Miscellaneous.

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 9, 1 July 1911, Page 741

Miscellaneous.

(By “Leibnitz II.”)

0 Science. A o=^——-HI ——^6

Transfer.

“What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. ’ ’

In the last four words of, the above magnificent eulogy man is assigned his true place in the hierarchy of nature. He is the paragon of animals, the most powerful, wonderful, and complex of terrestrial beings. He can descend deep down into the bowels of the earth and ascend far above it. Along the land and through the air he can career at the rate of more than a mile a minute, and across the storm-tossed waters of the ocean swiftly carry thousands of tons. Hot only can he speak, but for hundreds .of miles transmit his voice. Not only can he 'think, but almost in a few moments make known his thoughts all over the world. So vast in his physical power that he is not to be deterred by any configuration of the globe—the highest mountains and the deepest seas are powerless to restrain his onward march. And year by year, day by day, his mastery over mind and matter is being augmented, making him increasingly conscious of his own possibilities, sublimating his mortality, and yet at the same time forcing him to, more and more, realise that in a universe immutable in its mutableness

The windy ways of men Are but dust, which rises up And is lightly laid again. It is clearly manifest that the great physical deeds of man are not accomplished by his own bodily strength; for in this respect he is, when compared with many other animals, an almost despicable creature. In fact, man is a paradox. He is “a soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood,” which an elephant can toss into the air as a child would toss a toy, a boa constrictor swallow whole, a tiger maul to death as a cat mauls a mouse, strutting about, like an upstart on the stilts of a legacy, lording it over “fowl and beast.” And verily the conceit of this organic particle is liable to be a great deal more boundless than the compass of his power, and was once so inordinate that he- was immodest enough to contend that not only the solar system, but every system, the illimitable cosmos itself, was designed with the specific object of subserving his needs and functions. But slowly and surely science has brought, him to his bearings, and forced him to step down from the pedestal of angelic action and “god-like apprehenison,” and to acknowledge his relations, from the hairy ape down to the microscopic moneron. , Man is the highest of the mammals, the paragon of animals, no more, no less, and the secret of his superiority lies in the fact that he is, by virtue of his reason and its greatest product, Science, invested with a grand sovereignty over the forces of nature. The power of , man has been very sapiently compared to that of a monarch; and a monarch’s power rests in the exercise of certain prerogatives, which enable him to summon into action the strength of the body politic.- Likewise man, by exercising one single personal power as Science directs is able to call forth, and command nature’s vast assemblage of energies. The power to which we refer is the power of “transfer”; a power so trivial in itself, and yet so competent to evoke tremendous displays of force, that it may be aptly termed “The Magic Wand.” Seldom or never by the unreasoning majority is its import realised, and to not a few it will appear incredible that man’s direct share in the multitudinous effects produced by him- in the material world, is confined to the muscular transfer of matter from one position to another. Yet on enquiry, such is found to be the ease. What Science does is to teach that the forces of nature are manifested under certain conditions, and under those conditions always in the same way. What man does is “to bring the conditions about” by transferring things into certain relative positions.

Take, for instance, the familiar example of fending rocks by explosive force. When analysed, we find the whole operation to consist, as far as human agency is concerned, of a series of transfers. In the first place, the chemist takes a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids and transfers it to portions of the animal oil, known as glycerine; chemical forces immediately leap into play and the formation of nitro-glycerine, a substance which violently explodes on percussion, is the result; the nitroglycerine, in its turn, is transferred to quantities of a siliceous earth called Rieselguhr, by which it is readily absorbed, and is then termed dynamite; the dynamite in the form of plugs is transferred to the hill-side; a cap is transferred to the end of a fuse; the end of the fuse into a plug; the plug into a hole in the rock; lastly, to the fuse is. transferred a light, and man’s share in the work is exhausted. The rock is riven not by him, but by the pressure of rapidly evolved gases. Take machinery. Take the steam engine. From the time the iron of which it is composed is unearthed until the engine is complete man’s share solely consists of transferring matter by divers motions. To cause the engine to act he transfers water and coal into certain relative positions; transfers ignited matter to the coal; transfers a lever from one point to another, thus allowing the steam to expand into the cylinders, and a vast amount of work is accomplished, not by his strength, but by the forces of nature; by the transformation of the potential energy in the fuel into kinetic energy in the engine. Take agriculture. Of what does the farmer’s share consist in the bringing about of the harvest? Exclusively of transferring seed, manure, and earth into certain relative positions. The work of growth is not the farmer work, but that of the mysterious power which the seed possesses of transmitting lifeless into living matter. As with the material so with the mental world. The action of mind upon mind is confined to the transfer of ideas and feelings by means of signs and sounds; which are analogous to the hands of the farmer as he scatters see.!. The passions of a vast audience may be excited into fury or soothed into calm by the ideas conveyed by an orator’s words. The writer by his works can influence for generations to come the moral and intellectual lives of men. For instance, in the 19th . century several philosophers embodied their views in the form’ of an all-embracing cosmic doctrine, known as the doctrine of Evolution. By speaking and by writing this doctrine has been transferred far and wide, profoundly affecting every department of human thought and action, and widening immeasurably man cosmological perspective. Speakers and writers are, the sowers; recipient minds are the soil; but neither speakers nor writers can foretell what the harvest will bring forth. Science and the power of transfer render man possibilities practically illimitable; but whilst saying with as deep a fervour as Tennyson himself

Men, my 'brother, men the workers ever reaping something new, That which they have done but the earnest of the things which they shall do. we should ever remember that it is the acme of folly to apotheosize the human organism; for although we have risen from the darkness of palaeolithic savagery to the garish heights of civilisation, although we have accomplished much and will still accomplish more in the domains of space, time, matter, energy, life, we are far from being creatures of infinite faculties. Our thoughts may embrace the stars, our feelings be as deep as inter-stellar spaces, and amid the ceaseless changes of the universe we may be able to perceive an eternal and invariable order; but nevertheless the range of the human mind is conterminous with the realm of “secondary causes,” it is utterly beyond its capability to comprehend the nature of that Primal Cause of all phenomena, that Ultimate and Everlasting Pact of Facts, which philosophers call the Unknowable, and religionists call God. Science on the Screen. (By Ernest G. Osborn.)

There can be no doubt whatever that the kinematograph will shortly play an important part in science, especially in medicine. We have heard recently of very successful experiments having been carried out in bacteriology with

it* aid. and, indeed, the moving picture has been the means of the discovery of a possible cure for sleeping sickness,, the dreaded disease of the tropics. ; With ' the -assistance of a machine which is in reality ' a combination of microscope _ and kinematograph, it has been found possible to trade the action of various bacteria inoculated .into the blood of animals like the rat and dog, and by watching the miniature battles which are fought within the blood vessels between healthy and disease germs, bacteria of the antidote type have been discovered. ...

A very important decision has been come to by the Russian Agriculture Department this being to avail itself of the kinematograph in order to educate the peasantry to the newest methods of agr culture. A transportable plant has been purchased, and this is to be taken from village to village, accompanied by efficient lecturers. Excellent Jesuits are anticipated, and should the scheme prove a success, the Agricultural Department will send plants all through the agricultural districts of the vast empire. A Paris correspondent comments on the latest achievement of the French aviators. ' He states that the military experts agree that great use can be made of the kinematograph for mapping out aspects and characteristics of the country in which it is possible hostilities may take place. He describes a flight at Vincennes in which Count Estienne, in a Farman machine was accompanied by a kinematograph operator! and a film 200 feet long, showing clear and complete survey of the country, was obtained, the French officials are satisfied that the moving picture will be invaluable in preparing maps and plans for geographical and military purposes. J The Educational Committee of the London County Council is now considering the advisability of introducing the kinematograph in geography, history, and science lessons.

Solid Petrol. <£ A r ® oumanian chemist is responsible . for solid petrol for which he claims many advantages. No doubt there are great possibilities about solidified petrol if it can be produced in really practical form. From the particulars to hand, the petrol, which is not solidified, but trikes the form of a stiff jelly, does not lose its efficiency in the process, and has not to be liquified before using, although it probably would when passing through into a mixing chamber. The extra cost is said to be about three halfpence per gallon in excess of the liquid spirit. In solidified form, petrol would, no doubt, be safer, far more portable, more economical, for a great amount of liquid is spilt and wasted, and, last but not least, greater evenness in the supply of gas to the engine, owing to the jelly not being influenced by road inequalities. 36,000 H.P, Petrol Power.

_ The wonderful advance made in the construction of the petrol engine during recent years is told in the following accredited announcement from England: “One of this year’s ‘Dreadnoughts’ is to be fitted with ' a 36,000 h.p. petrol installation. ’ ’ This news will surprise even those who have closely -followed the wonderful strides made in the internal combustion engine. The installation will, it is said, consist of three sets of 8-cylinder engines, each set giving off 12,000 h.p., or a total of 36,000 h.p. The engines will be of the two-stroke Diesel pattern, single acting, using crude oil as fuel, and will run normally at 190 revolutions per minute. The overall dimensions of this “Dreadnought” engine will be 56 feet in length by 16 feet high and 8 feet in width. Some of the advantages of fitting this type of engine are absence of smoke, less space required, no stokers, greater fuel carrying capacity, giving the motor battleship at sea an enormous sea range, and last, but not least, the" whole of the engines will be below the water line, thus rendering them practically invulnerable , from gun fire. For years many of the technical experts have declared the petrol driven battleship impossible, but the news to hand makes it evident that the petrol engine has advanced more rapidly than some experts anticipated. Of course, it yet remains to be proved how the experiment will work, but there is little doubt that a few years will see a tremendous advance in this direction.