been estimated that the daily consumption of them in Great Britain alone amounts to two hundred and fifty millions, or more than eight matches per day for each individual in the kingdom.
"There is nothing on the Earth so small that it may not produce great things." The most abstract and apparently trivial experiments in original research have in some cases led to inventions and results of national and even world-wide importance. The contractions of a frog's leg in the experiments of Galvani, and the movements of a magnetic needle in those of Oersted, have already led to the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds in laying telegraph wires all over the earth, and to an immense extension of international intercourse. But the original experiment of Oersted was not discovered without labour, it was only arrived at after many years of research.
The saying that "all great things have had small beginnings," is true, not only of electric telegraphs, but also of the great trade of electro-plating, and of the magneto-electric machine which is now largely used instead of the voltaic battery. After Volta had made his small and apparently unimportant experiments on the electricity produced by metals and liquids, various persons tried the effect of that electricity upon metallic solutions. Brugnatelli, in 1805, found that two silver medals became gilded in a solution of gold by passing the electricity through them. Mr. Henry Bessemer, in 1834, coated various
lead ornaments with copper by using a solution of copper in a similar manner. And in 1836 Mr. De la Rue found that copies might be taken in copper of engraved copper-plates by the electro-depositing process. Faraday discovered magneto-electricity in the year 1831, by rotating a disc of copper between the poles of a magnet, and he has stated that the first successful result he obtained was so small that he could hardly detect it. This simple experiment was the origin of the magneto-electric machine, and many of these machines are now used for producing the electric light, and for depositing nickel, copper, silver, and gold, instead of by the voltaic battery. These, and other engines, thermic, magnetic, electric, &c, will probably, ere long, be constructed on as large a scale, and as many in number, as the present steam engine.
The discovery in olden times of the attractive properties of a fragment of iron ore, was the basis of the invention of the mariner's compass, which greatly improved navigation, and led to nearly all the chief maritime discoveries which have since been made. The sciences of magnetism and geometry form the basis of the art of navigation, and have thus made our great foreign commerce possible. The discovery of magnetism enabled sailing vessels to venture freely out of sight of land, and to traverse the wide ocean with even greater safety than to sail near the shore. By its means Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. By its
means also, Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and discovered a new route to India; and in the year 1500, another Portuguese Captain, Cabral, was driven across the Atlantic, discovered Brazil, and was enabled by the aid of the magnet, to send back a ship to Lisbon with news of the discovery. By its assistance also Magellan discovered Patagonia and the South Pacific Ocean; and by the completion of that voyage the Earth was first circumnavigated and proved to be a globe.
The geographical discoveries of the Portuguese, made by means of the magnet, produced great national results; they profoundly changed the balance of power and wealth among European nations, by changing the direction of navigation and of the great streams of commerce between Europe and the East. They gave a mortal blow to Italy and the cities of the Mediterranean, by transferring Eastern commerce to Spain and Portugal: and Egypt ceased to be the greatest route of commerce from Europe to India.
A singular contract relating to geographical research was made in the fifteenth century, between King Alphonso, of Portugal, and Ferdinand Gomez, of Lisbon, by which the latter engaged to navigate a ship and explore the coast of Africa, and to discover not less than three hundred miles of coast every year, the measurement to be made from Sierra Leone.
Scientific discovery has in all ages been a most powerful agent of civilization and human progress. The discovery of the black liquid which a solution of nutgalls produces when mixed with green vitriol, led to the invention of writing ink; and a knowledge of the properties of ink and paper prepared the way for the invention of printing, by means of which truth and learning have spread all over the earth.