Tr is unfortunately the case that the prevailing vice of the period is immaturity, Most men are so engaged in the straggle for existence that homy the finite vt eer 1p0nr the world before they have had time or opportunity to study their causes or amend their defects, and hence the vast number of still-born inventions which year by year cumber the lists of the Patent Office. Stories are told of inventors whose time is mainly ocoupied in going to and from the Patent Office, and though the case is exaggerated to fit a story, it is evident that the race for priority does daily interfere with the caro for completeness. It is seldom that any useful invention is the work of any one man. Hundreds perhaps have been engaged in the same line of thought, ana little by little the result Ins advanced. Frequently it happens that success or non-success depends on some almost insignificant consideration, which chance rather than design eventually supplies, and not unfrequently without the knowledge of the final perfector himself. The recent annals of scientific progress afford many stances of immature inventions, of arrangements hatched out of season, or brought before the public in such embryonic state that, with all the elements of vitality, they have yet not been able to survive amidst the rade contest of facts and opinions. Professor Bell's beautiful instrument, the telephone, is one of those which would have been the better for more carefal warsing, and which has certainly suffered through being publicly introduced before the practical difficulties had been surmounted. A more remarkable instance has been in connection with recent arrangements for electric lighting. It need not be explained that the electric light itself is no recent invention, but its general use has been prevented by the expense of its produetion and the uncertainly of its results. Recent improvements in electro-magnetic machines have considerably ro-duced the former, and variations in the instrament employed have corrected in great measure the Latter. The new machines have rendered possible a division of the currents to an extent before supposed impossible, and experiments made at various places have demonstrated the possibility of placing more than one light in a circuit. Thus it is interesting to learn that the Thames Embankment between Westminster and Waterloo bridges is lighted by twenty electric candles, the currents for which are produced from a single Gramme machine, with a dividing machine attached for separating the current into four circuits supplying five lamps each. The furthest light is placed 700 yards from the source of power, and this is the greatest distance yet successfully renched. It is undeniable that the advance made Lore is enormous. Twenty continuous lights instead of one fitful one, are a vast improvement, and may well lead to the hope that in the future there will be a still greater development. Still, compared with gas for instance, there is a diffenlty nnanrmonnted—a alarge waste of power is unavoidable in the Srst instance in dividing the current into circuits; and in the second, each break within a circuit consumes a large additional amount of power, 50 that the loss by sub-division increases ina geometric ratio. This is the prob-Tom, towards the solution of which no progress has been made, and which places a distinct limit on development, however small may be the waste in each individual instance.
Another curious instance of immature invention may be noticed in the invention of the radiometer, by Mr. Crookes. That an instrament most nearly resembling an ordinary four capped anemometer should be made to revolve in what was npparently for all purposes a perfect vacuum, seemed to demand some theory of the repulsive action of light, and such was accordingly found for it. Much wrangling took place between the advoentes and opponents of the theory, and some of Mr. Crookes's friends placed him in a false position by advocating what they conceived to be his ideas on the subject. The result of all this discussion is, if possible, more curious than the explanation originally suggested. The dises are set in motion by particles of air left within the vessel in which the radiometer is contained, and those particles in tarn are eet in motion by the i of rays of heat, light or electricity. There is, however, a peculiarity in their motion. Mr. Crookes has -succeeded in attenuating gases to such an extent that their final particles are not in contact, and are able to move freely in straight lines from an exciting object. The conclusions to be drawn in the fature from these investigations will probably throw light on the condition of extra-mundane space.
Most recent of the immature discoveries which have been brought to light, is "the announcement made to the Academic des Sciences, by M. Damas, that Mr. Norman Lockyer had succeeded in solving the dreams of the alchemists by discovering the transmutation of metals, In point of fact, Mr. Lockyer had not only not done s0, but had put forward xo claims to such a discovery. He had noticed the changes under variation of temperature of the spectrum of various minerals, and noticed how certain lines in the spectrum of calcium, lithium, iron, and hydrogen varied as the materials were exposed to various temperatures, varying from that of a Bunsen burner to that of the Sun or Sirius. The con clusions were summed up in a sentence by Mr. Lockyer himself, that he believed that certain so-called elements are really compound bodies, This, however, is no new theory, and it is quite within the limits of experience that those cautions remarks will be found to be true, Those at the Royal Society who listened to his paper were, however, of opinion that he had failed to prove his case, and. that many of the apparent change! were to be traced to the presence of minute particles of differing elements which Mr, Lockyer's manipulation had not been able entirely to remove. Had the present feverish anxiety to put forward discoveries, however immature, existed two centuries ago, we may imagine how Sir Isaac Newton would have been crippled in his researches into universal gravitation, Ero his famous apple had lad time to fall to the ground, his thoughts would have been plucked by electricity to all parts of the globe, and in their anxiety to provide a temporary explanation, we might have been deprived of the beautiful theory which for two centuries has enabled us to extend our knowledge of celestial phenomena,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.