contained 200,000 volumes, the largest number of any library then existing. At the end of the nineteenth century it still retains the distinction of being the most extensive library in the world, containing approximately 3,000,000 volumes.

161

162 In Italy the libraries, though venerable and very rich in rare collections of manuscripts, are not noted for the number of books which represent modern literature. The most noted library is the Biblioteca Vaticana, or library of the Vatican. It traces a vague history back to the fifth century, but its real foundation was in 1455. The number of volumes and manuscripts on its shelves is approximately 300,000.

In Spain and Portugal are national libraries in their respective capitals, Madrid and Lisbon. The national library of Spain contains some 560,000 volumes and manuscripts, while that of Lisbon contains over 200,000. Belgium and Holland are rich in libraries. The royal library at Brussels contains over 400,000 volumes. In 1830 it was made a part of the state archives and thrown open to the public. The national library of Holland was established in 1798 by uniting the library of the princes of Orange with the smaller libraries of the defunct states. It thus became the library of the States-General, but in 1815 it was converted into the present national library. It has a very valuable collection of books, numbering over 400,000. One of the best arranged and managed libraries in Europe is the Royal Library at Copenhagen. It was thrown open to the public in 1793, and has since been conducted under national auspices. Two copies of every book published in the kingdom must be deposited in this library. Its volumes have increased very rapidly during the nineteenth century, and now number over 550,000. The Royal Library of Sweden is located at Stockholm. It contains over 350,000 valuable volumes, and is admirably arranged and conducted. The University Library at Upsala is also a very valuable one, containing 300,000 volumes. There is also an excellent library of over 100,000 volumes connected with the university at Lund. The libraries of Norway, though not so large as those of Sweden, are numerous, valuable, and well managed. The University Library at Christiana contains over 330,000 volumes. In Russia, large and valuable libraries are not numerous outside of the cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw. The Imperial Library at St. Petersburg ranks as the richest in Europe, excepting the libraries of Paris and the British Museum. It is open to the public, and contains approximately 1,200,000 volumes.

Germany, with her multiplicity of minor capitals, her love of books and book-making, her numerous universities, excels every other European country in the number, extent, and value of her libraries. The largest is the Royal Library at Berlin, with approximately 1,000,000 volumes. It was founded by the “Great Elector” Frederick William, and opened as a public library in 1661. The Royal Library at Munich long rated as the largest in Germany, with its 1,200,000 volumes, inclusive of pamphlets, the latter numbering some 500,000. But it was thought to be unfair to class so many small and inconsequential works as books, so that the library at Berlin was given precedence. Still the Munich library is particularly rich in incunabula and other treasures derived from the monasteries, which were closed in 1803. The University library at Munich is also very rich in similar treasures. It contains well nigh 500,000 volumes. The other large libraries of Germany are the University library at Leipsic, with over 500,000 volumes; the Royal and City library at Augsburg, with 123,000; the Royal, at Bamberg, with 300,000 volumes; the University at Bonn, with 220,000 volumes; the Grand Ducal at Darmstadt, with 400,000 volumes; the Royal Public, at Dresden, with 410,000164 volumes; the University at Erlangen, with 185,000 volumes; the City, at Frankfort, with 190,000 volumes; the University at Freiburg, with 250,000 volumes; the University at Giessen, with 160,000 volumes; the Ducal Public, at Gotha, with 210,000 volumes; the Royal University at Göttingen, with 490,000 volumes; the City at Hamburg, with 510,000 volumes; the University at Heidelberg, with 410,000 volumes; the University at Jena, with 200,000 volumes; the University at Kiel, with 225,000 volumes; the University at Rostock, with 310,000 volumes; the University at Strassburg, with over 700,000 volumes; the University at Tübingen, with 320,000 volumes; the Grand Ducal at Weimar, with 230,000 volumes; the Brunswick Ducal, at Wolfenbüttel, with over 300,000 volumes. Besides these there are numerous others attached to various universities or publicly organized which have 100,000 volumes each.

In Austria-Hungary, the largest library is that of the Imperial Public, at Vienna. It was founded in 1440 by Emperor Frederick III., and has ever since been munificently supported by the Austrian princes. Few libraries in Europe contain more important collections or are better organized and housed. Its volumes number 540,000. Admission to its reading room is free, but the books are loaned out under rigid restrictions. The University Library of Vienna was founded by Maria Theresa, and has grown very rapidly, numbering nearly 500,000 volumes. In Vienna alone the number of libraries exceed one hundred, many of them of considerable extent. The various university libraries throughout Austria-Hungary are rich in volumes, particularly that at Cracow, with over 306,000 volumes, and at Innsbruck, with 175,000 volumes. The National Library at Budapest, Hungary, and also the University at the same place, have rich collections, numbering 465,000 and 212,000 volumes respectively.

In Switzerland libraries are very numerous and well conducted. The largest is that at Basel. It is called the Public University Library, and numbers 187,000 volumes. The next largest is the City Library, at Zurich, with 135,000 volumes. The smaller libraries of Switzerland exceed two thousand in number, and are, as a rule, rich in literary treasures descended from the ancient monasteries.

Though by no means as ancient as some others, the leading library of Great Britain, and the second in extent and importance in the world,—the National, at Paris, France, being first,—has had a phenomenal growth. It is located at London, and is known as the British Museum. It dates from 1753, when Parliament purchased, for £20,000, the Sir Hans Sloane collection, and afterwards consolidated therewith many other valuable collections. It was given the privilege of copyright, by which means, and by frequent and fortunate private bequests of books, it grew apace and became a national repository, not only of home-written works, but of the literature and rarities of all nations. The number of its volumes at present exceeds 1,650,000. London does not contain many public libraries, but there are numerous collections of scientific and special works of great value to those pursuing certain lines of knowledge. The second largest and most important collection in England is that of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, with some 530,000 volumes; followed by that of the University of Cambridge, with some 510,000 volumes. Next in extent and importance in Great Britain is the library of the Faculty of Advocates, in165 Edinburgh, Scotland. It dates from 1682, and contains at present about 400,000 volumes. The library of Trinity College, Dublin, was founded contemporaneously with the Bodleian, and easily ranks as the largest and most important in Ireland, with its 200,000 volumes, to which about 3000 are added annually. What has been said of the dearth of public libraries in London is in part true of all Great Britain. There are not a score of libraries in all her European domain that number over 100,000 volumes, and it is only within the nineteenth century that the public or free library system began to grow in favor. Indeed, such growth may be said to date from as late a period as 1850, when the Manchester Free Reference Library was established. It has shown in fifty years a most marvelous growth, and contains at present some 255,000 volumes.

Great Britain has not neglected to encourage the use of libraries among her colonists. At Ottawa, Canada, is the library of Parliament. It was founded in 1815, and grew slowly till 1841, when the two libraries of Upper and Lower Canada were consolidated. It was subsequently destroyed by fire, and in 1855 reëstablished. Since then it has grown rapidly, and at present contains over 150,000 volumes. The Laval University library, at Quebec, is the next most extensive in Canada, containing over 100,000 volumes. The South African Public Library was founded at Cape Town in 1818, and has grown to contain some 50,000 volumes, many of them of great importance as bearing on the languages and customs of African peoples. In Australia are many libraries of considerable extent, whose volumes are, as a rule, free to all readers. The largest of these is at Melbourne, and is called the Public Library of Victoria. It is a collection of considerably over 150,000 books and pamphlets, many of which relate to Australasian themes. The Sidney Free Public Library is next to that at Melbourne in importance. It is said to contain the largest collection of works special to Australia in the world.

The book collections of China, and indeed throughout the Orient, are by no means inconsiderable, and the favorite works relate to religion, philosophy, poetry, history, and the sciences. They are generally large and of encyclopædic style and proportions. Thus a Chinese history of national events from the third century B. C. to the seventeenth A. D. occupies sixty-six volumes, as bound in European style for the British Museum. Libraries in Japan are more numerous, convenient, and extensive than in China and elsewhere in the Orient. The University library at Tokio, Japan, contains well nigh 200,000 volumes.

Of South American libraries the largest is the National, at Rio Janeiro, Brazil, with some 240,000 volumes. The other republics of South America which passed through their wars for independence and their formative periods, not to say their internal jealousies and strifes, during the nineteenth century, have had but little opportunity or inclination to collect large libraries. Yet the spirit of education is by no means dormant, and the nuclei of many libraries have been formed, in which much pride is taken, and which bid fair to grow great in importance as scholarship expands and other fostering conditions come to prevail more generally. Even in the small and tumultuous republics of Central America there are some valuable collections of books which, in the course of time, will be greatly augmented and prove a source of literary and national pride. Notwithstanding all the ups and downs of the166 Mexican republic during the century, she has, since the separation of church and state in 1857, evolved a creditable educational system, and built up many excellent libraries, especially in the capital, Mexico. The largest of these is the National, which contains over 100,000 volumes.

The growth of libraries in the United States during the nineteenth century has been phenomenal. If its leading libraries have not yet matched those of the old world in extent, they are, nevertheless, unique in their freshness, exceptional in their number, original in their systems, and most effective in their uses. And what is here said of the leading libraries is still more true of the smaller, for in no country has the library system so ramified as in the United States, and come down to such close touch with the people. Not only cities, towns, and even villages have their libraries, but States, schools, and myriads of special organizations, all of which are centres of culture and sources of literary pride.

The oldest library in the United States is that of Harvard College. It was founded in 1638, and was destroyed by fire in 1764. It was speedily restored, and became the recipient of many private donations, which not only greatly increased the number of its volumes, but placed it in possession of a handsome endowment fund. Since its removal to Gore Hall, in 1840, it has been open to the public for reading within its walls, but only the students of the university and other privileged persons may borrow books. Its present collection numbers over half a million of volumes of books and pamphlets. In the year 1700, two other libraries were founded,—that of Yale College, and that which afterwards became known as the New York Society Library. The first of these grew very slowly until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it took on new life, and at the end of the century contains some 250,000 volumes. The latter also grew very slowly, and in 1754 became a subscription library. It is peculiarly the library of the old Knickerbocker families and their descendants, and the number of its volumes gravitates around 100,000.

In 1731, Benjamin Franklin projected what he called a “subscription library” at Philadelphia. It was incorporated as the Library Company of Philadelphia, and grew rapidly through bequests of books and money. In 1792 it absorbed the very valuable Loganian Library, and in 1869 Dr. Benjamin Rush left a bequest of over $1,000,000 to found its Ridgeway Branch. The building erected for this purpose is, with the exception of the new Library of Congress structure at Washington, the handsomest, most commodious, and best arranged for library purposes of any in the United States. The collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia, commonly called the Philadelphia167 Library, now numbers well nigh 200,000 volumes. Of the sixty-four libraries in the United States reported to have been founded before the year 1800, thirty were established between 1775 and 1800. The more important of these—that is, those which rank as 20,000-volume libraries and over—are the Massachusetts Historical Society Library, at Boston, founded in 1791; the Georgetown College Library, at Georgetown, D. C., founded in 1791; the Dartmouth College Library, at Hanover, N. H., founded in 1769; the Columbia College Library, New York City, founded in 1754; the library of the College of Physicians, at Philadelphia, founded in 1789; the College of New Jersey Library, at Princeton University, founded in 1746; the Brown University Library, at Providence, R. I., founded in 1768; the Department of State Library and House of Representatives Library, Washington, D. C., founded in 1789; the Williams College Library, at Williamstown, Mass., founded in 1793.

From this standpoint we get a fair view of the tremendous strides of library growth in the United States during the nineteenth century. The sixty-four libraries of 1800 have grown to well nigh four thousand, not counting those of less than 1000 volumes; and the less than 500,000 volumes of 1800 have increased to well nigh 30,000,000, omitting those in libraries of less than a thousand volumes. Over six hundred libraries in the United States take rank as 20,000-volume libraries and over, at the end of the century; and in the six statistical years between 1888 and 1893, which mark the greatest ratio of increase in volumes, there was a growth equal to 66 per cent over all that had preceded.

Nor has the century been more triumphant and wonderful in the accumulation of volumes and the number of book repositories than in the variety of systems and multiplicity of agencies by means of which library information is arranged and disseminated. Conspicuous among these has been the inauguration and growth of the free library system, by means of which public funds are provided for the support of libraries whose use is free to all. Hardly less conspicuous, and perhaps even more far reaching, has been the adoption by many States of the school-district library system, which draws upon a certain proportion of the school fund for the collection and maintenance of the district library. Again, most of the States have established libraries of their own for public use, and as centres to which may be gathered and whence may be disseminated the knowledge that appertains to the respective State localities. Special library systems have grown into great favor, covering and encouraging collections of historic works, of scientific literature, of information relating to law, medicine, theology, etc. In fact, there is hardly a line of investigation and mental activity that has not come to be represented in its library collections.

At the head of all the century’s library triumphs in the United States stands the Library of Congress. It is the national repository, and is to the country what the British Museum is to Great Britain and the Bibliothèque Nationale is to France. It was founded in 1800, when the seat of government was moved to Washington. In 1814 it was burned by the British soldiers, its home being then in the Capitol, which was also destroyed. The government purchased Thomas Jefferson’s collection of 7000 volumes as the nucleus of a new library. This grew to contain 55,000 volumes by 1851, when all but169 20,000 volumes were again destroyed by an accidental fire. In 1852 it was refitted, the government appropriating $75,000 for the purpose. On the restoration of its halls in the Capitol, in fire-proof form, it began to grow rapidly in volumes. In 1866, it received the 40,000 volumes which constituted the library of the Smithsonian Institute. In 1870, the privilege of copyright was transferred to it from the Patent Office. This, together with the annual appropriation made by Congress, served to give it a more rapid growth than ever, and to nationalize its importance. It speedily grew rich in collections of history, science, law, and every branch of literature appertaining to this and other countries. Under its privilege of copyright, two copies of every volume desiring such protection are required to be deposited within it. It must, therefore, ere long become quite fully representative of the literary productions of the country. In 1882, it was augmented by the presentation of the private collection of the late Dr. Joseph M. Toner, of Washington, containing 27,000 volumes and nearly as many pamphlets. By 1890 it had outgrown its ability to accommodate its collections, and Congress made a very liberal appropriation for the erection of a new and separate library building, which was completed and occupied by 1897–98, the late Hon. John Russell Young being its first librarian. It is the largest, most elegant, and best fitted repository of books in the world, being capable of accommodating over 2,000,000 volumes. The public are privileged to use its books within the building, but only members of Congress and certain designated officials of the Departments may take them away. It is open from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., except upon Sundays and other legal holidays. Its location is on Capitol Hill, quite contiguous to the Capitol itself.

A pioneer of the system of free libraries, and the one which comes next to the Library of Congress in the number of its volumes, is the Public Library of Boston, founded in 1848. It has had a phenomenal growth, and is the centre of a wide range of literary influence. Its numerous branches extend throughout the city and surrounding towns, bringing free reading to every locality. The number of its volumes exceeds 700,000. The free library system stands sponsor for a host of libraries throughout the larger cities. The Public Library of Cincinnati was founded upon this basis in 1867. It at once attained great popularity and speedily grew till, by the end of the century, its volumes numbered approximately 220,000. The same popularity and rate of growth characterized the Public Library of Chicago and that of Philadelphia. The former was founded in 1872, and now contains over 220,000 volumes. The latter was not founded until 1891, but by the year 1900 it grew to contain 203,102 volumes, with fifteen branches, or divisions, throughout the city, and an annual circulation of 1,778,387 volumes.

Other libraries of the United States founded or rehabilitated during the nineteenth century, and which ere its close have taken rank as libraries containing over 100,000 volumes, are the New York State Library, at Albany, with approximately 190,000; the State Library at Annapolis, Md., with 100,000 volumes; the Enoch Pratt Free Library, at Baltimore, with 165,000 volumes; the Peabody Institute Library, at Baltimore, with 125,000 volumes; the Athenæum Library, at Boston, with 185,000 volumes; the City Library, at Brooklyn, N.Y., with 120,000 volumes; the University Library, at Chicago, with nearly 400,000 volumes; the Newberry Library, at Chicago, with 125,000170 volumes; the Public Library at Detroit, with 135,000 volumes; the Cornell University Library, at Ithaca, N. Y., with 175,000 volumes; the library of the State Historical Society, at Madison, Wis., with 110,000 volumes; the Mercantile Library, at Philadelphia, with 175,000 volumes; the library of the University of Pennsylvania, with 120,000 volumes; the Astor Library, New York City, with 265,000 volumes; the Mercantile Library, New York City, with 250,000 volumes; the Public Library at St. Louis, Mo., with 105,000 volumes; the Sutro Library, at San Francisco, with 210,000 volumes.

Of those libraries founded during the century in the United States, and which have secured a rank as over 20,000-volume libraries, there are very many that approach the 100,000 mark, and their average of volumes would gravitate around 50,000. It is by no means true that the importance and usefulness of a library must be measured by its number of volumes. Very many of the best managed, serviceable, and popular libraries contain even less than 20,000 volumes.

The spirit of knowledge which has created in the United States such a demand for libraries has been happily supplemented by a spirit of liberality. Nowhere in the world have there risen so many and such munificent donors of means to found and support libraries. Without appearing invidious, mention may well be made of some of these munificent givers and founders. Conspicuous among them is John Jacob Astor, founder of the Astor Library in New York City, with its splendid endowment fund of $1,100,000; James Lenox, who founded the Lenox Library of New York City, and invested in buildings and endowment $1,247,000; George Peabody, who founded, in 1857, at Baltimore, the Peabody Institute and Library, with an endowment of $1,000,000; Walter L. Newberry, of Chicago, who, in 1889, left $2,000,000 to found a free public library in the northern part of the city; John Crerar, of Chicago, who left an immense estate to found and endow the Crerar Library; Enoch Pratt, of Baltimore, who gave $1,150,000 to found the Enoch Pratt Free Library; Dr. James Rush, of Philadelphia, who left, in 1869, a bequest of over $1,000,000 to form the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library; Andrew Carnegie, who founded the Pittsburgh Free Library and several others in different places.

The century’s progress in library management has kept pace with the growth of volumes. Cataloguing and arranging of books have been reduced to a science. Training of librarians and of students in the use of books has become an educational course in many higher institutions of learning. Library architecture and the numerous appliances for distributing books or rendering them accessible on the shelves, have all been improved, so that the library of the end of the century is as much a seductive retreat as a world of knowledge.

171

Towards the close of the last century there arose in England a decided fashion for Greek columns and pediments, which was brought about by the publication in 1762 of the discoveries by Stuart and Revett at Athens, and was still further stimulated by the bringing to England of the Elgin marbles in 1801, so that every building of any importance, whether church or school or country residence, had its portico with Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian columns. Thus began the Greek revival; then followed the more slender columns, with arches and vaults, of the Roman; and to these were very shortly added the cupola or the dome and the balustrade of the Renaissance.

In London, the Bank of England by Sir John Soane, the British Museum by Robert Smirke (a pupil of Soane’s), the University by Wilkins, were all built early in this century, as were the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the High School at Edinboro, magnificent colonnades adorning the front of each. St. Pancras Church, in London, has a spire of superimposed copies of the Temple of the Winds at Athens—each smaller than the one beneath it,—and there are side porches which reproduce the caryatid portico of the Pandroseum. But the most successful building in England which was designed upon Greek lines is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, which has a central hall lit from above; at either end is a court-room, and beyond, at one end, is an Odeon, or Music Hall.

The taste for classical design gradually declined in England, and a new cult was assiduously propagated through the writings of Pugin, Brandon, Rickman, and Parker, whose text was that classicism represented paganism, and this, together with the remodeling of Windsor Castle, in 1826, by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, caused a general interest in the revival of Gothic architecture; for some time, however, much illiterate work was done in the adjustment of old forms to new conditions.

Throughout the last half of this century, the battle of the styles has been maintained by the adherents of the differing schools with varying success, and, although there may be notable examples to the contrary, it has virtually resulted in the adoption of Gothic designs for ecclesiastical buildings, conditions being much the same as formerly for these structures; whereas, for secular buildings, with ever-changing requirements, the classic or the Renaissance, which has shown even greater pliability, has been considered more appropriate.

Among those whose success has been greatest in Gothic work may be mentioned Sir Charles Barry, who was knighted for designing the Parliament Buildings, begun in 1840 and completed twenty years later; George Gilbert Scott, who did the Assize Courts, in Manchester, and New Museum, Oxford; George Edmund Street, whose Law Courts in London are so full of defects in plan yet so excellent in details; Alfred Waterhouse, whose interesting172 (Norman) Museum of Natural History gave substantial encouragement to the use of terra cotta; T. G. Jackson, the author of much collegiate architecture at Oxford and elsewhere; J. L. Pierson, the designer of eight churches in London; William Burgess, Sir Arthur Blomfield, and James Brooks, all well known for the high character of their work, as is also J. D. Sedding, whose broad sympathies and refined spirit ranked him as one of the most talented men of his day.

The first international exposition was held in London in 1851, and the single building in which it was contained was perhaps the most marvelous exhibit. It was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, and was the first example of the use of iron and glass on a scale of such gigantic proportions.

The so-called “Victorian Gothic” was used to a great extent for secular work as late as 1870, and as it was much stimulated by the writings of Street upon Spain and Northern Italy and by Ruskin’s “Stones of Venice,” there were frequent attempts at polychromy, shown in the use of different colored stone, brick, and terra cotta, and, in the Albert Memorial, by means of mosaic.

R. W. Edis and E. W. Godwin were among the foremost practitioners of the time, but in spite of the cleverness and boldness of design shown in some of their city and suburban buildings, neither they nor others could prolong the life of the fashion, and it presently yielded to the revival of a previous one, and the Renaissance forms of the time of Queen Anne became the vogue, especially for country houses,—nowhere more homelike than in England.

In the suburb of Bedford Park, in Lowther Lodge, as in his designs for the Alliance Assurance Company and the new Scotland Yard, Norman Shaw showed the facility of his clever pencil, and Ernest George Peto gave many evidences of his skill and taste; their work, however, often having a flavor of the Flemish.

The building of the Thames Embankment, the opening of new streets,—such as Holborn Viaduct and Shaftesbury Avenue,—with the widening and straightening of others, have done much for the improvement of modern London.

In France, there were very many important public buildings begun in the first ten years of this century,—during the reign of Napoleon I.,—although some of them were not completely finished until the time of Napoleon III. (1848–1870). Among those in Paris were the Arc de l’Étoile by Chalgrin, the largest triumphal arch ever built, being similar in height and width to the front of Notre Dame Cathedral, omitting the upper portion of the towers; Arc du Caroussel by Percier & Fontaine—both these arches commemorating the victories of Napoleon; the churches of the Madeleine by Vignon, and of Ste. Geneviève, in honor of the great men of France; and the wing connecting the palaces of the Tuileries with the Louvre, parallel to (but furthest from) the river.

The Corps Législatif, which was formerly the Palais Bourbon, was remodeled in 1807 by Poyet, and has for its river front a portico with pediment sustained by twelve columns, a greater number than any other existing building can show.

If there be one style more than any other which needs sunshine and a clear atmosphere to show it to advantage, it is the classic; and a Greek or Roman173 temple in the atmosphere of fog, rain, and snow, of Edinboro, London, Munich, or even Paris, does not produce at all the same impression as if it were under the blue skies of Italy, Sicily, or Greece; however, the frequent employment of classical motifs since the beginning of the century has contributed, to a degree unprecedented in modern times, towards placing Paris in the very foremost rank among the capitals of the world in the dignity and impressiveness of its public buildings.

The encouragement given to architecture in France by Napoleon I. was revived by Napoleon III. The remodeling of the streets, avenues, and boulevards of Paris, under the direction of Baron Hausmann, while it swept away many landmarks of mediæval Paris, contributed wonderfully to its stately elegance as well as to its hygiene; the work begun upon the Louvre was completed from designs by Visconti & Lefuel, and much entirely new work erected. There was a group of men, some of whom brought about the Neo-Grec movement, whose work was especially interesting, and although not extensively copied, yet exerted a marked influence for many years afterwards. These men were Labrouste, who designed the Library of Ste. Geneviève, about 1830; Duc, who remodeled the Palais de Justice; Duban, who built the library for the School of Fine Arts, about 1845; Viollet le Duc, who restored the Château de Pierrefonds, and wrote treatises and dictionaries upon architecture, furniture, etc., and was instrumental in the organization of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.

174 Still later than these works are Vaudremer’s Neo-Grec Church of St. Pierre de Montrouge, built in 1860, and Abadie’s Byzantine Church of the Sacred Heart, still unfinished; Baltard’s Church of St. Augustin, of brick and cast-iron, and Central Market, of cast-iron and glass; Garnier’s Opera House, Hitorff’s Northern Railway Station; the Trocadéro, built for the Exposition of 1878; the Machinery Hall and Eiffel Tower, for that of 1889; together with a host of other public buildings, not only in Paris, but in other portions of France, many of which have served as examples to the student of architecture in other lands.

In this connection we should not forget the debt we owe to the French nation. During the reign of Louis XIV. the School of Fine Arts was founded in Paris, where free instruction in painting, sculpture, and architecture is still given to all who pass satisfactorily the entrance examinations; and in this school many of our successful architects have received gratuitous instruction from some of the distinguished men above mentioned. In the Department of Architecture the chief characteristics are the thorough and systematic study of the plan, and the adaptation of building materials to the conditions of the design.

Other European cities besides Paris have profited by the general prosperity of the century. St. Petersburg produces the effect of a city of palaces, the many residences of grand dukes and nobles, the number of public institutions, the riding schools,—much used on account of the severity of the climate,—and even the barracks, in spite of the free use of stucco, each contributing to a certain impression of stateliness; the palace of the Archduke Michael, built by an Italian, Rossi, in 1820, is perhaps the most refined and dignified. Muscovite architecture is most conspicuous in the elaborate and bulbous domes, curious not only in form, but in color, of the churches of St. Petersburg, of Moscow and Warsaw.

King Louis of Bavaria, having lived in Rome when Crown Prince, cultivated so great a fondness for the architecture of Greece and Italy, that when he came to the throne he commissioned his architects to design for his capital city of Munich the Walhalla, Ruhmeshalle, Glyptothek, and Pinakothek, after classical models.

In Dresden, the most interesting buildings designed upon Greek or Italian traditions are the theatre and the picture gallery, by Semper, who will long be ranked as the foremost German architect of his day.

In Berlin there is a theatre,—unique of its kind, with stage in the centre, and an auditorium for winter use at one end and one for summer at the other,—designed by Titz; at Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Strasburg there are theatres and schools in the same style. The present Emperor has added many schools throughout the empire, but they are of late German Renaissance.

The public buildings of Germany and Belgium show few designs of interest in recent years; the Parliament House at Berlin, by Wallot, and the Palais de Justice at Brussels, by Polaert, being colossal in mass and clumsy in detail. Many of the private houses designed in the Italian Renaissance were very elegant and attractive, but within the past decade there has been a woeful deterioration in the character of both surface and line—the grotesque replacing the graceful.

The villages built for their employees by Krupp, the gun manufacturer, and Stumm, the maker of steel, are notable instances of the application of176 private capital to the improvement of the domestic conditions of the laboring class.

In Austria, Vienna has developed wonderfully since the days of Maria Theresa. The classic Parliament House by Hansen, in 1843, is one of the most delightful of its kind to be found anywhere; Schmitt’s Gothic town-hall is interesting, but cannot be said to be so successful in design; the Votive Church by Ferstel, in 1856 (also Gothic), the Opera House by Siccardsburg and Van der Nüll, with the City Theatre, an elaborate Renaissance structure, by Semper and Hasmauer, are all worthy of note. The University with the two Museum buildings, facing each other upon a small park, and other public buildings and residences along the Ring Strasse, are extremely satisfactory, in spite of the fact that stucco has been so extensively employed.

Only a few years ago the municipality of Buda-Pesth offered immunity from taxation for fifteen years to all prospective builders, under certain conditions as to character and cost of buildings, with the result that the newer portion of the Hungarian capital was quickly occupied by buildings of the most desirable kind; the Parliament House, Opera, Cathedral, Technical School, and several club-houses and private residences, each testify to the spirit with which the citizens responded to this desire to beautify the city.

Since the unification of Italy there has been considerable building in some of the principal cities, but very little of special importance. In Rome, the changes are more perceptible than elsewhere; the excavations of the Forum, the embankment of the Tiber, the widening and straightening of the Corso, and the opening of the Via Nationale and other streets, have destroyed comparatively little of the picturesque that was worth retaining, have brought to light many treasures of art, and, supplemented by the drainage of the Campagna by Prince Torlonia, have certainly made it a healthier city to live in. The monument to Victor Emmanuel, the National Museum, and the Braccia Nuovo of the Vatican Museum, are among the few public structures of interest; the many blocks of apartments and tenements are orderly and inoffensive, though brick and stucco are the materials used in their construction.

Turin is the modern manufacturing city, while Florence preserves its mediæval air, and Venice dreams of the bygone days when the splendor of the Renaissance attracted the wealth, beauty, and talent of all Europe to the city of the Doges.

Bologna and Genoa have each built in the suburbs a magnificent Campo Santo, or cemetery, with chapels, colonnades, and other accessories of architectural value; in Milan and Naples there are lofty glass-covered arcades through the centre of a block and connecting with cross streets, and the semi-circular colonnades of St. Francesco di Paolo, at Naples, surround a piazza which is the great public resort of summer evenings.

During the reign of King George a new Athens has sprung up alongside of and overlapping the old city; although the nation is not wealthy, the individual bequests of certain Greeks have given her the Museum, University, and Academy, each of strict classic design, and a hospital of Byzantine design. Under the sunny skies of Greece those buildings certainly appear to much greater advantage than if in a more northern atmosphere, and their statuary and polychromy show the value of these accessories to such architecture in this climate.

177 Abdul Aziz, the predecessor of the present Sultan of Turkey, had so great a fondness for building that his extravagance in this respect was one of the causes which led to his downfall. The Dolma Bagtche palace, erected directly upon the shores of the Bosphorus from the designs of Balzan, an Armenian architect, suggests Spanish work of the sixteenth century. In Constantinople and at Therapia,—a summer resort at the northern end of the Bosphorus,—many of the foreign governments have built official residences for their representatives.

As for the architecture of our near neighbors on the north, the buildings of Canada have been sturdy and substantial rather than comely; but the long continuance of cold weather and the lack of means have often hampered the builders. Since the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the prosperity of city and country seems more assured; the older cities growing in importance and extent, and new towns springing up along the line to the West. In Ottawa the Parliament Buildings and the octagonal Library, in178 Toronto, and, to some extent, in Montreal, the Universities’ buildings, are Victorian Gothic. The later buildings of the University in Montreal, excepting the Girls’ College, are not so interesting; but there are two railroad stations, a hotel, cathedral, with several banks, insurance buildings, and residences that call for more than passing notice. Perhaps the finest building in all Canada is the Château Frontenac, in Quebec,—built by Bruce Price of New York,—on the Dufferin Terrace, overlooking the St. Lawrence River, and commanding a view that is hardly surpassed on the Bosphorus, the Rhine, or the Hudson.

Although the history of architecture in America cannot be written without some reference to contemporary work in Europe,—since so much of our architecture in the first half of the century is adopted from that of our ancestors and adapted to our uses, and in the last half so many of our architects have studied there and so many of our citizens have traveled there,—the problems and their conditions in the Old World are very different from those of the New. Europe was already mature when steam and electricity were introduced; precedent was always to be considered, and modern requirements were often forced to conform to existing circumstances. There has, therefore, been comparatively less change there during the century than during the past thirty years with us. With our republican institutions, many of the monarchical formulas soon became obsolete, though the general trend of our architecture has been in the direction of classic models. As the country has grown larger and more wealthy, the problems given to architects have become more complex; less reliance could be placed upon precedent and a premium was placed upon originality, which, in spite of innumerable vagaries, has brought American architecture, at the end of the century, to be the most notable of the day.

At the end of the eighteenth century, this republic consisted of hardly more than a number of communities extending at intervals along the Atlantic seaboard, with an occasional settlement beyond the Alleghany Mountains and across the Ohio River. Their resources were extremely limited, their wants very few, and their intercommunication irregular; but their methods of living were simple and frugal, and their courage and endurance phenomenal.

Among the settlers of New England were many mechanics and manufacturers, and these soon began to replace the primitive log cabins with frame dwellings; those of the Southern States were chiefly planters, who imported much of their labor, and often the bricks as well as the glass, hardware, tiles, and other materials for their houses. Many of those who colonized the Middle States had come from countries in Europe where these materials were made, and brought their secrets with them, while others were farmers and stock growers, whose snug little cottages and enormous barns may be seen to this day in New York and Pennsylvania.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century we possessed a national style of architecture, which, although it had come to us from Italy, through France and England, was yet distinctly American. It was, however, almost exclusively confined to residences, and there were very few public buildings of any description, except certain churches,—said to have been designed by followers of Sir Christopher Wren, some of whom were doubtless ship carpenters who had studied the works of Sir William Chambers.

179

180 The Colonial style, as we now term it, was sufficiently elastic in its adaptability to conform to the requirements of the merchant, manufacturer, or mariner living at Salem, Boston, or Newport, as well as to those of the planter living at Charleston or Savannah. There were certain differences, more or less pronounced, peculiar to each section and to each city, but all houses were alike in this respect,—there was no gas or water, and the open fireplace was depended upon for heat.

In New England the dwelling-houses were placed near the ground; the chimneys built in an interior cross wall, the kitchen, with its accessories, as near to the dining-room as possible; the ceilings were low, with cornices sometimes of plaster, sometimes of wood. The roof,—which was often hipped and often of the gambrel shape, but rarely a gable of even slope,—was always covered with shingles, which covering was occasionally used also on the exterior walls.

In the South, some of the characteristics were the high basement, broad piazzas, frequently at the level of the second as well as the first story, and placed on the south and west sides; the chimney on outside walls; the kitchen in a separate building, detached from the dwelling; a broad hall through the centre, giving access to large rooms with high ceilings; the roof quite as frequently hipped as gabled, and often—in either case—a huge fanlight set in a low gable on the front for ventilation of the attic; dormers were seldom used, as the attic was not inhabited; the gambrel roof was uncommon; slate, and occasionally tile or shingle, was used for roof covering.

Our first public buildings of any importance, and which show the influence of contemporary work in England, were the White House, designed by Hoban in 1792; the Capitol, begun by Dr. Thornton in 1793 and completed by B. H. Latrobe in 1830; the wings, containing the present Senate and House of Representatives, were added later; the dome, designed by Thomas U. Walter, was begun in 1858, but not completed until 1873.

Our early Presidents took much interest in architecture, Washington directing and criticising the planning of the Capitol and building his own home at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson designing the dome and colonnades of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, and his own home at Monticello.

Massachusetts was the first State to erect its capitol,—the State House in Boston, by Bulfinch, dating from 1795.

The City Hall of New York was our first work of unmistakable French character, and shows the influence of the time of Louis XVI. It was designed by Mangin, a Frenchman, begun in 1803, and completed in 1812.

After the war of 1812, many state and national buildings were erected; from that time colonnades and domes seem indispensable to the proper dignity of the capitol or court house. The use of both brick and stone became more general, and, for private houses, the form of the gambrel roof gradually disappeared in favor of the hip and gable. Subsequent to 1830, the accepted type of the larger or more pretentious house was the Italian villa, with a square tower accentuating the front entrance, often one story higher than the main building; all roofs of low pitch, covered with tin; the exterior walls faced with stucco. About this time bay windows and sliding doors for principal rooms of first story, and better facilities for the use of heat, light, and water were introduced and the symmetrical disposition of parts often neglected.

181 The very steep pointed Gothic roof denoted the modest cottage, and the perforated wooden tracery of windows and porches, or the barge-boards of gables, became the simple beginning of that riotous growth of jig-sawed fretwork afterwards so prominent upon those houses constructed with Mansard or French roofs of rectilinear, concave, or convex form. The works and writings of Downing had much influence at this time, and it was shown not only in these Italian villas or Gothic cottages, but also in landscape gardening about suburban residences.

The political disturbances in various countries of Europe in 1848 brought very many immigrants to our shores, and the discovery of gold in California, in 1849, was the beginning of that steady flow of settlers which has since then peopled so many of our Western States and Territories.

Then followed our own Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, and subsequent to that the period of reconstruction, during which time there was some building, but very little architecture, throughout the country.

In 1869 the Pacific Railroad was completed, and this not only gave a new impetus to Western mining and farming, but created a new market for Eastern manufactures.

So great was this manufacturing and commercial activity that vast fortunes were made, and there were many opportunities calling for the services of architects; but as they had hitherto been rarely employed, except in a few of the larger cities, upon churches or public buildings, a great proportion of them were untrained amateurs or self-taught carpenters and masons. However, the first school of architecture had just been organized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, and to William E. Ware,—who was its professor of architecture from 1866, and who organized a similar school at Columbia College, New York, in 1880,—the profession and the public owe more than to any other one man for well-directed efforts towards the development182 of such, qualifications as may eventually give a national character to our architecture. These schools came none too soon, and within the past twenty-five years many others have been founded and many traveling scholarships endowed; collections of books, photographs, and casts have been provided in various cities; architectural periodicals published, and architectural societies and sketch clubs formed, each of which has contributed to the higher education of the profession and to the greater appreciation by the public.

Prior to this time, each section and each city had certain peculiarities of architecture, as of speech, which were unmistakable. The white New England meeting-house, the red school-house, the country house with its kitchen, wash-room, and wood-shed trailing in the rear, or the swell-front city house, were as characteristic as the endless blocks of brown stone, high stoop houses of New York, or the monotonous rows of red brick dwellings with white marble trimmings of Philadelphia, or the broad verandas and halls of the Southern home.

Cast-iron was the recognized material for the front of business buildings, the designs being chiefly in the Corinthian or composite orders, and the arch or lintel used indiscriminately; and when the dry goods store of A. T. Stewart & Co. was built, in 1872, to occupy the whole block from Broadway to Fourth Avenue, and from Ninth to Tenth Streets, it was the largest and most important of its kind. Before this class of commercial architecture disappeared, a front was designed by R. M. Hunt, about 1878, for a store on Broadway, near Broome Street, where the plastic forms of the tile and stucco of Saracenic architecture were used as being more logical for this material than an imitation of Roman forms in stone.

There were not many summer resorts, and a few weeks at Saratoga, Newport, or the Virginia Springs was the limit of the annual vacation; the orthodox hotel was a rectangular frame building, with veranda on one or more sides, covered by a flat roof supported by square piers having the height of several stories; the length, width, and height of the building were governed by no other proportion than that of the number of guests.

In the South and West there were virtually no hotels, and the belated traveler applied for food and shelter for himself and his horse to the nearest friendly farm.

These were the prevailing conditions when the nouveau riche appeared upon the scene; to him as citizen prosperity meant a better home, to the congregation a larger church, to the community a new city hall or court house, to the State a more expensive capitol.

While these buildings were being everywhere erected, in accordance with the time honored fashions of construction and with elaborate finish, the disastrous conflagrations of 1871 in Chicago, and of 1872 in Boston, called general attention to the necessity for more permanent building; and the precautions now taken against similar occurrences were the beginning of efforts toward methods of fireproof construction. Granite, marble, and limestone were discarded in favor of sandstone, brick, and terra cotta; iron beams carrying brick or concrete (subsequently hollow terra cotta) arches were introduced, and metal laths were substituted for the wooden strips to a certain degree; but as these fires were mainly in the business districts, such reforms have been confined almost exclusively to commercial architecture.

183

184 In 1873 the financial panic gave a check to many building operations, but it was of comparatively short duration, for in 1876 all the other nations of the earth were invited to unite with us at Philadelphia in celebrating the centennial anniversary of our independence.

This was our first international Exposition, and it was not remarkable that in our eagerness to learn, and in the enthusiasm of prosperity, we sought inspiration from all those peoples who had brought their goods for our inspection. At once we began to build Queen Anne cottages or to remodel existing houses with many bays and towers, rooms set at all angles, floors at different levels, walls of many materials, and roofs of varying slopes, as well as to apply many tints and shades of color within and without.

The summer hotel and summer cottage began to appear at the seashore, in the mountains, and along the shores of the great lakes, and the winter resorts of the Carolinas, Florida, and California to attract the seekers for health and pleasure.

The interior decoration of our houses was the chief lesson of 1876, and having once seen the European and Oriental hangings, draperies, rugs, and bric-à-brac, we set about furnishing our rooms with them.

Hitherto American architecture had been most influenced by English precedent, and the Victorian Gothic had able advocates, especially in Boston, where the Art Museum by Sturgis & Brigham, as well as many stores, residences, and churches by Cummings & Sears, Peabody & Stearns, and others, showed much vigor and originality. William A. Potter, as supervising architect for the Government, adopted this style, in 1875, for his buildings at Fall River, Mass., Nashville, Tenn., and Covington, Ky., and R. M. Upjohn designed for Hartford, Conn., the only Gothic State Capitol in this country.

R. M. Upjohn and Henry M. Congdon of New York had already done much Gothic ecclesiastical work and, with the possible exception of Grace Church in 1840, and St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1886 by Renwick, there is no example of this style which shows such appreciation of proportion or of form, in mass and in detail, as Trinity Church (1843) by the first-named architect.

It was perhaps rather fortunate that just as the Queen Anne fashion, with its multiplicity of detail, was brought to us from England, H. H. Richardson, of Boston, called our attention to the bigness and (almost brutal) simplicity of the Romanesque from Southern France. From the date of the building of Trinity Church, in Boston (1876), may be reckoned the parting of the ways. Heretofore everything we had done of any importance had an English stamp upon it; henceforth the work that was done showed the result of training of the Parisian atelier or of the well-filled sketch books of Continental travel.

Not only in this church, but in his libraries at Woburn, North Easton, Quincy, Milford, Burlington, and New Orleans, did Richardson show his grasp of the subject. Trinity is unmistakably a Christian temple, and its bigness most conducive to the sense of awe and reverence. His libraries leave no doubt as to their having been built for the storing and reading of books; his stone buildings, whether the Court House and jail in Pittsburg, the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, or private houses in Buffalo or Chicago,185 show their purpose and emphasize their material; his brick buildings, whether a college building at Cambridge, railway station at New London, or residence at Washington, tell their story in brick; and his country houses about the suburbs of Boston, to be what they are, could not have been other than of wood.

His influence upon the architecture of the day was therefore not surprising, but there was a subtleness in the character of his designs that his imitators could never acquire and even his immediate successors could not long retain after his personality was lost to them; and from the lack partly, perhaps, of true sympathy, partly from the modification of conditions, his art may be said to have died with him.

As R. M. Hunt had the last word on the cast-iron front, so he had the first on the modern sky-scraper, a peculiarly American production; the walls of the Tribune Building, however, carry both their own weight, and that of the floors, being built before the days of the methods of steel skeleton construction. Hunt was trained in Paris, as was Richardson, and had assisted in the design of the Pavillon de Flore under Lefnel, and he showed his appreciation of the Neo-Grec movement in his design for the Lenox Library. It is somewhat unusual for an artist to do his best work in his latest years, but surely no better work of its kind has been done in modern times than the residences which he designed for three members of the Vanderbilt family at Newport, in New York city, and at Biltmore, N. C. The design which he186 left for the Fifth Avenue front of the Metropolitan Museum, now being carried out by his son, is a magnificent Corinthian order, whereas much of his other work is late French Gothic.

That he was called upon to design the base for Bartholdi’s Liberty in New York Harbor, and the Administration Building at the International Exposition of 1893, and that a portrait bust has been erected to his memory, all testify to the appreciation in which he was held by the profession.

To McKim, Mead & White, of New York, we are greatly indebted for their influence upon secular architecture, and their Casino at Newport, built in 1880, was probably more far-reaching in its effect upon country houses than any other building at that time. Among the other work from their office may be mentioned the Boston Public Library, the Madison Square Garden (reproducing in its tower the Giralda of Seville), the Library and other buildings for Columbia College, the Metropolitan and University Clubs, the Agricultural Building (of staff) in Chicago in 1893, now being reproduced in marble for the Brooklyn Institute, the Tiffany, the Villard, and other city houses, and a host of country houses at Newport, Lenox, and elsewhere.

There is another architect whose talents should be acknowledged; for about 1880, when the shingle house had just begun to take shape, there was none more clever at that sort of thing than W. R. Emerson, of Boston, and his resources seemed endless in harmonizing form and color with conditions of seashore or mountain, as shown in his houses at Bar Harbor, Milton, Newport, and many other summer resorts.

Philadelphia, which had hitherto always been extremely conservative in architecture, soon began to erect some of the most singular and fantastic structures that could well be imagined; but fortunately the refined simplicity and fertile originality of such men as Wilson Eyre, Frank Miles Day & Bro., and Cope & Stewardson have prevailed, and in both city and suburban work they and certain others have done and are doing much to counterbalance the character of the eccentricities of their predecessors, as shown in buildings for the University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

But the restless activity of Eastern loom and machine shop, and of Western farm and mine, seemed to meet and concentrate in Chicago—the entrepôt for the raw material of the West and the finished product of the East. The unprecedented increase in value of land, the low price of iron and steel, with the introduction of high-speed elevators, combined to develop a new type of sky-scraper; and as the nature of the soil was entirely unlike that of other cities, the foundations of these buildings presented problems which were solved by Chicago architects in various ways hitherto untried. The Rookery by Burnham & Root, Pullman Building by S. S. Beman, and the Auditorium (opera house, hotel, and office building in one) by Adler & Sullivan, at the time of their completion were most notable examples of architectural engineering, and were soon followed by many others more or less similar, designed by W. L. B. Jenny, Holabird & Roche, Henry Ives Cobb, and others. The buildings for the Chicago University, the Athletic Club, and Newbury Library, by the last-named architect, show a high degree of ability; the peculiarly rich arabesque ornamentation designed by Louis H. Sullivan, and the direct and rational handling of the buildings upon which it was used, are certainly indicative of the spirit of enthusiasm and conscientiousness of a187 well-trained mind. It is by such characteristics that John W. Root was able to accomplish so much for the advancement of architecture in the West.

What Krupp and Stumm had done for the employees in their works in Germany, Pullman determined to do for his men and their families here; and a town, with dwellings, schools, churches, water-works, etc., for many thousand inhabitants was designed and built by S. S. Beman, which has been reported by experts to be the best of its kind.

In Chicago, in 1893, was held our second international Exposition; and that the exhibits should be suitably housed, some of the most prominent architects of the country were called together, buildings were assigned to each of them, and Frederick Law Olmsted was appointed to lay out the grounds, waterways, and bridges.

Except for the difference in material, never did Rome in the days of Augustan magnificence show buildings similar to those grouped about the Court of Honor. A Greek would surely have been proud to walk through the Peristyle, or to have visited the Art Galleries, and a Roman to have sauntered about the Terminal Station or the triumphal arches of the Manufactures Building. Right nobly was the Spanish aid to Columbus acknowledged in the design of Machinery Hall; but to France, whose generosity had trained so many of our architects, sculptors, and painters to do such things, was the greatest triumph in the unanimity with which they had all worked and the success which crowned their labors.

The building occupied by the Federal Government was one of the few unworthy of its location or of the occasion. While the architecture of the people had been advancing steadily for fifty years, that provided by the Treasury188 Department in Washington had been quite as steadily retrograding. The Custom House, Boston; Sub-Treasury, New York; the Mint, in Philadelphia; the Treasury, Post Office, and Interior Department buildings, in Washington, have stood almost alone since the middle of the century. The few Gothic buildings referred to previously were honest and intelligent attempts to improve the quality of design for the government, but the politicians decided that artistic ability was not a prerequisite for the office of Supervising Architect.

Since 1895, there has been some infusion of new life into the designing-room, and such work as the designs by William Martin Aiken, for the Buffalo and San Francisco Post Offices and Court Houses, the Denver and the Philadelphia Mints, and the New London Post Office, were about being materialized, when once again the politicians, who cared not a whit for one design more than another, interfered to oblige the government contractor. But the good seed had been planted, and the work of the present incumbent, James Knox Taylor, is likely to show a marked advance over that of many previous years.

The general scheme of the Congressional Library was conceived by Smithmeyer & Pelz, the details carried out subsequently by General Casey and his able assistants and successors, and the building opened to the public in 1896. The experiment of the collaboration of sculptor and painter with the architect had resulted so favorably in Chicago, that the artists invited to decorate this building gladly responded; and although the remuneration was inconsiderable, their loyalty to the country, as to Art, resulted in such mural decoration189 as had not been seen since W. M. Hunt decorated the Senate Chamber in Albany, or La Farge did the figures in Trinity Church, Boston, and St. Thomas Church, New York. Blashfield’s dome, typifying all the nations of the earth; Vedder’s Minerva, in mosaic; H. O. Walker’s large lunettes, illustrating English poems, and Simmons’ small lunettes, filled with exquisite little figures, are but a few of the many interesting works in color. Two of the main entrance doors of bronze were modeled by Olin L. Warner, but he did not live to complete them. The marble stairway is by Martini, and the statues which adorn the main reading-room are by Adams, Bartlett, Partridge, Ward, and others.

The plan of the building is that of a central octagon containing the general reading-room, connected by wings containing the book-stacks with a surrounding hollow square containing rooms for special collections. There are ample reading-rooms for representatives, senators, and the public, and a tunnel by which books are sent to the Capitol. This is the last building of considerable importance constructed by the government, and it was built on time and within the appropriation of $6,000,000; it may be said to be dignified and suitable to its purpose, and to be representative of the people at the close of the century.

It now seems probable that New York will build the handsome library designed by Carrère & Hastings; the Egyptian lines of the reservoir occupying the site—emphasized by the varying hues of the ivy for so many seasons—will give place to those of an example of modern French Renaissance.

Among the changes incidental to the growth of this city is the recent disappearance of the old Tombs prison, which was another building of Egyptian architecture, good of its kind, and quite dignified and impressive.

There are certain other buildings designed in the style of a country almost as tropical as Egypt, and as light and airy as that is sombre and gloomy, but which seem quite as appropriate for their different purposes: they are the Casino Theatre and the Synagogue at Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street,—each an excellent example of Saracenic architecture,—the former of brick and terra cotta, and the latter of vari-colored sandstones. Another synagogue, by Brunner & Tryon, further up the avenue and facing Central Park, has a decided Byzantine flavor,—the large arch accentuating the entrance, carrying a small arcade, and being surmounted by the traceried dome.

The largest and most expensively elaborate hotel in America is the Waldorf-Astoria; and although certain features of the exterior may not be justified by interior arrangements, it has certainly been planned with a view to great comfort and luxury.

While New York has the largest and most expensive private residences,—the chief of these is that of Cornelius Vanderbilt,—Philadelphia has the greatest number of small houses owned by their occupants; and of late years, there are a greater number of attractive homes in St. Louis than anywhere else in this country. Very many of them have been designed by Eames & Young, or by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge; and with much open space about them, they have an air of elegance and hospitality that is lacking to the homes in most other cities.

New York, from its position as the commercial and financial centre of the country, in spite of its situation on a long, narrow island, may be accepted as190 the typical city. What is done here architecturally is done (only to a different degree) elsewhere, and its growth horizontally in the northern portion of the city has kept pace with its perpendicular growth in the more congested business portion. This general expansion has altogether changed the character of many streets, the residences becoming apartment houses, and the shops becoming office buildings from ten to twenty stories,—or even more,—the masses becoming larger and the detail proportionately less prominent.

The sky-line has entirely changed; the spire of Trinity is lost in such surroundings as the Bowling Green, Empire, Washington Life, and American Surety buildings, and in the vicinity where the Tribune tower was once conspicuous, now the St. Paul Building rises twenty-five stories, and the Ives Syndicate Building even higher; further and further up Broadway, and to the right and left of it, these monster buildings continue to rise. But among them all there is not one which shows a more masterly handling of the problem than the Surety, where the architect, Bruce Price, has emphasized the entrance with a colonnade and six figures of much dignity and grace, and has concentrated the ornament about the upper part of the building, crowning it with a fine cornice, which is more effective from the simplicity of the four walls beneath. This building holds its own among such others as the Washington Life and St. James buildings, New York, or the Ames Building, Boston, Harrison Building, Philadelphia, Schiller Theatre, Chicago, Wainwright Building, St. Louis, or Examiner Building, San Francisco.

It is impossible, in so brief a survey of the field, to enumerate more than a very small fraction of the buildings illustrating the progress of the architecture of the century; and aside from the residences, apartments, and hotels where we live winter or summer, and commercial buildings in which our working hours may be occupied, there are very many examples of churches, schools, colleges, libraries, and museums, donated, equipped, and endowed for our instruction, theatres and music halls for our entertainment, railroad stations for transportation, storage warehouses for the safety of valuables, and armories for the use of our militia.

Besides these, there are engineering works of considerable importance, such as the Eads Bridge, at St. Louis, or the Roebling Bridge, between New York and Brooklyn, and the works of the sculptor St. Gaudens, the Washington Arch by Stanford White, the Farragut and Lincoln statues in New York and in Chicago, which should surely be mentioned, since monumental works are the poetry, whereas the secular and commercial works are but the prose of architecture.

As we review our productions, we should certainly feel encouraged to believe that if we continue to meet and solve each problem in the same direct, honest way that we have been doing for the last quarter of the century, there need be no misgivings as to the future of architecture in these United States.

191

The science of chemistry, as it is known to-day, had its real origin towards the end of the eighteenth century. Before and up to that time it is true there were many great workers in chemistry, whose names are associated with investigations in chemical science, such as Boyle, Stahl, Black, and Scheele. Contemporary with the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth must also be mentioned particularly the names of Priestly (1733–1804), Cavendish and Humphry Davy (1778–1829). All these workers had to contend, first of all, with erroneous theories, which made it difficult to rightly interpret the data of experiment. The old theory of phlogiston produced an environment in which it was difficult for true scientific methods to survive. The great investigator, who did more than any other one man to overturn this false theory and place chemistry on a firm foundation, was Lavoisier (1743–1794). Born near the middle of the eighteenth century, his scientific activity began about 1770, and before he was twenty-five he was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences. At the age of forty he was recognized as the foremost scientist of his age.

Priestly discovered oxygen in 1774, but failed to recognize its true relations to other bodies. It was Lavoisier who discovered oxidation (1776), an achievement which meant more to chemistry than the discovery of oxygen.

The observation that metals when heated in confined air increased in weight while the volume of the confined air decreased, is the crucial experiment upon which the whole science of chemistry rests. This experiment was made most rigorously by Lavoisier, and the apparatus which he used is still preserved in the Museum of L’École des Arts et Métiers in Paris. This apparatus, simple in character and yet almost perfect in construction, has for the chemist a peculiar significance and sacredness, producing an impression similar to that inspired in the devout Christian by the relics of the Cross and the Holy Sepulchre.

In the brief space which is assigned for a discussion of the progress of chemistry during the nineteenth century, economy of words will be secured by briefly tracing some of the salient points in the progress of some of the more important branches of chemical science. In the following pages, therefore, will be found a brief statement of what has been accomplished, of the most important character, in the science of chemistry, under the following heads:—

Inorganic chemistry; physical chemistry; organic chemistry; analytical chemistry; synthetical chemistry; metallurgical chemistry; agricultural chemistry; graphic chemistry; didactic chemistry; chemistry of fermentation; and lastly electro-chemistry.

No attempt will be made in this paper to enter upon the discussion of the192 progress which has been made in medical, pharmaceutical, and physiological chemistry. The discussion outlined under the above heads does not by any means embrace the whole subject. It will be sufficient to indicate only the lines of progress along which the greatest advances have been made.

The three propositions established by Lavoisier, which serve as the foundation for inorganic and physical chemistry, are the following:—

1. Bodies burn only in contact with pure air.

2. The air is consumed in the combustion, and the increase in weight of the burnt body is equal to the decrease in weight of the air.

3. In combustion the body is generally changed, by its combination with the pure air, into an acid, and metals are changed into metal calx.

The total number of elementary bodies known at the beginning of the century was probably less than thirty. Many had been recognized as such since remote antiquity, but none of the non-metallic elements, except oxygen and sulphur, was known, and even their properties were not established with any degree of precision.

Not only did Lavoisier establish the fundamental principles of modern chemistry, but in connection with Fourcroy (1755–1809), Berthollet (1748–1822), and Guyton de Morveau (1737–1816), laid the foundation of modern chemical nomenclature.

The contributions to chemical knowledge at this time were greatly increased by the works of the Swedish chemist, Scheele (1742–1786), and in the beginning years of the century the great work which was accomplished by Sir Humphry Davy advanced very rapidly the general knowledge of chemical science.

Davy’s first works served to elucidate the connection between electricity and chemical processes, and it was through the classical experiment with an electric current that he isolated (1807) the metals sodium and potassium, and described their properties.

This achievement of Sir Humphry Davy’s was the second great step in the progress of chemistry, after the one taken by Lavoisier. By means of the metals sodium and potassium other metallic elements were separated, notably aluminium by Wöhler (1845). Basing his work upon the above experiment, Sainte Claire Deville developed the metallurgy of aluminium (1854), and Bussy isolated magnesium (1830).

193 In 1811 iodine was discovered by Courtois, and its properties examined simultaneously (1814) by Davy and Gay-Lussac.

The contributions made by Berzelius (1779–1848), who was a contemporary of Davy and Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), were of the most important character. Berzelius not only added to the knowledge of inorganic chemistry but also established many of the important theories on which chemical action depends. His elaboration of the employment of the blowpipe in chemical analysis was of the greatest practical value.

In 1807 Dalton published a work entitled “New System of Chemical Philosophy,” in which was announced for the first time the law of the definite proportions of bodies forming a definite union. The atomic theory of matter was also developed by Dalton, who gave it a definite form and expression. Chemists now began to consider the elements as definite indestructible particles of matter, forming unions among themselves and with different kinds of atoms to form molecules, which were considered as the units of substances. As a result of this supposition, the development of the principle of the relative weight with which bodies combine was the logical consequence.

Now for the first time the elements began to assume not only names and descriptions of properties but also numbers, showing the relative weight of their atoms or final conditions of existence. It was only necessary, therefore, to assume the standard of comparison for any one element, in order to determine the relative weights with which it combined with others. Thus the system of atomic weights was developed.

As a result of the law of chemical action, that most elementary bodies exist in a condition where two atoms are joined together to form a molecule, it follows, that in most instances the molecular weights of the elements are double their atomic weight. There are, however, many notable exceptions to this rule.

The supposition of the existence of atoms was followed soon by another theoretical proposition, advanced by Prout (1815). Assuming that the atomic weight of hydrogen was one, Prout’s hypothesis asserted that the atomic weights of all other elementary bodies were multiples of that of hydrogen. The most rigid investigations of recent years have shown that Prout’s hypothesis is untenable; but the remarkable fact still remains, that in a great many cases the atomic weights of the elements are almost whole numbers, or differ from whole numbers by almost a half unit.

The determination of the atomic weights of the various elements during the past one hundred years has been worked on by hundreds of chemists whose names it would be impracticable to mention. The most important of them are Berzelius, Cooke, Cleve, Delafontaine, Dumas, Hermann, Marchand, Marignac (1817), Morley, Noyes, Pelouse (1807–1867), Richards, Schneider, Stas (1813–1891), and Thompson. Of all these workers Stas, a Belgian chemist, is perhaps the most renowned. Among those mentioned, Cooke, Morley, Noyes, Delafontaine, and Richards are citizens of the United States.

From the less than thirty elements which were known at the beginning of the century, there are known to-day seventy-two with certainty, and perhaps one or two more whose identity has not yet been fully established. The194 chemists who have become most renowned by the discovery of elementary bodies are: Cavendish, Scheele, Berzelius, Wöhler (1800–1882), Davy, Gay-Lussac, Priestly, Bunsen (b. 1811), Crookes (b. 1832), and Ramsay.

The following elements, twenty-eight in number, were known before 1800:

Four additional elements were known to exist before that date, but they had not been isolated and identified. These are:—

The following elements, forty-nine in number, have been discovered since 1800:—

The date in each case is that of the discovery. Numbers 49, 50, and 51 are not yet sufficiently well known to justify being considered elements, and are therefore properly followed by an interrogation point.

In strictly physical chemistry the relations of electricity and heat to chemical action have been extensively developed during the century. The specific heats of the elements and of most of their compounds have been carefully determined, and thermo and physical chemistry under the leadership of such master minds as Berthollet, Thompson, Van’t Hoff, and Ostwald have been brought to the highest degree of perfection.

The chemist now does not consider that he knows any body until he knows thoroughly its relations to heat and to electricity. The action of light must also be included, but this subject will be more thoroughly discussed under graphic chemistry.

The nature of solutions has also been developed by the studies of Ostwald and Van’t Hoff, and as a result of these studies, a flood of light has been thrown upon the constitution of compound bodies.

In the development of physical chemistry, attention should be directed to the help afforded by Newlands (1864) and Mendelejeff (1869) and others, showing that the elements form groups which tend to recur with a periodicity which is sufficiently definite to enable the investigator to foretell to some extent the properties of the elements which have never yet been discovered, and whose existence is necessary in order to fill up the gaps in existing groups.

By this method the existence, atomic weight and properties of scandium, gallium, and germanium were foretold years before their discovery. Such actual realization of a scientific-prophetic method is one of the strongest196 indications of the basis of fact upon which it rests. Although a rigid application of the principles of the periodic law is not possible, yet its discovery and elaboration mark one of the great forward steps of chemical philosophy.

If we regard any material system by itself, i.e., independently of any other system or influence by which it may be surrounded, we recognize it as consisting of essentially two things,—matter and energy. A precise definition of either matter or energy is difficult, if not impossible; but what is connoted by these names is sufficiently well understood by their well-known properties. Both energy and matter are essential to each and every system. They are coexistent. In the light of human experience, we cannot conceive of one existing without the other; and in the study of any material system, consideration of one of these components without the other can only be regarded as incomplete. But, for the sake of convenience, this has been the practice, and, generally speaking, chemists have concerned themselves with matter changes of equilibria, while physicists have more especially directed their attention to energy equilibria. The object of the physical chemist is to follow equilibria changes in given systems, having due regard for both the matter and energy involved.

Berthollet may be regarded as the first true physical chemist, on account of his classical views on mass action. Largely because the time was not ripe for it, his views were not generally adopted.

A quarter of a century later (1867), Guldberg and Waage gave a precise mathematical expression of the law, but still it attracted very little attention from investigators. A tremendous impetus was given to the subject by the electrolytic dissociation theory of Arrhenius (1887), and the extension of the additive laws of gases to dilute solutions, by Van’t Hoff (1885). This was but a comparatively small field in the subject, but it stimulated activity along the whole line, the wonderful increase of our knowledge concerning the velocity or rates of reaction, the heat changes involved, and the marvelous development of electrolytic chemistry being pertinent instances.

The generalization of Gibbs, known as the phase rule (1876), which accurately states the condition for equilibrium in the system, and the Theorem of Le Chatelier (1884), that any change in the factors of equilibrium from outside is followed by a reverse change within the system, together with the mass law, now give us a consistent theoretical foundation for the subject. In general terms, it may be said that all chemistry, at least all theoretical chemistry, properly belongs to the province of physical chemistry, and the title, while in many ways convenient, is misleading.

Compounds containing carbon enter into all the products of a living cell. For this reason the chemistry of carbon compounds came to be known as organic chemistry. This should not be taken as a definition, however, without limitations. Many of the compounds containing carbon are not known to enter into living tissue in any way, and their connection with it is very remote and not essential. On the other hand, it should be remembered that many organic compounds, and those even of most importance, contain some other element,—nitrogen, for example,—as the significant one.

197 While nearly all the known elements can enter into organic compounds, the vast majority of such substances are composed of but very few. For instance, those classes of which sugar, starch, the fats, etc., are examples, contain only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. With nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus added to these elements, almost the entire range of organic chemistry is covered. Organic chemistry, therefore, differs from inorganic chemistry in that, while the number of compounds is much larger, the number of elements involved is very limited.

Berzelius may be regarded as having founded organic chemistry in the beginning of this century. As a result of his analyses of the salts of organic acids, he clearly demonstrated that the laws of definite and multiple proportions hold equally for organic compounds and for inorganic ones. The work of this master was ably furthered by Liebig (1803–1873), who devised most elegant methods for the analytical investigation of organic compounds, methods which are in use to-day without any essential change.

Very soon, however, it was found that organic compounds existed having the same percentage composition, but quite dissimilar properties, physical and chemical, as, for instance, sugar and starch. Other striking examples are Faraday’s discovery (1825) of a compound identical in composition with ethylene, but wholly different in properties; and Wöhler’s classical synthesis (1828) of urea by the transformation of ammonium cyanate. Similar facts in the domain of inorganic chemistry, though now well known, were at that time wanting, and thus this most fruitful idea, designated as isomerism, was introduced into the science.

The next great step was the introduction of the theory of radicles, first suggested tentatively by Berzelius (1810), but put forward in a definite way as one of the results of the classical investigation on benzoyl by Liebig and Wöhler (1832). That is to say, a group of elements, or radicle, can pass through a series of compounds, from one to the other, as though the group were one single element. For years this idea was the guiding principle in chemical investigations, and was most useful in aiding the classification of chemical compounds and bringing order out of the chaos of accumulating observations.

But the search for radicles was in a sense a vain one. We now know that no radicle exists as such by itself. Meanwhile, Dumas and his pupil Laurent had introduced and developed the theory of types, whereby all chemical compounds could be classified under four types, which marked a distinct step in198 advance. Laurent, together with his colleague Gerhardt (1816–1856), recognized the shortcomings of both the radicle and type theories in their earlier forms, and showed their inter-relation, when modified so as to do away with certain inconsistencies.

Dumas had before this demonstrated the theory of substitution (1834),—that is, that in certain compounds one or more of the elements can be driven out and replaced by others without changing the essential characteristics of the compound. For instance, chloracetic acid, in which part of the hydrogen of acetic acid has been replaced by chlorine, contains all the essential characteristics of acetic acid; in fact, some of them—its acidic properties, for example—being markedly accentuated. This theory was fiercely assailed at first, notably by Liebig. Like all theories of science, it was in the beginning pushed to the extreme, and put forward to explain things to which it was not applicable. It gradually came to demonstrate its own right to existence, largely as a result of the work of Laurent and Gerhardt, and made its influence felt in the exposition of their ideas, to which reference has just been made.

The development of these theories, about the middle of the century, was greatly hastened by the work of many brilliant investigators, notably Wurtz (1817–1884), Hofmann (1818–1892), Williamson (1824–), Kolbe (1818–1884), and Frankland (1825–) among others.

Kekulé proposed a new type, marsh gas or methane. Shortly afterwards, his well-known formula for benzene, the starting-point and foundation of the vast class of aromatic bodies, was proposed. He insisted that the time had come when chemists must ask what those ultimate particles, or atoms, of the elements themselves were doing in these compounds of various types. The answer was a grand one, and the result, our magnificent store of information concerning the constitution of organic compounds, or the way in which the atoms are connected with each other. It is not to be inferred that our knowledge on this subject, in any one case, is complete. Far from it! Much that is most interesting and important is apparently as remote from our grasp as ever. But we do know something about the general relations of the atoms in the molecule, and our knowledge, so far as it goes, is definite and precise.

Somewhat later, Van’t Hoff and Lebel, at the same time but independently, introduced the study of the space relations of organic compounds by suggesting the simplest possible space formula (the tetrahedron) for marsh gas or methane, of which all other organic compounds may, theoretically at least, be regarded as derivatives. Many inexplicable relations, especially among isomers, now became clear. The theory was at first bitterly assailed, especially by Kolbe. It found an able champion in Wislicenus (1838–), however, and has so thoroughly established itself, that it may be safely said that at the present day it is the controlling idea in the large majority of organic investigations.

The carbon atom is characterized by a wonderful facility in uniting not only with other elements, but with itself. It would even appear as though its influence in this regard extended to other elements united with it, as nitrogen, for instance, shows an unexpected ability to unite with nitrogen in organic compounds.

199 Further, the carbon atom is characterized by an unusually constant valency, namely, four. These two characteristics account for homology, that is, for a series of similar compounds differing in composition one from the other by—CH₂, and enables us to trace back all organic compounds to one mother substance—marsh gas or methane.

These ideas have also been more or less successfully applied to the study of the composition of inorganic compounds. The assistance organic chemistry has given to the general subject is incalculable. Finally, it may be said, that while in the nature of the case our ideas of structure in organic compounds cannot be regarded as proved, or as not subject to possible future modifications, we have, at least, a consistent theory and good working hypothesis. A homely illustration of our present ideas may be drawn from the modern high city building. The skeleton of this building is made of iron, about which are grouped the brick, stone, wood, and other materials to form a complete building. So the organic body is built on a chain or frame-work or skeleton of carbon atoms, about which are grouped the atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, or radicle compounds thereof.

It is not possible here to even name some of the more eminent workers who for a quarter of a century have contributed to our knowledge of organic chemistry. This branch of chemistry has been the vogue, and has been pushed almost to the limit of possibility since 1875. Many almost unexplored fields still remain, but chemists recognize the fact that in theory and practice organic chemistry has reached a high degree of perfection, and they are returning to continue the researches in other fields which have for so long been almost neglected.

No branch of chemical science has a more general interest for the public than that which relates to the determination of the materials of which bodies are composed, and the proportions in which they exist.

At the beginning of the century considerable progress had been made in this branch of knowledge by the researches of Boyle (1626–1691), Hoffmann, Margraff (1709–1780), Scheele and Bergmann (1735–1784). Berzelius, as has already been mentioned, had added a new and valuable factor to chemical analysis by the development of the blowpipe, and in the early part of the century mineral analysis was still further advanced by Klaproth (1743–1817), Rose (1798–1873), and many others.

No one man did so much to advance this branch of chemical science as Fresenius (1818–1897). He collated and proved all the proposed methods of analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, and out of a confused mass of material formed a logical system of procedure, which has proved invaluable to the progress of chemical science in all its branches.

The volumetric methods of analysis, which save so much time and labor without sacrificing accuracy, were developed by Gay-Lussac, Vauquelin (1763–1879), Mohr (1806–1879), Volhard, Sutton, Fehling, and Liebig.

The methods of gas analysis have been worked out chiefly by Bunsen, ably assisted by Winkler and Hempel.

The methods of determining the elementary bodies in organic compounds have been developed by Dumas, Liebig, Will, Varrentrap, and Kjeldahl, to the200 last of whom chemical analysis owes a debt of gratitude for the invention of a speedy and accurate method of determining nitrogen.

Not much less is the debt due to Gooch for the invention of the perforated platinum crucible, carrying an asbestos felt for securing precipitates by filtration, in a form suitable to ignition without further preparation.

Through the classic researches of Arago (1786–1853) and Biot (1774–1862), polarized light has been made a most valuable adjunct to chemical research, serving as it does to measure the quantity of various alkaloids, essential oils, and sugars.

Based on these researches of Biot and Arago, Ventzke, Soleil, Scheibler, Duboscq, Landolt, and Lippich have constructed apparatus, which have made an exact science of optical saccharimetry. Optical analysis is not without its relation to theoretical chemistry, for by it has been proved the assumption that optically active bodies contain an asymmetrical carbon atom,—that is, one which combines with four different atoms or radicles.

Electricity has become also one of the most useful factors in chemical analysis. Many metals are easily deposited by electrolytic action, and their separation and determination rendered easy and certain.

Chemical analysis has not only given us accurate knowledge of the constituents of matter, but by revealing the deportment of molecules and groups of molecules in inorganic and organic compounds, has opened up a path for organic and synthetic chemistry which otherwise must have remained forever closed.

The discovery and development of spectrum analysis is one of the great achievements of the nineteenth century in chemical science.

Wollaston, in 1802, first noticed that the spectrum of the sun’s light, when greatly magnified, was not composed of colors gradually changing from one to the other, but that the continuity of the colors was interrupted by dark bands. Fraunhofer, in 1814, had made a map of the solar spectrum, showing 576 of these dark lines. Fraunhofer was entirely ignorant of the cause of these dark lines, but when he had found them, not only in the light from the sun, but also from the moon and the fixed stars, he properly concluded that they were due to something entirely independent of the earth.

It remained for Bunsen and Kirchhoff, in 1860, to point out the fact that these dark lines were characteristic of certain chemical elements existing in the sun and its photosphere, and this fact is the foundation of spectrum analysis. The broad black band in the sun’s spectrum, called by Fraunhofer D, corresponded exactly in position and in width with the yellow band produced by a flame containing incandescent sodium. There was no doubt whatever,201 therefore, that the two phenomena were due to the same cause; but why in the one case should the band be black and in the other yellow? This question was answered by the discovery of the fact that a ray of light colored by incandescent sodium, passing through a luminous atmosphere of the same metal, would lose by absorption all of its yellow color, and would display a black band where before the yellow color existed.

Based upon this observation, the development of spectrum analysis went forward with amazing rapidity. The hundreds of lines in the sun’s spectrum were found to occupy exactly the position of luminous lines in the spectra of various metals, and thus it was possible for the chemist to extend his investigations beyond the limits of the earth, and distinguish the chemical elements in the sun and in the fixed stars billions of miles farther away from us than the sun itself. Celestial chemistry has thus become a fixed and definite science.

But the value of spectral examinations has extended still farther. Many luminous lines were observed in the spectrum which were not found in the spectra of any known element. The inference then logically arose that there were elements yet undiscovered to which these lines were due. From this starting point investigations proceeded which have led to the discovery of a large number of elementary bodies. Among the important elements that have been discovered by means of spectrum analysis may be mentioned: cæsium, rubidium, thallium, indium, gallium, ytterbium, and scandium.

Spectrum analysis is also extremely useful in proving the verity of supposed new elements; for if a supposed new element should be found to give a series of spectral lines coincident with those already known, it would be a positive proof of the fact that the supposed new element was but a mixture of bodies already known to exist.

This branch of chemical science has for its object the building up of the more complex from the simpler forms of matter. In the early part of the century, Chevreul and Wöhler laid the foundation of the science by the synthesis of fatty-like bodies and urea. Berthellot and Friedel (1832–) in France, and Williamson and Frankland in England, added much to our knowledge. Kolbe, in Germany, made salicylic acid so abundantly as to banish the natural article from the market. The synthesis of coloring matters resembling indigo was also a great blow to that industry. From the products of the distillation of coal, chemists were able to make thousands of valuable bodies of the greatest utility. Many medicinal substances and nearly all the common dyes trace their origin to coal.

Fischer (b. 1852), in Germany, has contributed his remarkable results in the synthesis of sugar to the last years of the century. Lillienfeld, in Austria, has gone still further, and has built up a body which has many of the properties of protein, one of the most highly organized of organic substances.

In the inorganic world synthesis is not so difficult a matter as the vast number of compounds attest. By means of the electric furnace, Moissan, in France, has succeeded in uniting carbon with many of the metallic elements, and thus opened the path for new achievements in passing directly from inorganic to organic compounds.

202 The progress of chemical synthesis has already blotted out the old distinction between inorganic and organic chemistry, and we can no longer say of organic bodies that they are the products of living cells. Organic bodies are those which contain a carbon or other elementary skeleton, to which are attached the elements or groups of elements forming the complete body.

The claim which has been made that synthetical chemistry would in the near future produce the food of man, and thus relegate agriculture to the domain of the useless or forgotten arts, is, however, wholly without scientific foundation. The function of the farmer will not be usurped by the chemist. The future will see the most important contributions to chemistry coming from the field of organic chemistry, but it will also see the farmer following in the furrow, and man depending for his food on the fields of waving grain.

This is the oldest branch of chemical science, and naturally the one which was furthest advanced at the beginning of the century. Nevertheless, the advances which the past one hundred years have seen in this science are most surprising. Gold and silver are now secured from ores so poor as to have rendered them of no value a hundred years ago. The Bessemer process of steel making (1856) has revolutionized the world, and made possible railroads and steamships. The basic Bessemer process of making steel from pig-iron rich in phosphorus, has opened up rich mines of iron ore hitherto valueless. The basic phosphatic slag, resulting from this process, is of the highest value in the fields, and has brought agriculture and metallurgy into intimate relationship. The electric furnace has made aluminium almost as cheap as iron, bulk for bulk, and electric welding bids fair to take the place of the old process, with the cheapening of metals.

Sir Humphry Davy, in the beginning of the century, delivered a course of lectures on the relations of chemistry to agriculture, and these were published in book form. In France, important contributions were made to agricultural chemical science by Vauquelin, Chevreul (1786–1889), and Boussingault (1802–1887), who made important researches before the middle of the century. The most important work in agricultural chemistry, however, was done by Liebig. His achievements so overshadowed those of his predecessors that he is generally regarded, although improperly, as the father of that branch of the science.

The early achievements of these workers showed the relatively small portions of the crops that were derived from the soil. The study of the ash203 constituents of plants laid the foundation of rational fertilizing, and the utilization of the stores of plant food preserved in great natural deposits.

Beginning with the middle of the century, the attention of agronomists was called to the desirability of utilizing the deposits of guano, found in the islands along the west coast of South America; of the deposits of phosphate rock existing in many localities; and later, of the potash salts, discovered near Stassfurt, which completed the trio of available natural foods most useful to plants.

The establishment of an agricultural experiment station by Sir John Lawes at Rothamstead (1834), before the middle of the century, set an example which has been followed by the establishment of experiment stations in all the civilized countries of the world.

Under the great stimulus given to agricultural research by these stations, progress during the latter half of the century has been very rapid. There now exist in Europe nearly one hundred stations devoted to agricultural research, and in this country the number is half as great.

Conspicuous achievements, marking the closing years of the century, have been the discovery of the methods whereby organic nitrogen is rendered suitable for plant food, and atmospheric nitrogen fixed and rendered available by leguminous plants. In the first instance, it has been established that organic nitrogen in the soil can only be utilized by plants after it has been oxidized by bacterial action. In the case of leguminous plants, nitrogen is rendered available for nutrition by means of bacteria inhabiting nodules in the roots of the legumes. These two great discoveries have proved of incalculable benefit to practical agriculture. Chemical science in its relations to agriculture has shown that the fertility of the soil may be conserved and increased, while the magnitude of the crops harvested is sustained or augmented. Thus, no matter how rapid may be the increase of population, agricultural chemistry will provide abundant food.

The honor of discovering that prints could be made by the action of light on certain salts, such as those of silver, belongs to Daguerre, in 1839.

The fundamental principle of graphic chemistry is that metallic salts, sensitive to the light, when in contact with organic matter, suffer a complete or partial reduction and are rendered insoluble. The intensity of the reduction is measured exactly by the intensity of the light. When light is reflected from any object capable of producing different degrees of intensity, as from the hair and face of a man, the reduction of the metal is greatest by the light from that portion of the physiognomy which gives the greatest204 reflection. Thus, when the unreduced metallic salt is washed out, a permanent record, the negative, of the object is left.

It is a long step from the first daguerreotype to the modern photograph, but the principle of the process has remained unchanged.

Photographs in natural colors have of late years been obtained. One method is by interposing a film of metallic mercury behind the sensitive plate which must be transparent. The reflected rays of light, having different wave lengths, precipitate the metal in superimposed films, corresponding to the wave or half-wave length. When a negative thus formed is seen by reflected light, the emergent rays from the superimposed films acting as mirrors are transformed into the original colors of the photographed object.

The various methods of printing by heliotypes, photolithographs, photogravures, etc., are illustrations of the application of graphic chemistry to the arts.

The lectures of Davy and Faraday in England, of Wöhler and Liebig in Germany, of Chevreul and Dumas in France, and of Silliman (1779–1864) in this country, made the study of chemistry attractive and easy during the early part of the century.

It was noticed, however, that the students who finished these courses, while well versed in the principles of the science, were not able to apply them in practice. Towards the middle of the century, therefore, a radical change in the system of instruction was inaugurated. The student was put to work and taught to question nature for himself. The universities of France and Germany were equipped with working desks where students of chemistry put into practice at once the principles of the science which they heard elucidated in the lecture room. Cooke, at Harvard, was the chief apostle of the laboratory method in this country, and this method of instruction has now spread, until even the high and grammar schools have their chemical laboratories.

In our universities, students may now begin their chemical studies associated with laboratory practice in the first year of their course, and continue it to the end. Graduates of such courses are not only grounded in the theories of chemistry, but are thoroughly familiar with its practice. Under this system, coupled with the demand for chemical services in every branch of industry, the number of trained chemists has speedily increased. At this time (1899) there are more than four thousand trained chemists in the United States.

Our knowledge of fermentation and bacterial action is practically all comprised in the achievements of the nineteenth century. Prior to this time it was known that fermentation took place, but its causes and character were wholly mysterious. The great work of Pasteur (1859) resulted in the fact that fermentations were chiefly caused by the activity of living cells, which have the capacity of reproduction. The most common form of fermentation is that whereby sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The name of the organism that produces this change is saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Another class of fermentation is seen in the process of digestion. This species of fermentation is typified by the action of sprouted barley on starch,205 whereby the starch is converted into sugar. The active principle of the saliva, ptyalin, has the same property, and when starchy bodies are masticated, a part, at least, of the starch which they contain is converted into sugar. The active principle of malt is known as diastase, and this, as well as ptyalin, belongs to a class of ferments which are incapable of reproduction.

All the decompositions of organic matter, such as the decay of meats and vegetables, are now known to be forms of fermentation, due to the action of certain organisms known by the group name of bacteria. This discovery led naturally to the process of preserving organic compounds by sterilization. The principles on which this process depends are very simple. If an organic body, such as a fruit or vegetable, be subjected for some time to a high temperature,—that of boiling water will usually suffice,—the fermentation germs which it contains will be destroyed. If then it be sealed in such a way, either hermetically or with a plug of sterilized cotton, so that no living germ can reach it, decomposition cannot take place. Certain chemicals, such for instance as salicylic acid and formaldehyde, have the property of paralyzing or suspending germ action, and hence organic bodies treated with these substances may also be protected against decomposition.

The activity of fermentation is made use of in the technical arts. Bread is made light by fermentation, and wine, beer, and cider are made by the fermentation of fruits and grains. Alcohol is produced by the fermentation of grains and potatoes, their starch having previously been converted into sugar by malt.

Buchner has lately shown that all fermentation is of one kind, namely, that due to ferments of the diastase type. The fermentation produced by yeast, for instance, is not due, according to his observations, to the living cells, but to the products of their activity. By destroying yeast cells, by grinding and high pressure, and using their contents, he has secured a vigorous fermentation similar in every respect to that caused by the cells themselves.

The electric furnace, which affords a higher heat than chemists had been able to secure, has been the promoter of great advances in inorganic chemistry. Moissan (b. 1852), a French chemist, has been the most successful in applying the heat of the electric furnace to analytic and synthetic studies. One of the practical results which has come from these studies has been the virtual bridging over of the chasm which has been supposed to exist between organic and inorganic compounds. Under the influence of the heat of the electric furnace, carbon, which is the keystone of organic compounds,206 has been made to combine directly with the metals, forming a series of bodies known as metallic carbides. The carbide of calcium, under the action of water, yields a gas known as acetylene, which by a series of reactions can be converted into alcohol. Thus alcohol, which only a short time ago was supposed to be solely the product of organic life, is shown also to result from a simple inorganic reaction such as has been shown above.

The importance of electrolysis in metallurgical and analytical chemistry has already been noticed. So rapid has been the progress along these lines that the terms metallurgical chemistry and electro-chemistry are in some respects almost synonymous.

Electricity has also been employed in many of the chemical arts; e. g., in the promotion of crystallization and purification of organic solutions as practiced in the sugar industry.

Though belonging rather to analytical than to electro-chemistry, one may here mention the wonders of that discovery which belongs to the close of the nineteenth century, and which is known as “liquid air.” Until 1877 air—oxygen and nitrogen—was regarded as a permanent gas. Oxygen liquefies at 300° below zero and nitrogen at 320°. When air is cooled to those degrees it assumes a misty form and falls like raindrops to the bottom of the vessel. It then gives off vapor, like boiling water. If poured out on a conductor, as iron or ice, it assumes the gaseous state so rapidly as to amount to an explosion. The many experiments with it are simply wonderful, and the practical claims for it are without end. Already it runs an engine and motor vehicles. It is claimed that it will complete the problem of aerial navigation; that it is the coming power in gunnery and blasting; that it affords the ideal sanitation; that in surgery it offers the most perfect chemical cauterization.

There is no branch of science that holds such an intimate relation to the progress and welfare of man as chemistry. First of all, it is chiefly instrumental in providing him with food and clothing, as has been shown in the paragraph on agricultural chemistry. In the second place it has extended his domain over matter and, in connection with physics, has established the identity of the composition of the universe with that of the earth. The universe has thus been shown to be of a single origin and of uniform properties. By understanding the constitution of matter, with which he is surrounded, man is able to utilize to the best advantage the material at his disposal. Thus invention is promoted and the application of chemical knowledge in the arts extended.

207

Music finds its highest artistic development in the happy combinations which go to make up the opera. These combinations passed through various historic stages, and ripened into noble maturity by the end of the eighteenth century, under the guiding genius of the Handels, Mozarts, and Glucks of the times. Their legacy passed, in the nineteenth century, to a host of worthy successors, among whom stands, as a central figure, Verdi, the great Italian operatic composer; while Wagner, of Germany, has striven with herculean might to revolutionize the lyrical drama by polemical writing, by twofold authorship of words and notes, and by a new application of principles gathered from antecedent reformers. His efforts produced a commotion in the art world which might be compared to that excited by the rivalry between Buonocini and Handel in London, or Piccini and Gluck in Paris, but for the fact that in each of these instances the contention was between one composer and another, whereas in the case of Wagner it was the opposition of one composer to all others in the world, save the few who, believing in the man, his teachings, and his wonderful powers of application, undertook propagandism as a duty, and endeavored to make proselytes to their faith. He did not live to see the day when his efforts could be called completely successful, and his death in 1883 left judgment quite wide open as to his theoretical and practical merits. The nineteenth century closes with the question still on as to the permanence or evanescence of his many unique, ponderous, and revolutionizing productions.

Verdi, who still lives, surpasses all the composers of his time in the beauty of his melodies and the intensity of his dramatic power.

Rossini, whose “Guillaume Tell,” which was produced in Paris in 1829, was his masterpiece, ruled the operatic world before Verdi, until he died in Paris in 1868.

Meyerbeer, whose principal operas are “Les Huguenots,” “Le Prophète,” and “L’Africaine” (the latter produced in Paris in 1865, the year after its composer’s death), was regarded as a remarkable composer, whose knowledge of effect was unsurpassed, and whose fine intelligence and musical knowledge almost made the world forgive him for frequent lack of inspiration.

Halévy, whose only lasting success was “La Juive,” composed other operas, such as “Charles VI.,” “La Reine de Chypre,” “L’Eclair,” and “Les Mousquetaires de la Reine,” that achieved a certain amount of success in France, which success was interrupted by Halévy’s death at Nice in 1862.

Gounod, in 1859, made his most remarkable success with his greatest opera, “Faust,” which, after the subject had been treated by Spohr, Lindpainter, Schumann, Berlioz, and other distinguished composers, has remained the only completely successful opera on the subject, although Boito’s “Mefistofile”208 (another version of the subject) achieved a marked success in Italy in 1868, and placed Boito among the remarkable composers of the day. As for Gounod, his other operas never equaled his “Faust.” Next in merit comes “Roméo et Juliette” (produced in Paris in 1867) and then his “Mireille,” which appeared in 1864, and “Philémon et Baucis,” an exquisite little comic opera produced in 1860. His last opera, “Le Tribut de Zamora,” was given at the Grand Opera, Paris, in 1881, and failed.

Donizetti, who died in Bergamo in 1848, was for many years one of the most popular operatic composers. He possessed undoubted ability, but wrote carelessly, as the Italians did in that day. But his operas contain much that is beautiful, and often show fine dramatic power. His “Lucia” contains inspired pages, while other portions are inexcusably commonplace. The same remark applies to his “Lucrezia Borgia,” “La Favorita,” and “Maria di Rohan;” while in his comic operas, such as “Don Pasquale” (which was composed in three weeks), his “L’Elisire d’Amore” and “La Fille du Régiment,” Donizetti appears to better advantage. They are melodious and very agreeably written. His fertility may be imagined when you are told that he composed over sixty operas during his career, as well as other compositions.

Bellini, whose career was a short one, as he was born in 1802 and died in 1835, was badly trained and could not be called a well-schooled musician, being rather a musician by instinct. But he possessed remarkable ability, and, perceiving that the persistently florid style of Rossini (which all the composers of that time blindly imitated) was approaching an end, treated his melodies with a simplicity and directness that at once attracted attention and met with approval.

Bellini’s knowledge of instrumentation was childish, but his intimacy with Rubini, the famous tenor, aided him in achieving an admirable treatment of the voice. His operas were very sweet and melodious. The two operas by which he will be remembered are “La Sonnambula” and “Norma,” the latter being, with all its faults, a great opera.

Another talented and prolific operatic composer was Mercadante, whose “Il Giuramento” (produced in 1837) achieved considerable popularity. But Mercadante’s successes were generally confined to Italy. He composed sixty operas, and died in 1870 in Naples.

Ponchielli, who was born in 1834 and died in 1886, will be principally remembered by his remarkably beautiful opera, “La Gioconda” (produced in 1876), which, together with a re-written version of his first opera, “I Promessi Sposi,” gave him great popularity in Italy and spread his reputation to other countries.

209 As for Italy’s young composers that profess to represent the modern Italian school of opera, they are led by Puccini, whose “Manon Lescaut” and “La Bohême” are melodious and full of merit.

Mascagni and Leoncavallo, whose “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “I Pagliacci” achieved popularity, have not realized expectations. Nor has Giordano, whose “Andrea Chenier” was well received in Italy.

Bizet, whose “Carmen” is one of the most remarkable of modern operas, died in Paris in 1875. “Carmen” has remained in the repertoire. His other opera, “Les Pécheurs de Perles,” only achieved a moderate success.

One of France’s greatest musicians, Hector Berlioz, was born in 1803 and died in 1869. His operas, “Les Troyens,” “Benvenuto Cellini,” his “Damnation de Faust,” his “Roméo et Juliette” symphony, are all great and afforded Wagner a model that he imitated persistently.

In 1871 France lost one of its most talented operatic composers, Auber, whose “Masaniello” and “Fra Diavolo” are two of the most popular operas ever written by a Frenchman. Auber composed comic operas charmingly, and his “Domino Noir,” “Diamants de la Couronne,” “Haydée,” and other works of a similar character, entertained the French people for many years. Auber’s death has left a vacancy that has not been filled.

The modern French composers cannot be called great. Saint-Saens, whose most successful work is “Samson et Dalila” (which is more of an oratorio than an opera, and which was produced in 1877), has composed other operas,210 such as “Henri VIII.,” “Ascanio,” et cetera, which lack originality and inspiration.

Massenet has composed “Le Roi de Lahore,” “Hérodiade,” “Manon,” “Werther,” et cetera, that have had passing successes.

Both Saint-Saens and Massenet have attempted to follow Wagner in their sonorous orchestration; but their works lack distinction. The French composers of to-day have been demoralized by Wagner’s affectations.

The death of Ambroise Thomas, in 1895, caused France the loss of one of her most successful and accomplished operatic composers, whose “Mignon” will be long admired as a very charming opera comique, while his “Hamlet,” though containing portions that are ably written, has never attained outside France any remarkable success.

Reyer, whose “Sigurd” was produced in 1884 with considerable success, is a follower of Meyerbeer. His “Salammbo” was produced in 1890, but did not attract the attention expected outside of France.

German opera of the latter part of the century has been so demoralized by the influence of Wagner that the German composers have become little more than imitators of his pronounced mannerisms.

Weber’s “Der Freischütz” remains the most popular of German operas, just as Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” is the most popular of Italian operas.

Spohr, Lindpainter, and many other German composers of ability have been laid on the shelf.

211 Marshner, who died in Hanover in 1861, showed in his “Hans Heiling” that he was a follower of Weber, as well as in his “Templar and Jewess.”

Cornelius, who died in Mainz in 1874, made his principal success with his “Barber of Bagdad,” a comic opera in which the manner of Wagner was imitated. In 1864 “The Cid” was produced in Weimar, but it was found depressingly heavy and labored.

Goldmark, a follower of Meyerbeer, made a success in 1875 with his “Queen of Saba” that was not equaled by his “Merlin,” produced in 1886, or his “Prisoner of War,” produced in 1899.

To return to the great leader of opera—Verdi—one may say of him that his operas are divided into three periods. The first included the works written in the old Neapolitan style as he had found it. To this class belong “Nabucco,” “Attila,” et cetera. To the second period, which shows remarkable dramatic color and beautiful melody, belong “Rigoletto,” “Ernani,” and “Ballo in Maschera” (in which Verdi began to pay attention to his instrumentation). To the third period belongs “Aïda,” which is his most characteristic and remarkable opera, in which the melody is wonderfully fresh and beautiful, combined with remarkable science.

“Otello” is also a great work, written at a time of life when most composers retire, and broadly dramatic in its treatment of the situations, illuminated by rich and expressive instrumentation.

As for “Falstaff,” the latest opera that Verdi has written, and probably the last he will write, it is the greatest modern comic opera, just as Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” is the greatest comic opera of the past. It convinces the world that Verdi’s genius is inexhaustible.

Next to Verdi comes Wagner, the anarchist of music, who began in “Rienzi” and “The Flying Dutchman” by imitating the Italian forms of melody. In “Tannhäuser,” portions are very beautiful and melodious; in “Lohengrin,” portions are fine; but Wagner’s idea of effect was bad and he never knew when to stop, so that many of the scenes are interminable. This fault increased as Wagner composed the “Nibelungen” series for the crazy king of Bavaria. Melody vanished, the212 singers became secondary to the orchestra, which was persistently noisy. Wagner’s effort was to create a new school of opera, in which everything should be minutely descriptive. He went too far and opened the question of failure. In opera the voices claim the first place, and the orchestra is an accompaniment, so that Wagner’s method was radically wrong.

Independent of this, he attempted to infuse life into the “Nibelungen” series, whereas he adopted a tangled and childish fairy-story that was more absurd than impressive. The later Wagner operas, which the composer calls “music dramas,” are tiresome and monotonous to such a degree that, with all the remarkable talent of Wagner, they may never become popular, and may be eventually laid on the shelf, to be regarded in the future as musical curios.

The musicians of the United States are steadily developing, and for so young a country we have a large number of composers of first-class ability, such as Macdowell, Foote, Lang, Chadwick, Gilchrist, and many others who have produced important compositions.

In opera the American composers have done nothing, for the reason that there are no opportunities for the production of such works. If there were, we should soon have many operatic composers, and should speedily take high rank in the lyric drama.

The theatre of the latter part of the century shows a remarkable advance, in certain respects, over the theatre of the past, which consisted of a “star,” an inferior company, poor scenery and appointments, et cetera; whereas to-day there are many more really good actors and actresses, the theatres are far more comfortable and artistic, the scenery, costumes and details are beautiful and correct.

We have no Mrs. Siddons, no Kemble, no Rachel, no Talma; but we are confident that the actors and actresses of to-day are like the theatre of to-day,—they have more finish, and the results, while they may not rise to the plane of the school of Shakespeare, are nearer nature than they have ever been.

The school of declamation, which belonged to the plays of the past, is the severest loss the stage of to-day has felt. The actors and actresses fail in elocution. They do not know where to put their emphasis. They seem lost when they appear in costume, and Shakespeare to-day has no distinguished exponents.

The English-speaking stage of the century has been adorned by such eloquent interpreters and powerful tragedians as Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, Edwin Booth, and Henry Irving. But this illustrious roll has been almost extinguished by death; and, especially if applied to America, the214 question may well be asked, where is the actor or actress who can play Hamlet, or Macbeth, or King Lear, or Shylock as we were wont to see them rendered by those masters of the dramatic art, or as they should be rendered? Salvini and Rossi have both passed away. Irving verges on retiracy. Of the great dramatic actresses left to the closing of the century, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt stands preëminent. The day of the imposing declamatory drama seems to have lost its lustre at the sunset of the century.