Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

CHAPTER VIII. DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: SCIENCE AND LITERATURE: PROGRESS OF HUMANE SENTIMENT: PROGRESS TOWARD THE UNITY OF MANKIND.

As an era of invention and discovery, the nineteenth century is a rival of the fifteenth.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES.—Too much was already known of the globe to leave room for another so stupendous discovery as that of the New World. Nevertheless, many important geographical discoveries have been made, especially since about 1825. Geographical societies without number have been founded, of which the Royal Geographical Society in England (1830) is one of the best known. Geographical knowledge is increased in two ways,—first, by the discovery of places not before known; and secondly, by the scientific examination of countries and districts, with accurate surveys, and the making of maps. In both these departments, especially in the latter, the recent period won distinction. The Russians in their advance rendered the regions of Northern and Central Asia accessible to travelers. Not only India, but also extensive districts in Central Asia, have been explored by the British. China has been traversed by a succession of travelers, and Japan has unbarred its gates for the admission of foreigners. Abyssinia has been traversed. The mystery respecting the sources of the Nile has been dispelled by Speke, Grant, and Baker. In 1822 and 1825 Clapperlon, in two journeys, went over the whole route from Tripoli to the coast of Guinea. In 1830 Richard and John Lander settled the question as to the outlet of the Niger. Barth, and other later explorers, have carried forward the study of the course of this great river, in the exploration of which Mungo Park lost his life (1806). In 1816 the Congo was explored to the falls of Yellala. The travels of Schweinfurth, Livingstone, Barth, Cameron, and Stanley have greatly enlarged our acquaintance with formerly unknown portions of the African continent. In 1879 Stanley, commissioned by King Leopold of Belgium, opened up communication with the populous basin of the Congo. During the struggle of the European states to acquire colonial territory, no part of the continent remained unexplored. European rivalries also had similar important consequences to geography in Asia, especially in the Trans-Caspian region and in Tibet. Dr. Sven Hedin was the most successful of the explorers in Tibet, traversing wholly unknown districts. Unknown regions on the American continent, in South America, in far north-western North America, and in Labrador, have been visited. The same is true of the interior of Australia. The eagerness to find a north-western passage (and later in scientific exploration) has led to hazardous and not unfruitful expeditions under Ross, Parry, Franklin, Kane, Markham, McClintock, Greely, and other voyagers. In 1875 Markham reached the highest latitude that up to that time had been attained (83° 21' 26"). A still higher point (86° 14') was reached by Dr. Nansen who in 1893 started to drift in the Fram across the polar regions. In 1892 Lieutenant Peary crossed Greenland from the west coast to a part of the north-east coast never before visited. The Antarctic seas were also explored first by the Challenger in 1874. By 1900 the farthest point reached was 78° 50'. Geography has become a much more profound and instructive science. The physical character of the globe, and of the atmosphere that surrounds it, have been studied in their relation to man and history. Physical geography, or physiography, has thus arisen. In recent years scientists have gone far in the study of the physical geography of the sea, in making maps of its bottom, and in the endeavor to define the system of oceanic winds and currents. In connection with physical geography, the distribution of animal life on the land and in the depths of the sea has been studied, and much valuable information gained.

FOUR INVENTIONS.—Among the useful inventions of the present century, there are four which are of preëminent consequence. The honor connected with each of these, as is generally the case with great inventions, belongs to no individual exclusively. Several, and in some cases many persons, can fairly claim a larger or smaller share in it. (1) The most efficient agent in bringing the steam-engine to perfection was James Watt (1736-1819), a native of Scotland. (2) In connection with the application of steam to navigation, no name stands higher than that of Robert Fulton. (3) Carriages on railroads were at first drawn by horses. In 1814 George Stephenson, in England, invented the locomotive, and afterwards (1829) an improved construction of it.

The first great railroad for the transportation of passengers began to run between Manchester and Liverpool in 1830. Remarkable achievements in engineering have been connected with the construction of railways. The Alps were pierced, and the Mont Cenis tunnel was completed in 1871. The principal civilized countries have gradually become covered with networks of railways. The whole method of transportation of the products of industry has been altered by them. Besides their vast influence in facilitating and stimulating travel and trade, they have modified the method of conducting warfare, with very important results. (4) In contriving the electric telegraph, Wheatstone, an Englishman, Oersted, a Dane, and Henry, an American, had each an important part. The most simple and efficient form of the telegraphic instrument is admitted to be due to the inventive sagacity of Morse (1837). His instrument was first put in use in 1844. The first submarine wires connecting Europe with America transmitted messages in 1858, between England and the United States. Since that time numerous submarine cables have been laid in different parts of the globe. Upon the invention of the telegraph, another invention—that of the telephone—has followed, by which conversation can be held with the voice between distant places. By the phonograph it has become possible to reproduce audibly songs, speeches, and conversations. Still more recently a system of wireless telegraphy has been invented by which messages may be sent even across the Atlantic without the use of a cable.

The Suez Canal, a channel for ships, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and opening thus a shorter highway by water between Europe and the East, was officially opened on the 17th of November, 1869.

USES OF STEAM.—The practical applications of steam, besides its use in the propulsion of vessels, and of carriages on railways, are numberless. It is used, for example, in automobiles, in traction engines, in plowing and harvesting machinery, in fire-engines, in road-rollers, and in all sorts of hoisting and conveying machinery.

Steam forge hammers were invented by Nasmyth, an engineer of Manchester, in 1839. In a multitude of industrial occupations, where water-power was once used, or tools and machines whose use involved muscular exertion, the work is now done by the energy of steam. More recently electricity has been displacing steam not only on street railroads and suburban railroads, but also in many other industrial processes, as well as the lighting of buildings and streets.

TOOLS AND MACHINES.—In modern days no small amount of skill has been directed to the devising of tools and machines for the more facile and exact production of whatever costs labor. Factories have become monuments of ingenuity, and museums in the useful arts. Improved machinery lightens the toil of the sailor. Machines in a great variety facilitate agricultural labor. They open the furrow, sow the seed, reap and winnow the harvest. In-doors, the sewing-machine performs a great part of the labor formerly done by the fingers of the seamstress. The art of printing has attained to a marvelous degree of progress. Hoe's printing-press, moved by steam, seizes on the blank paper, severs it from the roll in sheets of the right size, prints it on both sides, and folds it in a convenient shape,—all with miraculous rapidity. Inventions in rock-boring and rock-drilling have made it possible to tunnel mountains. The use of explosives for mechanical purposes is a highly important fact in connection with the modern labor-saving inventions.

INDIA RUBBER.—Shoes made of caoutchouc, the thickened milky juice of the india-rubber plant, were imported from Brazil to Boston as early as 1825. Improvements in the use of this material, in the solid form and in solution, were made by Mr. Macintosh of Glasgow, and Thomas Hancock of Newington, England, about 1820. From the dissolved caoutchouc, a coating was obtained making garments water-proof. In 1839 Charles Goodyear, an American, discovered the process of vulcanizing india-rubber,—that is, producing in it a chemical change whereby its valuable qualities are greatly enhanced. The material thus procured was applied to a great number of uses. It enters into a great variety of manufactured articles.

ENGINERY OF WAR.—A continual advance has been made in the construction of the implements of war. The whole science and art of war have been fundamentally changed, mainly in consequence of these modern inventions. Reference may be made to the invention of rifled cannon, heavier ordnance, breech-loading guns, and shells and explosive bullets. It was the needle-gun of the Prussians, which gave them a signal advantage in their war with the French. The building of armored battle ships has been followed by the construction of small swift vessels from which to launch torpedoes at the battle ships. Other swift vessels have been constructed to pursue and destroy the torpedo boat. High explosives and smokeless powder have also been invented.

THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.—Among the instruments which have promoted the extension of science, the microscope, with its modern improvements, is one of the most interesting. It has aided discovery in botany, in physiology, in mineralogy, and in almost all other branches of science. It has even assisted in the detection of crime. The large refracting telescopes have been constructed within the last few decades. Telescopes have recently been used with increasing success in photographing the heavens with accuracy.

INSTRUMENTS IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY.—The microscope has rendered inestimable service to the healing art. Rare ingenuity has been exerted in contriving surgical instruments by which difficult operations are performed with comparative safety and without pain. In medicine and surgery, the discovery of anesthetics for the general or partial suspending of nervous sensibility is one of the triumphs of practical science in later times. Chloroform was brought into general use in the medical profession in 1847; although it had been discovered, and had been used by individuals in the profession, much earlier. Nitrous oxide was first used by Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, in the extraction of a tooth (1844). In 1846 the great discovery of anæsthetic ether, by Morton of Boston, was first applied in surgery. Jackson and others were claimants, with more or less justice, to a part in the honors of this discovery. Lately cocaine has been found to benumb the sensibility of the more delicate membranes, as those of the eye and the throat. In auscultation, or the ascertaining of the state of the internal organs by listening to their sound, a very valuable instrument is the stethoscope. The principle of the ophthalmoscope, that wonderful instrument for inspecting the interior of the eye, was expounded by Helmholtz in 1851. By its aid, not only the condition of that organ is explored, but indications of certain diseases in the brain, and in other parts of the body, are discovered. Helmholtz did an equal work in acoustics. The recent discovery and use of the X-rays has assisted surgeons in locating foreign substances and in diagnosing disease.

THE SPECTROSCOPE: PHOTOGRAPHY.—In connection with the phenomena of light, the spectroscope, by which the chemical elements entering in the composition of the sun and of other heavenly bodies are ascertained, is one of the marvels of the age. The way was paved for this discovery by a succession of chemists and opticians,—Fraunhofer (1814), Brewster (1832), Sir John Herschel (1822), J. W. Draper, and others; but the instrument was devised by Kirchhoff and Bunsen. Photography, or the art of making permanent sun-pictures, is the result of the labors of Niepce (who died in 1833), Daguerre (1839), Fox Talbot, an Englishman, J. W. Draper, and other men of science and practical artisans. Instantaneous photography has been of much service in the observation of eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. Progress has also been made in color-photography.

THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.—Perhaps the most important conclusion of physical science which has been reached in the recent period is the doctrine of the conservation of energy. Chemists had shown that the sum of matter always remains the same. In the transformations of chemistry no matter is destroyed, however it may change its form. Now, it has been proved that the quantity of power or energy is constant. If lost in one body, it reappears in another; if it ceases in one form, it is exerted in another, and this according to definite ratios. One form of energy is convertible into another: heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, are so related that one can be made to produce either of the others. This fact is termed the correlation of physical forces. Connected with the discovery of it are Meyer in Germany, and Grove and Joule in England. It has been expounded by Sir William Thompson, Helmholtz, Tait, Maxwell, etc. The truth was elucidated by Tyndall in his Heat considered as a Mode of Motion, and by Balfour Stewart in his Conservation of Energy. But Count Rumford, an American (1753-1814), the real founder of the Royal Institution, long ago opened the path for this discovery by furnishing the data for computing the mechanical equivalent of heat.

GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.—In geology, from the publication of Lyell's work (1830), the tendency has more and more prevailed to explain the geological structure of the earth by the slow operation of forces now in action, rather than by violent convulsions and catastrophes. In 1831 Sedgwick and Murchison, likewise English geologists, commenced their labors. Agassiz published his Essay on the Glaciers in 1837, the precursor of like investigations by Tyndall and others. These are only a small fraction of the numerous body of explorers and writers in geological science. In the United States, Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), an eminent scientific teacher, lent a strong stimulus to the progress of geology, as well as of chemistry. Even in the branch of paleontology, or the study of the fossil remains of extinct animals, it would be impracticable to give the names of those who have added so much to our knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants in the ages that preceded man.

ASTRONOMY.—The great French geometers, Lagrange and Laplace, made an epoch in astronomical science. Since their time, however, there has been a large increase of knowledge in this branch. The discovery of the planet Neptune (1846) by Galle, as the result of mathematical calculations of Leverrier, which were made independently also by Adams, was hailed as a signal proof of scientific progress; and, recently, the discovery of a fifth satellite of Jupiter. Besides Neptune hundreds of thousands of stars have been discovered and registered. Mathematical astronomy has advanced, while the study of nebulae and of meteors, and the investigation of the constitution of celestial bodies by the help of the spectroscope, are among the more recent achievements of this oldest of the sciences. Among the names identified with the recent progress of astronomy are Sir John Herschel and A. Herschel, Maxwell, Struve, Secchi, Bessel, Bond, Peirce, Newton, Newcomb, Young, Lockyer, Schiaparelli.

PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY.—In chemistry the major part of the more rare elements have been discovered since the century began. It was proved in 1819 that the capacities for heat which belong to the atoms of the different elements are equal. In the same year Mitscherlich's law was propounded,—the law of isomorphism, according to which atoms of elements of the same class may replace each other in a compound without altering its crystalline structure. Chemists have directed their attention to the molecular structure—the ultimate constitution—of various compounds. Faraday (1791-1867) developed the relations of electricity to chemistry. Liebig (1803-1873), a German chemist, in connection with numerous laborers in the same field, made interesting contributions in the different departments of chemical science. Among the recent elements which have been discovered are argon, which enters into the composition of air, helium, and radium.

BIOLOGY.—No branch of natural science has been more zealously cultivated of late than biology. Among those who have given an impulse to the study of natural history, one of the most eminent names is that of Charles Darwin. His work on The Origin of Species (1859) advocated the opinion that the various species of animals, instead of being all separately created, spring by natural descent and slow variation from a few primitive forms of animal life. He laid much stress upon "natural selection," or the survival of the strongest or fittest in the struggle for existence. With the name of Darwin should be associated that of Wallace, who simultaneously propounded the same doctrine. The general doctrine of evolution, or of the origin of species by natural generation, has been held in other forms and modifications by Richard Owen, and other distinguished naturalists. One of the most noted opponents of the evolution doctrine in zoology was Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), a very able and enthusiastic student of nature. One of its most eminent expounders and defenders was Huxley. Some have sought to extend the theory of natural development over the field of inorganic as well as living things, and to trace all existences back to nebulous vapor.

ARCHEOLOGY.—Geology lends its aid to archeology, or the inquiry into the primitive condition of man. Not only has much light been thrown on obscure periods of history, by the uncovering of the remains of Babylon, Assyria, and other abodes of early civilization, and by the deciphering of monumental inscriptions in characters long forgotten; but the discovery of buried relics of prehistoric men has afforded glimpses of human life as it was prior to all written memorials. One of the most instructive writers on this last subject is Tylor in his Primitive Culture, and in other works on the same general theme.