His are the minerals and the metals, the timbers and the vegetable tissues, from which our houses and our ships, our clothing and our furniture, are fabricated. Of these, the variety is amazing, and it plainly indicates that, in the arrangements of this planet, the Creator contemplated not only the necessities but the enjoyments of his intelligent creatures. For instance, there might have been only one or two metals; and the eagerness with which tribes confined to copper, or to gold and silver, grasp at an axe or a butcher’s whittle, shows how rich are the tribes possessing iron. But even that master-metal, with all his capabilities, and aided by his three predecessors, cannot answer every purpose. The chemist requires a crucible which will stand a powerful heat, and which, withal, does not yield to the corroding action of air or water. Gold would answer the latter, and iron the former purpose, well; but every one knows how readily iron rusts and how easily gold melts. But there is another metal—platinum—on which air and water have not the slightest action, and which stands unscathed in the eye of a furnace where iron would run down like wax, and gold would burn like paper. In the same way there are many ends for which none of these metals are available, but which are excellently answered by tin, and lead, and zinc, and rhodium, and mercury. Or will the reader bestow a passing thought on his apparel? His forefathers found one garment sufficient, and for mere protection from the weather a suit of cat-skin or sheep-skin might still suffice. But, oh reader! what a romance is your toilette! and should all the rest of you be prose, what a poem you become when you put on your attire! That snowy lawn once blossomed on the banks of the Don or the Dnieper, and before it shone in a London drawing-room, that broad-cloth comforted its rightful owner amidst the snows of the Cheviots. Did these boots really speak for themselves, you would find that the upper leathers belonged to a goat, and the soles to a horse or a cow. And could such metamorphic retributions happen now as in the days of Ovid, the best way to punish the pride of an exquisite would be to let every creature come and recover his own. A worm would get his satin cravat, and a pearl oyster his studs; and if no fabulous beaver laid claim to his hat, the rats of Paris or the kittens of Worcester would assuredly run off with his gloves. But viewed in a graver and truer light, it is marvellous from how many sources we derive the several ingredients in the simplest clothing, many of them essential to health, and most of them conducive to our well-being; so that we need not go to the crowded mart or the groaning wharf in order to convince ourselves of earth’s opulent resources. Few will read these pages who have not the evidence at home. Open that cupboard, unlock that wardrobe, look round the chamber where you are seated, and think a little of all the kingdoms of Nature and all the regions of the globe from which their contents have been collected, and say if the Framer of this world is not a bountiful Provider. “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! The earth is full of thy riches; so is this great and wide sea.”
The Supreme Governor has so ordered it, that the progress of the arts—that is, of human comfort and accommodation—shall be nearly in proportion to human industry, sobriety, and peacefulness. The last thirty years have been fraught with inventions, chiefly because they have been years of peace. In England, however, the reign of Charles II. was tolerably tranquil; but, except for the accident of Newton and the Royal Society, its peace was the parent of few discoveries, for it was a peace which had converted the noise of the warrior, not into the quiet of the artisan, but into the din of the drunken debauchee. Such honor does the Most High put upon peaceful activity and sober perseverance, that wherever these exist economic comfort is sure to follow. Thus, without uncommon intellectuality, and with a false religion, the Chinese anticipated many of the arts of modern Europe. Whilst Christendom, so called, was divided betwixt lazy monks and a brutal soldiery—whilst mediæval churchmen were droning masses, and feudal barons amused themselves in knocking out each other’s brains—the Chinese, neither fierce nor indolent, were spinning silk and manufacturing porcelain, compiling almanacs, and sinking Artesian wells. And long before any Friar Schwartz, or Gutenberg, or Flavio di Gioia, had revealed them to the Western World, the pacific and painstaking Chinese were favored with prelibations of our vaunted discoveries—gunpowder, book-printing, and the mariner’s compass.
We have compared our world to a well-furnished dwelling, in which, however, many of the treasures are locked up, and it is left to patience and ingenuity to open the several doors. Caoutchouc and gutta percha have always been elastic and extensible; but it is only of late that their properties have been ascertained and turned to profitable account. The cinchonas had grown for five thousand years in Peru before the Jesuit missionaries discovered the tonic influence which the bark exerts on the human system. Steam was always capable of condensation, so as to leave in its place a vacuum; but it is only a century and a half since it struck the Marquis of Worcester to employ this circumstance as a motive power. And ever since our earthly ball was fashioned, electricity has been able to sweep round it at the rate of ten times each second, though it is only within the last few years that Professor Wheatstone thought of sending tidings on its wings. And doubtless the cabinets still unlocked contain secrets as wonderful and as profitable as these; whilst the language of Providence is, “Be diligent, and be at peace among yourselves, and the doors which have defied the spell of the sorcerer and the battle-axe of the warrior will open to the prayer of harmonious industry.”
So thoroughly provided with all needful commodities is the great house of the world, that, in order to obtain whatever we desiderate, seldom is aught else requisite than a distinct realization of our want and a determined effort to supply it. In working mines, one of the difficulties with which the excavator has to contend is the influx of water. The effort to remedy this evil gave birth to the steam-engine; and, with the relief afforded by the steam-pump, many mines are easily and profitably wrought which otherwise must have long since become mere water-holes. But a worse enemy than water encounters the collier, in the shape of fire-damp, or inflammable gas. Formerly, in quarrying his subterranean gallery, the axe of the unsuspecting pitman would pierce a magazine of this combustible air, and unlike water, there being nothing to bewray its presence, it filled the galleries with its invisible serpent-coils; and it was not till a candle approached that it revealed itself in a shattering explosion, and a wretched multitude lay burning and bleeding along its track—a fearful hecatomb to this fiery dragon. What was to be done? Were the blast furnaces of Wales and Wolverhampton to be extinguished, and were household fires to go out? Or, for the sake of a blazing ingle and good cutlery, were brave men still to be sacrificed to this Moloch of the mine? The question was put to Science, and Science set to work to solve it. Many good expedients were suggested, but the most ingenious was in practice the simplest and safest. It was ascertained that a red heat, if unaccompanied by flame, will not ignite the fire-damp; and it was also known, that the most powerful flame will not pass through wire-gauze, if the openings are sufficiently small. A lamp or a candle might, therefore, be put into a lantern of this gauze, and then plunged into an atmosphere of inflammable air; and whilst the flame inside the lantern gave light enough to guide the laborer, none of that flame could come through to act as a match of mischief. And now, like a diver in his pneumatic helmet, the miner, with his “Davy,” can traverse in security, the depths of an inflammable ocean.
So plentiful is the provision for our wants, that little more is needed than a distinct statement in order to secure a supply. During his long contest with England, and when both the ocean and the sugar-growing islands were in the power of his enemy, Napoleon said to his savans, “Make sugar for the French out of something which grows in France.” And, like Archimedes with the tyrant’s crown, they set to work on the problem. They knew that sugar is not confined to the Indian cane. They knew that it can be obtained from many things—from maple, and parsnips, and rags; but the difficulty was to obtain it in sufficient quantities, and by an inexpensive process. However, knowing the compartment in which the treasure was concealed, they soon found the key; and it was not long till beet-root sugar was manufactured in thousands of tons, nearly as good, though not nearly so cheap, as the produce of England’s colonies. A few years ago the British Foreign Office had a dispute with the Neapolitan Government. The best sulphur is found in Sicily, and from that island Great Britain imports for its own manufactures about 20,000 tons a year. On the occasion referred to, the Neapolitan Government was about to complete an arrangement which would have enormously enhanced the price of this important commodity. Some wished that England should make it a casus belli, and send her ships of war to fetch away the brimstone by force. But the chemists of England took the quarrel into their own hands; and, had not the King of Naples yielded, doubtless we should now have been supplied with sulphur from sources at command but yet undeveloped.
A modification of the same problem is constantly occurring to practical science, and its almost uniform solution shows that our world has been arranged with a benevolent eye to the growing comfort of the greater number. Science is perpetually importuned to cheapen commodities; and by substituting a simple method for an intricate process, or by making a common material fulfill the part of a rare one, it is every year giving presents to the poor. Few substances are more essential to our daily comfort than soda. It is a large constituent of glass and soap, and many other useful articles. The cleanliness of a nation depends on the cheapness of soda; and if soda is cheap, you can substitute plate-glass for crown in your windows, and you can adorn your apartments with glazed pictures and mirrors. So that from the bleacher who spends thousands-a-year on the carbonate, to the apprentice who in the dog-days lays out a penny on ginger-beer or soda-water, all are interested in the cheapness of soda. But this alkali used to be dear. Small quantities were found native, and larger supplies were obtained from the burning of sea-weed. Still the cost was considerable. However, it was well known that a vast magazine of the precious article surrounds us on every side. The sea is water changed to brine by a salt of soda. If only a plan could be contrived for separating this soda from the hydro-chloric acid, which makes it common salt, there is at our doors a depot large enough to form a Mont Blanc of pure soda. That plan was discovered; and now a laundress buys a pound of soda (the carbonate) for three half-pence, and the baker of unfermented bread can procure the more costly bicarbonate for sixpence.
Lately, if not still, in the shops of provincial apothecaries, no article was in such demand as one styled in the Pharmacopœia, muriate of magnesia. This popular medicine was first obtained by evaporation from certain mineral waters, and as the supply was limited the price was high. But few ingredients could be cheaper than the earth and the acid from which it is combined. The earth forms whole mountains, and the acid is that cheap one set free when the soda is separated from common salt. Accordingly, chemists went to work, and in their laboratories did what the mineral spring had been doing since the Deluge, and by a simple process they manufactured the muriate of magnesia. A few years ago, looking at the remarkable rocks of magnesian limestone which defend the Durham coast, near Shields, our companion remarked, “Many a hundred tons of these rocks have we converted into Epsom salts!”
“Waste not, want not.” An adage which received a touching sanction when, after a miraculous feast, and when He could have converted the whole region into bread, the Saviour said, “Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.” And in the progress of discovery, God is constantly teaching us not to waste anything, for this is a world of which nothing need be lost. At the woollen factories of Rheims there used to accumulate a refuse, which “it cost something to throw away.” This was the soap-water containing the fatty matters washed from the woollen stuffs, along with some soda and other ingredients. With its offensive scum this soap-water was a nuisance, and required to be put out of the way with all convenient speed. But now, from one portion of it gas is manufactured, sufficient to supply all the works, and the remainder yields a useful soap.[[8]] In the same way, when Lord Kaims found himself proprietor of an extensive peat-moss in the neighborhood of Stirling, with characteristic energy he commenced its improvement. On digging through the moss, he came to a rich alluvial soil; so that to his sanguine imagination, fifteen hundred acres, at whose barrenness his neighbors laughed, were a splendid estate, covered over meanwhile by a carpet seven feet thick. To lift this carpet was the puzzle: for every acre of it weighed some hundred tons. But “the mother of invention” is the near kinswoman of most Highland lairds, and “necessity” suggested a plan to Lord Kaims: a plan which must have approved itself to the mind of a judge, for, by a sort of retributive process, it forced the element which had done the damage to undo it again. By a hydraulic contrivance, a powerful current of water was made to traverse the moss and carry off the loosened fragments, till they reached the river Forth, and were finally floated into the German Ocean. And now “a waste,” which last century was the haunt of the curlew, is covered with heavy crops, and yields its proprietor a revenue of two or three thousand pounds a year. But had Lord Kaims foreseen Mr. Reece’s researches into the composition and capabilities of “bog-earth,” he would, perhaps, have hesitated before he consigned such a treasure to the deep. At this moment we are writing by the light of a candle which last year was a peat! And, however opinion may differ as to the probable expense of the process, there can be no doubt that peat yields in large quantities the ammonia which is so largely used by farmers; the acetic and pyroligneous acids, extensively employed by calico-printers, hatters, etc.; and, along with naptha, a fatty substance capable of being converted into beautiful candles; so that Mr. Owen’s benevolent calculation will, doubtless, sooner or later be fulfilled, and “Irish moss” become a cure for Irish misery.[[9]] It is pleasant to know that on every side we are surrounded with mines of unexamined wealth. Some of the old workings may be exhausted; but if we be only devout and diligent new veins will open. Forty years ago, so much oil was required for lighting the streets of cities as well as for private dwellings, that fears began to be entertained lest the great oil-flask of the Northern Ocean might run dry, and the whale family be extirpated. That fear was superseded when, in 1812, gas illumination was introduced.
“The best of things is water.” So sang a very ancient Greek; and of all the fragments preserved in Aristotle’s “Rhetoric,” hydropathy and teetotalism have assigned the palm to this old water-poem. Not so our ship-owners. To them the sorest of problems and the saddest of expenses is water. Soup can be inspissated into osmazome, and meat can be squeezed into pemican; but water is not compressible, and it is rather provoking to see the space available for stowage occupied by tanks and barrels of this cheap element. Many expedients have been suggested, and some have partially succeeded. But since we began to write this paper, our attention has been called to a beautiful contrivance which promises to conquer every difficulty. By means of Mr. Grant’s Distilling Galley,[[10]] the brine may be pumped up from the ocean, and, after cooking the mess of the largest ship’s company, it may be collected in the form of the purest fresh water, to the extent of some hundred gallons each day. Nor is it only a vast saving of room which is effected by this beautiful expedient. It is a saving of time. Frequently ships are compelled to leave the straight route, and sometimes lose a favoring wind, in quest of water. But a ship provided with this apparatus is as independent as if she were sailing over a fresh water lake; and, instead of putting into port, she has only to resort to the never-failing pump. And we may add that it is not only space and time which are saved, but the health of the crew and the passengers. With every precaution cistern-water is apt to spoil, and in the Indian Seas and other regions the water obtained on shore is apt to occasion disease. But the produce of this engine is always as pure as the rain which falls from the clouds.
When Pythagoras demonstrated the geometrical proposition, that in a rectangular triangle the sum of the two lateral squares is equal to the square of the hypotenuse, he is said to have offered the sacrifice of a hundred oxen. In modern art we fear that there are many discoveries for which the thank-offering has not yet been rendered.