 Chapter 30 of Science in Short Chapters for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Avae in August 2019. Science in Short Chapters by W. Mathieu Williams Chapter 30. Mathematical Fictions. British Association 1871. The President's inaugural address, which was going through the press in London while being spoken in Edinburgh, has already been subject to an unusual amount of sharp criticism. For my own part, I cannot help regarding it as one of the least satisfactory of all the inaugural addresses that have yet been delivered at these annual meetings. They have been of two types, the historical and the controversial, the former prevailing. In the historical addresses, the President has usually made a comprehensive and instructive survey of the progress of the whole range of science during the past year, and has dwelt more particularly on some branch, which from its own intrinsic merits has claimed special attention, or which his own special attainments have enabled him to treat with the greatest ability and authority. A few presidents have, like Dr. Huxley last year, taken up a particular subject only, and have discussed it more thoroughly than they could have done, had they also attempted a general historical survey. Every president until 1871 has scrupulously kept in view his judicial position and the fact that he is addressing, not merely a few learned men, but the whole of England, if not the whole civilized world. They have therefore clearly distinguished between the established and the debatable conclusions of science, between ascertained facts and mere hypotheses, have kept this distinction so plainly before their auditors that even the most uninitiated could scarcely confound the one with the other. In Sir William Thompson's address, this desirable rule is recklessly violated. He tells his unsophisticated audience that Joule was able to estimate the average velocity of the ultimate molecules or atoms of gases, and thus determined the atomic velocity of hydrogen at 6,225 feet per second at temperature 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 6,055 feet at the freezing point. That Clausius took fully into account the impacts of molecules upon one another and the kinetic energy of relative motion of the matter constituting an individual atom, and that he investigated the relation between their diameters, the number in a given space, and the mean length of path from impact to impact, and so gave the foundation for estimates of the absolute dimensions of atoms. Also that Lo-Schmidt in Vienna had shown, and not much later Stoney independently in England, showed how to reduce from Clausius and Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases a superior limit to the number of atoms in a given measurable space. The confiding auditor follows the president through further disquisitions on the superlatively grand question, what is the inner mechanism of an atom, and a minute and most definite description of the regular elastic vibrations of the ultimate atom of sodium of the manner in which any atom of gas when struck and left to itself vibrates with perfect purity its fundamental note or notes, and how in a highly attenuated gas each atom is very rarely in collision with other atoms and therefore is nearly at all times in a state of true vibration, while in denser gases each atom is frequently in collision. Besides a great deal more in all of which the existence of these atoms is coolly taken for granted and treated as a fundamental established scientific fact. After hearing all these oracular utterances concerning atoms, the unsophisticated listener before mentioned will be surprised to learn that no human being has ever seen an atom of any substance, whatever, that there exists absolutely no direct evidence of the existence of any such atoms, that all these atoms, of which Sir W. Thompson speaks so confidently and familiarly and dogmatically, are pure fragments of the imagination. He will be still further surprised to learn that the bare belief in the existence of ultimate atoms as a merely hypothetical probability is rejected by many of the most eminent of scientific men, and that among those who have disputed the idea of the atomic constitution of matter is the great Faraday himself, that the question of the existence or non-existence of atoms has recently been rather keenly discussed, and that even on the question of the permissibility of admitting their hypothetical existence, scientific opinion is divided, and that such a confident assumption of their existence as forms the basis of this part of the president's address is limited to only a small section of mutually admiring transcendental mathematicians, Sir W. Thompson being the most admired among them, as shown by the address of Professor Tate to Section A. It would have been perfectly legitimate and most desirable that Sir W. Thompson should give the fullest and most favorable possible statement of the particular hypothesis upon which he and his friends have exercised their unquestionably great mathematical skill, but he should have stated them as what they are, and for what they are worth, and have clearly distinguished between such hypotheses and the established facts of universally admitted science. Instead of doing this, he has so mixed up the actual discoveries of indisputable facts with these mere mathematical fancies as to give them both the semblance of equally authoritative scientific acceptance, and thus, without any intention to deceive anybody, must have misled nearly all the outside public who have heard or read his address. As these letters are mainly intended for those who are too much engaged in other pursuits to study science systematically, and as most of the readers of such letters will, as a matter of course, read the inaugural address of the president of the British Association, I have accepted the duty of correcting among my own readers the false impression which this address may create. As a set off to the authoritative utterances of Sir W. Thompson on the subject of atoms, I quote the following from an Italian philosopher, who, during the present year, is holding in Italy a position very similar to that of the annual president of our British Association. Professor Canisaro has been elected by a Society of Italian Chemists to act as this year's director of a Chronicle of the Progress of Chemical Science in Italy and abroad. In this capacity, he has published an inaugural treatise on the history of modern chemical theory, in the course of which he does speaks of the overconfident atomic theorists, quote, they often speak on molecular subjects with as much dogmatic assurance as though they had actually realized the ingenious fiction of Laplace, had constructed a microscope by which they could detect the molecules and observe the number forms and arrangements of their constituent atoms and even determine the direction and intensity of their mutual actions. Many of these things offer that what they are worth, that is as hypotheses more or less probable or as simple artifices of the intellect may serve and really have served to collocate facts and insight to further investigations, which one day or other may lead to a true chemical theory. But when perverted by being stated as truths already demonstrated, they falsify the intellectual education of the students of inductive science and bring reproach on the modern progress of chemistry, end quote. I translate the above from the first page of the first number of the Gazetta chimica italiana published at Palermo in January last, had these words been written in Edinburgh on the evening of the 2nd of August in direct application to Sir William Thompson's address, they could not have described more pointedly and truly the prevailing vice of this production. If space permitted, I could go further back and quote the words of Lord Bacon from the great textbook of inductive philosophy wherein he denounces the worship of all such intellectual idols as our modern mathematical dreamers have created and which they so fervently adore. An able writer in the daily news of last Friday is very severe upon the biological portion of the president's address, which contains a really original hypothesis. Sir W. Thompson having stated that he is ready to adopt as an article of scientific faith, true through all space and through all time that life proceeds from life and from nothing but life asks the question, how then did life originate on the earth? And tells us that if a probable solution consistent with the ordinary course of nature can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of creative power. He assumes with that perfect confidence in mathematical hypotheses, which is characteristic of the school of theorists, which he leads, that tracing the physical history of the earth backwards on strictly dynamical principles, we are brought to a red hot melted globe on which no life could exist. And then, to account for the beginning of life on our earth as it cooled down, he creates another imaginary world, which he brings in collision with a second similar creation and thereby shatters it to fragments. He further imagines that one of these imaginary broken up worlds was already stocked with the sort of life which he says can only proceed from life, and that from such a world thus stocked and thus smashed, many great and small fragments carrying seed and living plants and animals would undoubtedly be scattered through space. And that, if at the present instant no such life existed upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it might, by what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation. The conclusion of this paragraph is instructively characteristic of the philosophy of Sir William Thompson and his admirers. He says that the hypothesis that life originated on this earth through most grown fragments of another world may seem wild and visionary. All I maintain is that it is not unscientific. I have italicized the phrases which put together express the philosophy of this school of modern manufacturers of mathematical hypotheses. It matters not to them how wild and visionary, how utterly gratuitous any assumption may be. It is not unscientific, provided it can be invested in formulae and worked out mathematically. These transcendental mathematicians are struggling to carry philosophy back to the era of Dan's scoters, when the greatest triumph of learning was to sophisticate so profoundly an obvious absurdity that no ordinary intellect could refute it. Fortunately for the progress of humanity, there are other learned men who firmly maintain that the business of science is the discovery and teaching of simple sober truth. The writer of the Daily News article above referred to very charitably suggests that Sir W. Thompson may be poking fun at some of his colleagues and compares the most grown meteorite hypothesis with the Hindu parable which explains the stability of the earth by stating that it stands on the back of a monster tortoise, that the tortoise rests upon the back of a gigantic elephant which stands upon the shell of a still bigger tortoise, resting on the back of another still more gigantic elephant and so on. Sir W. Thompson of course requires to smash two more worlds in order to provide a most grown fragment for starting the life upon the world which was broken up for our benefit and so on backwards at infinitum. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 of Science in Short Chapters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Mack, Tucson, Arizona. Science in Short Chapters by W. Matau Williams. Chapter 31 World Smashing. Sir W. Thompson's most grown fragment of a shattered world is not yet forgotten. In the current number of the Corn Hill Magazine, January 1872, it is fairly severely handled. The more popularly shows the fallacy of the hypothesis even when regarded from the point of view of Sir W. Thompson's own special department of study that an eminent mathematician should make a great slip when he ventures upon geological or physiological ground is not at all surprising. It is in fact quite to be expected as there can be no doubt that the close study of pure mathematics by directing the mind to processes of calculation rather than to phenomena induces that sublime indifference to facts which has characterized the purely mathematical intellect of all ages. It is not surprising that a philosopher who has been engaged in measuring the imaginary diameter, describing the imaginary oscillations and gyrations of imaginary atoms, and the still more complex imaginary behavior of the imaginary constituents of the imaginary atmospheres by which the mathematical imagination has surrounded these imaginary atoms should overlook the vulgar fact that neither mosses nor other vegetables nor even their seeds can possibly retain their vitality when alternately exposed to the temperature of a blast furnace and that of 200 or 300 degrees below the freezing point. But it is rather surprising that the purely mathematical basis of this very original hypothesis of so great a mathematician should be mathematically fallacious in plain language a mathematical blunder. In order to supply the seed bearing meteoric fragment by which each planet is to be stocked with life it is necessary according to Sir W. Thompson that two worlds, one at least flourishing with life, shall be smashed and in order to get them smashed with as efficient amount of frequency to supply the materials for his hypothesis. The learned president of the British Association has, in accordance with the customary ingenuity of mathematical theorists, worked out the necessary mathematical conditions and states with unhesitating mathematical assurance that, quote, it is as sure that collisions must occur between great masses moving through space as it is that ships steered without intelligence directed to prevent collision could not cross and recross the Atlantic for thousands of years with immunity from collision, end quote. The author of the paper in The Corn Hill denies this very positively and without going into the mathematical details points out the basis upon which it may be mathematical refuted. Namely that all such worlds are traveling in fixed or regular orbits around their primaries or suns while each of these primaries travels in its own necessary path carrying with it all its attendance which still move about him just as though he had no motion of his own. These are the conclusions of Newtonian dynamics, the sublime simplicity of which contrasts so curiously with the complex dreams of the modern atom splitters and which make a further and still more striking contrast by their exact and perfect accordance with actual and visible phenomena. Newton has taught us that there can be no planets traveling at random like Sir W. Thompson's imaginary ships with blind pilots and by following up his reasoning we reach the conclusion that among all the countless millions of worlds that people the infinity of space there is no more risk of conclusion than there is between any two of the bodies that constitute our own solar system. All of the observations of astronomers before and since the discovery of the telescope confirm this conclusion the long nightly watching of the Chaldean shepherds the star counting star gauging star mapping and other laborious gazing of medieval and modern astronomers have failed to discover any collision or any motion tending to collision among the myriads of heavenly bodies whose positions and movements have been so faithfully and diligently studied thus the hypothesis of creation which demands the destruction of two worlds in order to affect the sowing of a seed is as inconsistent with sound dynamics as it is repugnant to common sense. This subject suggests a similar one which was discussed a few months since at the Academy of Sciences in Paris. On January 30th last Monsieur Sainte-Magnet read a paper on quote the mode of rupture of a star from which meteors are derived end quote. The author starts with the assumption that meteors have been produced by the rupture of a world basing this assumption upon the arguments he has stated in previous papers. He discards altogether Sir W. Thompson's idea of a collision between two worlds but works out a conclusion quite as melancholy. He begins like most other builders of cosmical theories with the hypothesis that this and all the other worlds of space began their existence in a condition of nebulous infancy that they gradually condensed into molten liquids and then cooled down till they obtained a thin outside crust of solid matter resting upon a molten globe within. That this crust then gradually thickened as the world grew older and cooled down by radiation. I will not stop to discuss this nebular and cooling down hypothesis at present but it is fair to state that quote I don't believe a bit of it end quote. Taking all this for granted a considerable assumption Monsieur Sainte-Magnet reasons very ably upon what must follow. If we further assume that each world is somehow supplied with air and water and that the atmosphere and the ocean of each world are limited and unconnected with those of any other world or with any general interstellar medium what then will happen as the worlds grow old as they cool down they must contract the liquid inside can manage this without any inconvenience to itself but not so with the outer spherical shell of solid matter as the inner or hotter part of this contracts the cool outside must crumple up in order to follow it and thus mountain chains and great valleys lesser hills and dales besides faults and slips dykes earthquakes volcanoes etc are explained according to Monsieur Sainte-Magnet the moon has reached a more advanced period of cosmical existence than the earth she is our senior and like the old man who shows his gray hairs and tottering limbs to inconsiderate youth she shines a warning upon our gay young world telling her that let her paint an inch thick to this favor she must come that the air and ocean must pass away that all the living creatures of the earth must perish and the desolation shall come about in this wise at present the interior of our planet is described as a molten fluid with a solid crust outside as the world cools down with age this crust will thicken and crack and crack again as a lower part contracts this will form ringers that is long narrow chasms of vast depth which like those on the moon will traverse without deviation the mountains valleys planes and ocean beds the waters will fall into these and after violent catastrophes arising from their boiling by contact with the hot interior they will finally disappear from the surface and become absorbed in the pores of the vastly thickened earth crust and in the caverns cracks and chasms which the rending contraction will open in the interior these cavities will continue to increase will become a huge magnitude when the outside crust goes thick enough to form its own supporting arch for then the fused interior will recede and form mighty vaults that will engulf not the waters merely but all the atmosphere likewise at this stage the earth according to mr. somnye will be a middle-aged world like the moon but as old age advances the contraction of the fluid or viscous interior beneath the outside solid crust will continue and the renewers will extend in length and depth and width as he maintains they are now growing in the moon this he says must continue till the center solidifies and then these cracks will reach that center and the world will be split through in fragments corresponding to the different renewers thus we shall have a planet composed of several solid fragments held together only by their mutual attractions but the rotary movement of these will according to the french philosopher become unequal as quote the fragments present different densities and are situated at unequal distances from the center some will be accelerated others retarded they will rub against each other and grind away those portions which have the weakest cohesion end quote the fragments thus worn off will quote at the end of sufficient time girdle with a complete ring the central star end quote at this stage the fragments become real meteors and then perform all the meteoric functions accepting the seed carrying of sir w thompson it would be an easy cast to demolish these speculations though not within the space of one of my letters a glance at the date of this paper and the state of paris and the french mine at the time may to some extent explain the melancholy relish with which the parisian philosopher works out his doleful speculations had the french army marched vigorously to berlin i doubt whether this paper would ever have found its way into the quote comp renews end quote after the fall of paris and the wholesale capitulation of the french armies it was but natural that a patriotic frenchman howsoever strong his philosophy should speculate on the collapse of all the stars and the general winding up of the universe end of chapter 31 recording by tom mac chapter 32 of science and short chapters this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox.org science in short chapter is by w with two williams chapter 32 the dying trees in kensington gardens a great many trees have lately been cut down in kensington gardens and the subject was brought before the house of commons at the latter part of its last session in reply to mr richie's question mr adam the then first commissioner of works made explanations which so far as they go are satisfactory but the distance is very small he states that all who have watched the trees must have seen that their decay has become rapid and decided in the last two years that when the vote for the parks came on many were either dead or hopelessly dying that in the more thickly planted portions of the gardens the trees were dead and dying by hundreds owing to the impoverished soil and the terrible neglect of timely thinning 50 or 60 years ago knowing the sensitiveness of the public regarding tree cutting mr adam obtained the cooperation of a committee of experts consisting of sir joseph hooker mr klotten and mr thomas so distinguished as a landscape gardener and the late first commissioner of works they had several meetings and as mr adam informs us the result has been a unanimous resolution that we ought to proceed at once to clear away the dead and dying trees this is being done to the extent of an absolute clearance in some places and the removal of numerous trees all over the gardens we are further told that the space is cleared will either be trenched drained and replanted or will be left open as may appear best mr adam adds that the utmost care is being used in the work that not a tree is being cut that can properly be spared and that every effort will be made to restore life to the distinguished trees that are dying i have watched the proceedings in kensington gardens and also in bushy park and have considerable difficulty in describing the agricultural vandalism they're witnessed and expressing my opinion on it without transgressing the bounds of conventional courtesy towards those who are responsible i do not refer to the cutting down of the dead and dying trees but to the proceedings by which they have been officially and artificially killed by those who ought to possess sufficient knowledge of agricultural chemistry to understand the necessary consequences of their conduct about 40 years have elapsed since libig taught all who were able and willing to learn that trees and other vegetables are composed of two classes of material first the carbon and the elements of water derived from air and rain and second the nitrogenous and incombustible saline compounds derived from the soil the possible atmospheric origin of some of the nitrogen is still under debate but there is no doubt that all which remains behind as incombustible ash when we burn a leaf is so much matter taken out of the soil every scientific agriculturist knows that certain crops take away certain constituents from the soil and that if this particular cropping continues without replacing of those particular constituents of fertility the soil must become barren in reference to the crop in question though other crops demanding different food may still grow upon it the agricultural vandalism that i have watched with so much vexation is the practice of annually raking and sweeping together the fallen leaves collecting them in barrows and carts and then carrying them quite away from the soil in which the trees are growing or should grow i have inquired of the men thus employed whether they put anything on the ground to replace these leaves and they have not merely replied in the negative but have been evidently surprised at such a question being asked what is finally done with the leaves i do not know they may be used for the flower beds are sold to outside florists i have seen a large heap accumulated near to the round pond now the leaves of forest trees are just those portions containing the largest proportion of ash or otherwise stated they do the most in exhausting the soil in epping forest in the new forest and other forests where there have been still more terrible neglect of timely thinning the trees continue to grow vigorously and have thus grown for centuries the leaves fall on the soil where in the trees grow and they continually return to it all they have taken away they do something besides this during the winter they gradually decay this decay is a process of slow combustion giving out just as much heat as though all the leaves were gathered together and used as fuel for a bonfire but the heat in the course of natural decay is gradually given out just when and where it is wanted and the coatings of leaves moreover forms a protective winter jacket to the soil i am aware that the plea for this sweeping up of leaves is the demand for tightness that people with thin shoes might wet their feet if they walked through a stratum of fallen leaves the reply to this is that all reasonable demands of this class would be satisfied by clearing the footpaths from which nobody should deviate in the winter time before the season for strolling in the grass returns nature will have disposed of the fallen leaves a partial remedy may be applied by burning the leaves then carefully distributing their ashes but this is after all a clumsy imitation of the natural slow combustion above described and is wasteful of the ammoniacal salts as well as of the heat the avenues of bushy park are not going so rapidly as the old silven glories of Kensington gardens though the same robbery of the soil is practiced in both places i have a theory of my own and explanation of the difference these that the cloud of dust that may be seen blowing from the roadway as the vehicles drive along the chestnut avenue of bushy park settles down on one side or the other and supplies material which to some extent but not sufficiently compensates for the leaf robbery the first commissioner speaks of efforts being made to restore life to the distinguished trees that are dying let us hope that these include a restoration to the soil of those particular salts that have for some years past been annually carted away from it in the form of dead leaves and that this is being done not only around the distinguished trees but throughout the gardens any competent analytical chemist may supply Mr. Adam with a statement of what are these particular salts this information is obtainable by simply burning an average sample of the leaves and analyzing their ashes well on this subject i may add a few words on another that is closely connected with it in some parts of the park's gardeners may be seen more or less energetically occupied in pushing and pulling mowing machines and carrying away the grass which is thus cut this produces the justly admired result of a beautiful velvet lawn but unless the continuous exhaustion of the soil is compensated a few years of such cropping will starve it this subject is now so well understood by all educated gardeners that it should be impossible to suppose it to be overlooked in our parks as it is so frequently in domestic gardening many along that a few years ago as the pride of its owner is now becoming as bald as the head of the faithful practical and obstinate old gardener who so hardly despises the fads of scientific theorists when natural mowing machines are used i.e cattle and sheep their droppings restore all that they take away from the soil minus the salts contained in their own flesh or the milk that may be removed an interesting problem has been for some time passed under the consideration of the more scientific of the swiss agriculturists from the mountain pasturages only milk is taken away but this milk contains a certain quantity of phosphates the restoration of which must be affected sooner or later or the produce will be cut off especially now that so much condensed milk is exported the wondrously rich soil of some parts of virginia has been exhausted by unrequited tobacco crops the quantity of ash displayed on the burnt end of a cigar demonstrates the exhausting character of tobacco crops that which the air and water supplied to the plant is returned as invisible gases during combustion but all the ash that remains represents what the leaves have taken from the soil and what should be restored in order to sustain its pristine fertility the west india islands have similarly suffered to a very serious extent on account of the former ignorance of the sugar planters who used the canes as fuel and boiling down the syrup and allowed the ashes of those canes to be washed into the sea they were ignorant of the fact that pure sugar may be taken away in unlimited quantities without any impoverishment of the land seeing that it is composed merely of carbon and the elements of water all derivable from air and rain all that is needed to maintain the perennial fertility of a sugar plantation is to restore the stems and leaves of the cane or carefully to distribute their ashes the relation of these to the soil of the sugar plantations is precisely the same as that of the leaves of the trees to the soil of kensington gardens and the reckless removal of either must produce the same disastrous consequences end of chapter 32 chapter 33 of science in short chapters this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by wane cook science in short chapters by w matthew williams chapter 33 the oleogeness products of tim's mud where they come from and where they go once upon a time and not a very long time since a french chemist left the land of super excellence and crossed to the shores of foggy albion he proceeded to yorkshire his optic being to make his fortune he was so presumptuous is to believe that he might do this by picking up something which yorkshire man threw away that something was soap suds his chemistry taught him that soap is a compound of fat and alkali and that if a stronger acid than that belonging to the fat is added to soap suds the stronger acid will combine with the alkali and release the fat the which fat thus liberated will float upon the surface of the liquid and may then be easily skimmed off knelted together and sold at a handsome prophet but why leave the beautiful france and desolate himself in dreary yorkshire merely to do this his reason was that the cloth workers of yorkshire use tons and tons of soap for scouring their materials and throw away millions of gallons of soap suds besides this there are manufacturers of sulfuric acid near at hand and a large demand for machinery grease just thereabouts he accordingly bought iron tanks and erected works in the midst of the busiest center of the woollen manufacturer but he did not make his fortune all at once on the contrary he failed to pay expenses for in his calculations he had omitted to allow for the fact that the soap liquor is much diluted and therefore he must carry much water in order to obtain a little fat this cost of carriage ruined his enterprise and his works were offered for sale the purchaser was a shrewd yorkshire man who then was a dealer in second hand boilers tanks and other ironwares when he was about to demolish the works the frenchman took him into confidence and told the story of his failure the yorkshire man said little but thought much and having finally assured himself that the carriage was the only difficulty he concluded after the manner of mohammed that if the mountain would not come to him he might go to the mountain and then made an offer of partnership on the basis that the frenchman should do the chemistry of the work and that he the yorkshire man should do the rest accordingly he went to the works around and offered a contract for the purchase of all their soap studs if they would allow him to put up a tank or two on their premises this he did the acid was added the fat rose to the surface was skimmed off and carried without the water to the central works where it was melted down and with very little preparation was converted into cold neck grease and hot neck grease and used besides for other lubricating purposes the frenchman's science and skill united with the yorkshire man's practical sagacity build up a flourishing business and the grease thus made is still in great demand and high repute for lubricating the rolling mills of ironworks and for many other kinds of machinery my readers need not be told that there are soap suds in london as well as in yorkshire and they also know that the london soap suds pass down the drains into the sewers i may tell them that besides this there are many kinds of acids also passed into london sewers and that others are generated by the decompositions they're abounding these acids do the frenchman's work upon the london soap suds but the separated fat instead of rising slowly and undisturbed to form a film upon the surface of the water is rolled and tumbled amongst its multifarious companion filth and it sticks to whatever it may find congenial to itself hairs rags wool ravelings of cotton and fibers of all kind are especially fraternal to such films of fat they lick it up and stick it about and amid themselves and as they and the fat roll and tumble along the sewers together they become compounded and shaped into unsavory balls that are finally deposited on the banks of the Thames and quietly repose in its hospitable mud but there is no peace even there and the gentle rest of the fat nodules is of short duration the mudlarks are down upon them in spite of all their burrowing they're gathered up and melted down the filthiest of their associated filth is thus removed and then with a very little further preparation they appear as cakes of dark colored hard fat very well suited for lubricating machinery and indifferently fit for again becoming soap and once more repeating their former adventures those gentlemen of the British press whose brilliant imagination supplies the public with their intersessional harvests of sensational adulteration panics have obtained a fertile source of paragraphs by cooperating with the mudlarks in the manufacture of butter from Thames mud the origin of these stories is traceable to certain officers of the Thames police who having on board some of these gentlemen of the press engaged in hunting up information respecting a body found in the river supply their guests with a little supplementary chaff by showing them a mudlark's gatherings and telling them that it was raw material from which fine dorset is produced a communication from our special correspondent on the manufacture of butter from Thames mud accordingly appeared in the atrocity column in the following morning and presently went the round of the papers although it is perfectly possible by the aid of modern chemical skill to refine even such filth as this and to churn it into a close resemblance to butter the cost of doing so would exceed the highest price obtainable for the finest butter that comes to the london market a skillful chemist can convert all the cotton fibers that are associated with the sewage fat into pure sugar or sugar candy but the manufacture of sweet meats from Thames mud would not pay any better than the production of butter from the same source and for the same reason mutton suet chop pairings and other clean wholesome fat can be bought wholesale for less than five pounds per pound it would cost above three times as much as this to bring the fat nodules of the Thames mud to as near an approach to butter as is this sort of fat therefore the Thames mud butter material would be three times as costly as that obtainable from the butcher while supply of mutton suet is so far in excess of the butter making demand the tons of it are annually used in the north for lubricating machinery we need not fear that anything less objectionable that is more costly to purify will be used as a butter substitute end of chapter 33 chapter 34 of science in short chapters this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org science in short chapters by W Matthew Williams chapter 34 luminous paint the sun is evidently going out of fashion and is more and more excluded from good society as our modern substitute for civilization advances serve him right many will say for behaving so badly during the last two summers the old saw which says something about early to bed and early to rise is forgotten we take luncheon at dinner time dine at supper time make morning calls and go to morning concerts etc late in the afternoon say good morning until seven p.m and thus by sleeping through the bright hours of the morning and waking up fully only a little before sunset the demand for artificial light becomes almost overwhelming not only do we require this during a longer period each day but we insist upon more and more and still more yet during that period the rush of our forefathers was superseded by an exotic luxury the big flame candle made of russian tallow with a wick of transatlantic cotton presently this luxurious innovation was superseded by the mold candle the dip was consigned to the kitchen and the bloated aristocrats of the period indulged in a pair of candlesticks alarming their grandmothers by the extravagance of burning two candles on one table presently the mold candle was snuffed out by the composite then came the translucent pearly paraffin candle gas light solar lamps moderator lamps and paraffin lamps even these with their brilliant white flame from a single wick are now insufficient and we have duplex and even triplex wicks to satisfy our demand for glaring mockeries of the departed sun some are still living who remember the oil lamps in cheapside and piccadilly in the excitement caused by the brilliancy of the new gas lamps but now we are dissatisfied with these and demand electric lights for common thoroughfares and some extravagant combination of concentric or multiplex gas jets to rival them the latest novelty is a device to render darkness visible by capturing the sunbeams during the day holding them as prisoners until after sunset and then setting them free in the night the principle is not a new discovery the novelty lies in the application and some improvements of detail in the boy's own book or endless amusement of 30 or 40 years ago our descriptions of canton's phosphorus or solar phosphori and recipes for making them burnt oyster shells or oyster shells burnt with sulfur was one of these various other methods of affecting combination between lime or barita with sulfur are described in old books the result being the formation of more or less of what modern chemists call calcium sulfide and barium sulfide or otherwise sulfide of calcium or sulfide of barium these compounds when exposed to the sun are mysteriously acted upon by the solar rays and put into such a condition that their atoms or molecules or whatever else constitutes their substance are set in motion in that sort of motion which communicates to the surrounding medium the wavy tremor which agitates our optic nerve and produces the sensation of light until lately this property has served no other purpose than puzzling philosophers and I'm using that class of boys who burn their fingers spoil their clothes and make holes in their mother's table covers with sulfuric acid nitrate acid and other noxious chemicals the first idea of turning it to practical account was that of making a sort of enamel of one or the other of these sulfides and using it as a coating for clock faces a surface thus coated and exposed to the light during the day becomes faintly luminous at night anyone desirous of seeing the sort of light which it admits may do so very easily by purchasing an unwashed smelt from the fishmonger and allowing it to dry with its natural slime upon it then looking at it in the dark a soul or almost any other fish will answer the purpose but I named the smelt from having found it the most reliable in the course of my own experiments it emits a dull ghostly light with very little penetrating power which shows the shape of the fish but casts no perceptible light on objects around thus the phosphorescent parish clock face with non-phosphorescent figures in hands would look like a pale ghost of the moon with dark figures around it and dark hands stretching across by which the time of the night might possibly be discovered there or thereabouts this invention has already appeared in a great many paragraphs but hitherto upon very few clock faces recently it has assumed a more ambitious form patented of course the patentees claimed an improved phosphorescent powder which is capable of being worked up with a medium of paints and varnishes and thus applied not merely to clock faces but to the whole of walls and ceilings of any apartment in this case the faintness of the light will be in some degree compensated by the extent of phosphorescent surface and is just possible that the sum total of the light emitted from walls and ceiling may be nearly equal to that of one mold candle if so it will have some value as a means of lighting powder magazines and places for storage of inflammable compounds it is stated that one of the London dot companies is about to use it for its spirits faults also that the Admiralty has already tried the paint at Whitehall and has ordered two compartments of the comas to be painted with it in order to test its capability of lighting the dark regions of iron clad ships this application can however only be limited to those parts which receive a fair amount of light during the day for unless the composition first receives light it is not able afterwards to admit it and this emission or phosphorescence only continues a few hours after the daylight has passed away five or six is the time stated a theatrical manager is said to be negotiating for the exclusive right to employ this weird illumination for scenic purposes the sepulchre scene in robert le diable or the incantation in the fresh shoots or the sorcerer might be made especially effective by its ghostly aid the name plates of streets and boys at sea might be advantageously coated with such a composition and many other uses suggest themselves their arrival inventors as a matter of course the french pat tentees claim the use of cuttlefish bones various seashells etc mix with pure lime sulfur and calcine sea salt besides sulfides of calcium barium strontium uranium magnesium or aluminium they also add phosphorus itself though for what purpose is questionable seeing that this substance is only luminous during the course of its oxidation or slow combustion and after this has ended the resultant phosphoric acid is no more luminous than linseed oil or turpentine an admixture of phosphorus might temporarily increase the luminosity of a sample but any conclusions based upon this would be quite delusive they also assert that electrical discharges pass through the paint increases its luminosity according to some enthusiasts electricity is to do everything but these ladies and gentlemen omit to calculate the cost of rousing and feeding this omnipotent giant in this case electrical machinery for stimulating the paint for anything outside of lecture table experiments or theatrical and other sensational displays would be a commercial absurdity the americans of course are reinventing in this direction but mr edison has not yet appeared on the luminous paint scene if he does we shall doubtless hear something very brilliant even though we never see it in the meantime we may safely hope that this application of an old scientific plaything to useful purposes may become of considerable utility as it evidently opens a wide field for further investigation and progressive improvement by the application of the enlarge powers which modern science places at the disposal of ingenious inventors we hope for the sake of all concern that it will not fall into the hands of professional perspective manufacturers and joint stock company mongers that the story of its triumphs will be told without any newspaper exaggerations since the above was written in february 1880 i've tested this luminous paint baal main's patent practically i find it unsatisfactory in the first place its endurance is far shorter than is stated it begins to fade almost immediately the light is withdrawn and in the course of an hour or two it is for all practical use though not absolutely extinguished besides this it emits a very unpleasant odor painfully resembling sewage and sulfurated hydrogen this is doubtless due to the sulfur compound but is i have no doubt quite harmless in spite of its suggestions end of chapter 34 chapter 35 of science and short chapters this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by anita sloma martinez science in short chapters by w matthew williams chapter 35 the origin and probable duration of petroleum in spite of the enormous quantities of mineral oil that are continuously drawn from the earth and the many places from which it may thus be drawn geologists are still puzzled to account for it if it were commonly associated with coal the problem of its origin would be solved at once we should then be satisfied that natural mineral oil is produced in the same manner as the artificial product that is by the heating and consequent distillation of certain kinds of coal or of batuminous shales but as a matter of fact it is but rarely that petroleum is found in the midst of coal seams though it is sometimes so found i visited some years ago a coal mine in shropshire known as the tarry pit thus named on account of the large quantity of crude mineral oil of a rather coarse quality that exuded from the strata pierced by the shaft it ran down the sides of the shaft filled the sump that is the well at the bottom of the shaft in which the water draining from the mine should accumulate for pumping and annoyed the colliers so seriously that they refused to work in the mine unless the nuisance was abolished it was abolished by tubbing the shaft with an oil proof lining built round that part from which the oil issued the tar as the crude oil was called was then pumped out of the sump and formed a pool which has since been filled up by the debris of the ordinary mine workings a public in in the black country of south stratfordshire discovered an issue of inflammable vapor in his cellar collected it by thrusting a pipe into the ground and used it for lighting and warming purposes as well as an attraction to customers these and other cases that might be cited although exceptional are of some value in helping us to form a simple and rational theory of the origin of this important natural product they prove that mineral oil may be produced in connection with coal seams and apparently from the coal itself a sound theory of the origin of petroleum is of practical as well as theoretical value in as much as the very practical question of the probable permanency of supply depends entirely on the nature of the origin of that supply some very odd theories have been put forth especially in america seeing that petroleum is commonly found associated with sandstone and limestone especially in cavities of the latter it has been supposed that these minerals somehow produce it turning back to the grocer for april 18 1872 i find some speculations of this kind quoted from the petroleum monthly the writer sets aside all together as an antiquated and exploded fallacy the idea that petroleum is produced from coal and maintains that petroleum is mainly produced from or generated through limestone and argues that the generation of petroleum by such rocks is a continuous process from the fact that exhausted wells have recovered after being abandoned his explanation being that the formerly abandoned territory was given up because the machinery for extracting petroleum from the earth exceeded in its power of exhausting the fluid the generative powers by which it is produced these generative powers somehow residing in the limestone and sandstone but how is not specified some writers have however gone a little further toward answering the question of how limestone may generate petroleum they have pointed to the fossilized remains of animals their shells etc existing in the limestone and have supposed that the animal matter has been distilled and has thus formed the oil if such a process could be imitated artificially by distilling some of the later deposits of similar fossil character this theory would have a better basis or even if a collection of oysters muscles or any other animal matters could by distillation be shown to produce an oil similar to petroleum the contrary is the case we may obtain oil from such material but it is utterly differing from any kind of mineral oil while on the other hand by distilling natural bituminous shales or candle coal or peat we obtain a crude oil almost identical with natural petroleum and the little difference between the two is perfectly accounted for by the greater rapidity of our methods of distillation as compared with the slow natural process we may go on approximating more and more nearly to the natural petroleum by distilling more and more slowly as it is the refined products of the natural and artificial oil which is commercially distilled in scotland are scarcely distinguishable some of them are not at all distinguishable the solid paraffin for example i now offer my own theory of the origin of oil springs to render this the more intelligible let us first consider the origin of ordinary water springs saint winifred's well at holy well in flint sure may be taken as an example not merely on account of its magnitude but because it is quite typical and is connected with limestone and sandstone in about the same manner as are the petroleum wells of pennsylvania here we have a wondrous uprush of water just between the sandstone and mountain limestone rocks which amounts to above 20 tons per minute and flows down to the d a small river turning several water mills it is certain that all this water is not generated either by the limestone or the sandstone from which it issues nor can it be all generated on the spot the true explanation of its origin is simple enough the mountain limestone underlies the coal measures and crops up obliquely at holy well against this oblique subterranean wall of compact rock impermeable to water abuts a great face of downsloping strata of porous sandstone and porous shales these porous rocks receive the rain which falls on the slopes of the hope mountain and other hills which they form this water sinks into the millstone grid of these hills and percolates downwards until it reaches the limestone barrier into which it cannot penetrate it here accumulates as a subterranean reservoir which finds an outlet at a convenient natural fissure and as the percolation is continuous the spring is a constant one some of the water travels many miles underground before it thus escapes hundreds of other smaller instances might be quoted the above being the common history of springs which start up whenever the underground waters that flow through porous rocks or soil meet with compact rocks or impermeable clay and thus being able to proceed no further downwards accumulate and produce an overflow which we call a spring if water can thus travel underground why not oil although the oil springs or oil wells are not immediately above or below coal seams they are all within measurable distance of great coal formations the oil territory of pennsylvania is in fact surrounded by coal some of it anthracite which is really a coke such as would be produced if we artificially distilled the hydrocarbons from coal and then compressed the residue as the anthracite has certainly been pressed by the strata resting upon it the rocks in immediate contact and proximity to coal seams the coal measures as they are called are mostly porous some of them very porous and thus if at any period of the earth's long history a seam of coal became heated as we know so many strata are and have been heated a mineral oil would certainly be formed would first permeate the porous rocks as vapor then be condensed and make its way through them following their dip or inclination until it reached a barrier such as the limestone forms it would thus in after ages be found not among the coal it was formed but at the limestone or other impermeable rock by which its further percolation was arrested this is just where it actually is found limestone although not porous like shales and sandstones especially well adapted for storing large subterranean accumulations on account of the great cavities to which it is liable nearly all the caverns in this country in ireland where they abound in america and other parts of the world are in limestone rocks they are especially abundant in the carboniferous limestone which underlies the coal measures and this is explained by the fact that limestone may be dissolved by rain water that is oozed through vegetable soil or has soaked fallen leaves or other vegetable matter and thereby become saturated with carbonic acid where the petroleum finds a crevice leading to such cavities it must creep through it and fill the space thereby forming one of the underground reservoirs supplying those pumping wells that have yielded such abundance for a while and then become dry but if this theory is correct it does not follow that the drying of such a well proves a final stoppage of the supply for if the cavity and crevice are left more oil may ooze into the crevice and flow into the cavity and this may continue again and again throughout the whole oil district so long as the surrounding feeders of permeable strata continue saturated or nearly so the magnitude of these feeding grounds may far exceed that of the district wherein the springs occur or where profitable wells may be sunk seeing that the localizing of profitable supply depends mainly on the stoppage of further oozing away by the action of the impermeable barrier a well sunk into the oozing strata itself would receive a very small quantity only that which in the course of its passage came upon the wells sides while at the junction between the permeable and the impermeable rocks the accumulation may include all that reach the whole surface of such junction or contact many square miles to test this theory thoroughly it would be necessary to make borings not merely at the wells but in their neighborhood where the porous rocks dip towards the limestone and to bring up sample cores of these porous rocks and carefully examine them dr. sterry hunt has done this in the oil yielding limestone rocks of chicago but not in those of the nearest coal measures as the oil industry of america is of such great national importance an investigation of this kind is worthy of the energies of the american government geologists it would throw much light on the whole subject and supply data from which the probable duration of the oil supply might be approximately calculated such an investigation might even do more than this by proving the geological conditions upon which depend the production of petroleum springs new sources may be discovered just as new coal seams have been discovered in accordance with geological prediction or as the practical discovery of the austrian gold fields was so long preceded by sir rodrick mercheson's theoretical announcement of their probable existence when the kerosene wells were first struck the speculations concerning their probable permanency were wild and various some maintained that it was but a spurt a freak of nature limited to a narrow locality and would soon be over others asserted forthwith that american oil like everything else american was boundless neither had any grounds for their assertions and therefore made them with the usual boldness of mere dogmatism then came a period of scare started by the fact that wells which had first spouted an inflammable mixture of oil and vapor high into the air soon became quiescent and from spouting wells became flowing wells merely pouring out on the surface a small stream at first which gradually declined to a dribble and finally ceased to flow at all even those that started modestly as flowing wells did the latter and thus appeared to become exhausted this exhaustion however was only apparent as was proved by the application of pumps which drew up from wells that had seized either to spout or flow large and apparently undiminishing quantities of crude oil further observation and thought revealed the cause of these changes it became understood that the spouting was due to the tapping of a rock cavity containing oil of such varying densities and volatility that some of it flew out as a vapor or boiled at the mean temperature of the air of the country or that of the surrounding rocks such being the case the cavity was filled with high pressure oil vapor straining to escape if the borehole tapped the crown or highest curve of the roof of such an oil cavern it opened directly into the vapor they're accumulated and the vapor itself rushed out with such force that a pillar of fire was raised in the air if a light came within some yards of the orifice we are told of heavy iron boring rods that were shot up to wondrous heights and we may believe these stories if we please if the borehole struck lower down somewhere on the sloping sides or in the shallow lower branches of the oil cavern it dipped at once into liquid oil and this oil being pressed by the elastic vapor of the upper part who was forced up as a jet of spouting oil in either case these violent proceedings soon came to an end for as the vapor or oil poured out the space above the oil level where the vapor had been confined was increased and its pressure diminished till at last it fairly suffice to raise the oil to the surface and afterwards fail to do that it is quite clear from this that the supplies are not inexhaustible the quantity of vapor having been limited there must also be a limit to the quantity of oil giving off this vapor the space in the oil cavern occupied by this vapor having been limited there must be a limit to the space occupied by the oil the quantity of oil maybe ten times a hundred times a thousand times or ten thousand times greater than that of the vapor but in either or any case it must come to an end at last sooner later if there were but a few wells here and there as at other similar places such as rangoon the persian oil wells etc the pumping might continue for centuries and centuries but this is not the case in america the final boundaries of the oil bearing strata may not yet have been reached but so far as they are known they are riddled through and through and pumped in every direction so that the end must come at last though with our present knowledge we cannot say when we can however say how it must come it will not be a sudden stoppage but a gradual exhaustion indicated by progressive diminution of supply we shall not be suddenly deprived of this important source of light and cheerfulness but we may at any time begin to feel the pinch of scarcity and consequent rise of price this rise of price will check the demand and bring forth other supplies from sources that now cannot be profitably worked on account of the cheapness of american petroleum many of the countries now largely supplied from america have oil springs of their own which a rise of price will speedily bring into paying operation we have nothing to fear the fact that in spite of the ruinous prices that have recently prevailed the scotch oil makers continue to exist at all shows us what they may do with the rise of even a few pence per gallon the thickness and area of the dark shales from which their oil is distilled are so great that their exhaustion is very far remote indeed the americans have similar shales to fall back upon when the spontaneous product ceases to flow but they are quite incapable of competing with us at home on equal terms that is when both have to obtain the oil as a manufactured product of artificial distillation if anything like moderation were possible in america the first indications of scarcity would be followed by some economy and working but this is not to be anticipated it is more likely that the first rise of prices will attract additional speculation and the sinking of more wells in the hope of large profits and this of course will shorten the period of gradual exhaustion the commencement of which may for all we know be very near at hand especially if the new projects for using petroleum as furnace fuel under steam boilers and for the smelting puddling and founding of iron and other metals are carried out as they may be so easily at present prices and with the aid of pipelines to carry the crude or refined oil from the wells to any part of the great american continent where it may be required in large quantities the old story of the goose that laid the golden eggs seems to be in course of repetition in transatlantic petroleum since the above was written i have received from dr sterry hunt a copy of his interesting chemical and geological essays in one of which he expounds the theory of the origin of petroleum he states that it appears to him that the petroleum or rather the materials from which it has been formed existed in the limestone rocks from the time of their first deposition and that petroleum and similar bitumans have resulted from a peculiar transformation of vegetable matters or in some cases of animal tissues analogous to those in composition the objections on page 275 apply to the animal tissues of this theory and as regards the vegetable matter i think it fails from the want of anything like an adequate supply in these limestone rocks end of chapter 35 chapter 36 of science in short chapters this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by betty b science in short chapters by debbie matia williams chapter 36 the origin of soap a history of soap would be very interesting who invented it when and where did it first come into common use how did our remote ancestors wash themselves before soap was invented these are historical questions that naturally arise at first contemplation of the subject but as far as we are aware historians have failed to answer them we read a great deal in ancient histories about anointing with oil and the use of various cosmetics for the skin but nothing about soap these ancients must have been very greasy people and i suspect that they wash themselves pretty nearly in the same way as modern engine drivers clean their fingers by wiping off the oil with a bit of cotton waste we are taught to believe that the ancient romans wrapped themselves around with togas of ample dimensions and that these togas were white now such togas after encasing such anointed oily skins must have become very greasy how did the roman laundresses or launderers historians do not indicate their sex remove this grease historians are also silent on this subject a great many curious things were found buried under the cinders of visuvius in pompe and sealed up in the lava that flowed over herculaneum red wine fruits and other domestic articles including several luxuries of the toilet such as pomades or pomade pots and rouge for painting ladies faces but no soap for washing them in the british museum is a large variety of household requirements found in the pyramids of egypt but there is no soap and we have not heard of any having been discovered there finding no traces of soap among the romans greeks or egyptians we need not go back to the prehistoric caveman whose flint and bone implements were found embedded side by side with the remains of the mammoth bear and hyena in such caverns as that at torqui where mr pangeli has during the last 18 years so industriously explored all our knowledge in that still larger quantity our ignorance of the habits of antique savages indicate that solid soap such as we commonly use is a comparatively modern luxury but it does not follow that they had no substitute to learn what that substitute may probably have been we may observe the habits of modern savages or primitive people at home and abroad this will teach us that clay especially where it is found having some of the anxious properties of fuller's earth is freely used for lavatory purposes and was probably used by the romans who were by no means remarkable for anything approaching to true refinement they were essentially a nasty people the habits of the poor being cheap and nasty of the rich luxurious and nasty the roman nobleman did not sit down to dinner but sprawled with his face downwards and took his food as modern swine take theirs at grand banquets after gorging to repletion he tickled his throat in order to vomit and make room for more he took baths occasionally and was probably scoured and shampooed as well as oiled but it is doubtful whether he performed any intermediate domestic ablutions worth naming a refinement upon washing with clay is to be found in the practice once common in england and still largely used where wood fires prevail it is the old-fashioned practice of pouring water on the wood ashes and using the leaves thus obtained these leaves are a solution of alkaline carbonate of potash the modern name of potash being derived from the fact that it was originally obtained from the ashes under the pot in light manner soda was obtained from the ashes of seaweeds and of the plants that grow near the seashore such as the salsover soda etc the potashes or pearl ashes being so universal as a domestic byproduct it was but natural that they should be commonly used especially for the washing of greasy clothes as they are to the present day upon these facts we may build up a theory of the origin of soap it is a compound of oil or fat with soda or potash and would be formed accidentally if the fat on the surface of the pot should boil over and fall into the ashes under the pot the solution of such a mixture if oil down would give us soft soap if oil or fat became mixed with the ashes of soda plants it would produce hard soap such a mixture would most easily be formed accidentally in regions where the olive flourishes near the coast as in Italy and Spain for example and this mixture would be castile soap which is still largely made by combining refuse or inferior olive oil with the soda obtained from the ashes of seaweed the primitive soap maker would however encounter one difficulty that arising from the fact that the potash or soda obtained by simple burning of the wood or seaweed is more or less combined with carbonic acid instead of being all in the caustic state which is required for effective soap making the modern soap maker removes this carbonic acid by means of caustic lime which takes it away from the carbonate of soda or carbonate of potash by simple exchange i.e caustic lime plus carbonate of soda becoming caustic soda plus carbonate of lime or carbonate of potash plus caustic lime becoming caustic potash plus carbonate of lime how the possibility of making this exchange became known to the primitive soap maker or whether he knew it at all remains a mystery but certain it is that it was practically used long before the chemistry of the action was at all understood it is very probable that the old alchemists had a hand in this in their search for the philosopher stone the elixir of life or drinkable gold and for the universal solvent they mixed together everything that came to hand they boiled everything that was boilable distilled everything that was volatile burnt everything that was combustible and tortured all their symbols and their mixtures by every conceivable device thereby stumbling upon many curious many wonderful and many useful results some of them were not altogether visionary were in fact very practical quite capable of understanding the action of caustic lime on carbonate of soda and of turning it to profitable account it is not however absolutely necessary to use the lime as the soda plants when carefully burned in pits dug in the sand of the seashore may contain but little carbonic acid if the ash is fluxed into a hard cake like that now commonly produced and sold as soda ash this contains from three to thirty percent of carbonate and thus some samples are nearly caustic without the aid of lime as cleanliness is the fundamental basis of all true physical refinement it has been proposed to estimate the progress of civilization by the consumption of soap the relative civilization of given communities being numerically measured by the following operation in simple arithmetic divide the total quantity of soap consumed in a given time by the total population consuming it and the quotient expresses the civilization of that community the illusion made by lord beaconsfield at the lord mayor's dinner in 1879 to the prosperity of our chemical manufacturers was the subject of merriment to some critics who are probably ignorant of the fact that soap making is a chemical manufacturer and that it involves many other chemical manufacturers some of them in their present state the results of the highest refinements of modern chemical science while the fishers of the hebrides and the peasants on the shores of the Mediterranean are still obtaining soda by burning seaweed as they did of old our chemical manufacturers are importing sulfur from Sicily and Iceland high rights from all quarters nitrate of soda from Peru and the East Indies for the manufacture of sulfuric acid by the aid of which they now make enormous quantities of caustic soda from the material extracted from the salt mines of Cheshire and droitwitch these sulfuric acid works and these soda works are among the most prosperous and rapidly growing of our manufacturing industries and their chief function is that administering to soap making in which Britain is now competing triumphantly with all the world by simply considering how much is expended annually for soap in every decent household and adding to this the quantity consumed in laundries and by our woolen and cotton manufacturers a large sum total is displayed formerly we imported much of the soap we used at home now in spite of our greatly magnified consumption we supply ourselves with all but a few special kinds and export very large and continually increasing quantities to all parts of the world and if the arithmetical rule given above is sound the demand must steadily increase as civilization advances end of chapter 36 chapter 37 of science in short chapters read by mickey lee rich this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org science in short chapters by W. Mateo Williams chapter 37 oiling the waves the recent gales have shown that if britainia rules the waves her subjects are very turbulent and costly our shipping interests are now an enormous magnitude and they are growing year by year we are in fact becoming the world's carriers on the ocean and are thus ruling the waves in a far better sense than in the old one our present mercantile rule adds to the wealth of our neighbors instead of destroying it as under the old warlike rule everything concerning these waves is thus of great national interest the loss of life and sacrifice of wealth by marine casualties being so great some curious old stories are extant describing the exploits of ancient mariners and stealing the waves by pouring oil upon them both plutarch and pliny speak of it as a regular practice much later than this in a letter dated batavia january 5 1770 written by m tanger gal and addressed to count bintink the following passage occurs near the islands of paul and amsterdam we met with a storm which had nothing particular in it worthy of being communicated to you except that the captain found himself obliged for greater safety in wearing the ship to pour oil into the sea to prevent the waves breaking over her which had an excellent effect and succeeded in preserving us as he poured out but a little at a time the east india company owes perhaps its ships to only six dimmy alms of olive oil i was present on deck when this was done and should not have mentioned the circumstance to you but that we have found people here so prejudiced against the experiment as to make it necessary for the officers on board and myself to give a certificate of the truth on this head of which we made no difficulty the idea was regarded with similar prejudice by scientific men until benjamin franklin had his attention called to it as he thus narrates in 1757 being at sea in a fleet of 96 sail bound for louisburg i observed the wakes of two of the ships to be remarkably smooth while all the others were ruffled by the wind which blew fresh being puzzled with the differing appearance i at last pointed it out to the captain and asked him the meaning of it the cooks he said have i suppose been just emptying their greasy water through the scuppers which has greased the sides of the ships a little and this answer he gave me with an air of some little contempt as to a person ignorant of what everybody else knew in my own mind i first slighted the solution though i was not able to think of another franklin was not a man to remain prejudiced he accordingly investigated the subject and the result of his experiments made upon a pond of clap on common were communicated to the royal society he states that after dropping a little oil in the water i saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced for i had applied it first upon the leeward side of the pond where the waves were the largest and the wind drove my will back upon the shore i then went to the windward side where they began to form and there the oil though not more than a teaspoon produced an instant calm over a space several yards square which spread amazingly and extended itself gradually until it reached the lee side making all the quarter of the pond perhaps half an acre as smooth as a looking glass franklin made further experiments at the entrance of portsmouth harbor opposite the hasler hospital in company with sir joseph banks dr blagden and dr solander in these experiments the waves were not destroyed but were converted into gentle swelling undulations with smooth surfaces thus it appears that the oil destroys small waves but not large billows franklin's explanation is that the wind blowing over water covered with a film of oil cannot easily catch upon so as to raise the first wrinkles but slides over and leaves it smooth as it finds it further investigations have since been made which confirm this theory the first action of the wind and blowing up what the sailors call a sea is a production of a ripple on the surface of the water this ripple gives the wind a strong hold and thus larger waves are formed but on these larger there are smaller waves and on these smaller waves still smaller ripples all this roughness of surface goes on helping the wind till at last the mightiest billows are formed which then have an oscillating independent of the wind that formed them hence the oil cannot at once subdue the great waves that are already formed but may prevent their formation if applied in time even the great waves are moderated by the oil stopping the action of the wind which sustains and augments them quite recently captain david gray made some experiments at the north bar of peterhead where a very heavy surf breaks over in rough weather on a rough day he dropped a bottle of oil into the sea the oil floating out of the bottle converted the choppy waves over the large area into an expanse of long undulating rollers smooth and glassy and so robbed all the violence that a small open boat could ride on them in safety this result is quite in accordance with what we are told respecting the ancient practice of the fishermen of lisbon who were accustomed to empty a bottle of oil into the sea when they found on their return to the river that there was a dangerous surf on the bar which might fill their boats and crossing it as regards peterhead it is proposed to lay perforated pipes across the mouth of the harbor and to erect tanks from which these pipes may be supplied with oil and thus pour a continuous and widely distributed stream into the sea in bad weather the scheme was mooted some time ago but i'm not aware whether it has been carried out its successes or failures must mainly be determined by the cost and this will largely depend upon the kind of oil that is used a series of well conducted experiments upon the comparative areas protected by different kinds of oil would be very interesting and practically useful for until this has been ascertained a proper selection cannot be made how long will it last is another question i have frequently seen such tracks as franklin observed out at sea and have climbed to the masshead in order to site the ships that produced them without seeing any several of such smooth shining tracks have been observed at the same time but no ship visible and this in places where no sail has been seen for days before or after the poet's description of the trackless ocean is by no means founded on fact the plymouth breakwater contains three million three hundred sixty nine thousand two hundred sixty one tons of stone and costs the British government a million and a half the interest on this at four percent amounts to sixty thousand pounds per annum if the above statements are reliable some of the wholesale oil merchants who read this might contract to become a considerable area of the channel for a smaller amount further experiments have been made at peterhead since the above was written the following account from the times of those made on february 27th 1882 is interesting on monday the long ways for easterly gale to test the experiment of throwing oil on the troubled waters reached peterhead it may be mentioned that the harbor of peterhead is singularly exposed and with an east or northeast gale is very dangerous of approach mr shields of perth has laid the oil apparatus to be used in quelling the troubling waters it consists of an iron pipe which conveys oil and extends from a wooden house behind the seawall at rowanhead down through a natural goal in the rocks about 150 yards long and about 50 yards beyond the mouth of the goal it into about seven fathoms of water at this point the iron pipe is joined to a good aperture pipe which extends across the harbor entrance outside the bar and is perforated at distances 12 and a half yards apart through the good aperture pipe the oil reaches the sea on monday the wind was not so strong as to make the experiment so complete as could have been wished still there was a heavy swell early in the forenoon the palms were put in motion and the leakage space in the pipes filled but unfortunately it was found soon after the oil began to rise to the surface of the bay that the supply in the cask had become exhausted and those who are conducting the experiment did not consider themselves at liberty to order a fresh cask of oil without mr shield's sanction but while the experiment was only partial it was highly satisfactory at the same time the film did not extend sufficiently far to prevent the waves forming and curving to broken water as soon however as they reached the oil covered neck the observers from the pier head could easily discern the influence at work waves which came encrusted gradually assumed the shape of undulated bodies of water and once formed they rolled unbroken toward the breakwater on wednesday morning there was a heavy sea at the north breakwater the oil valves were opened and immediately the effect was manifest the waves which had before clashed with fury against the breakwater assumed a rolling motion and were quite crestless indeed it was admitted that the oil had rendered the entrance comparatively safe but the effect was not so abiding as could have been wished as regards the want of duration there noted i venture to make a suggestion oils vary so greatly in the rate of outspreading over water and the character of which the film they form that some years ago mr moffett of glasco proposed to use these differences as a test for the adulterations of one kind of oil with other and cheaper kinds i made a number of experiments verifying some of his results from these it is evident that the duration of the becoming effect will vary with different oils and therefore further experiments upon these differences should be made in order to select that kind which is the most effective with due regard of course to cost the oil indicated by my experiments as combining permanency and cheapness and altogether the most suitable and attainable is the dead oil refuse of the gasworks this may be used in its crude and cheapest condition end of chapter 37 oiling the waves read by mickey lee rich chapter 38 of science and short chapters this is a leber vox recording all leber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leber vox.org recording by andrew howley andrew j howley dot com science and short chapters by w matthew williams chapter 38 on the so-called crater necks and volcanic bombs of ireland a paper read at the geologists association december 6 1878 mr hull physical geography and geology of ireland page 68 under the head of volcanic necks and basaltic dykes says that although the actual craters and cones of eruption have been swept from the surface of the country by the ruthless hand of time yet the old necks by which the volcanic mouths were connected with the sources of eruption can occasionally be recognized they sometimes appear as masses of hard trap columnar or otherwise projecting in nolls or hills above the upper surface of the sheets through which they pierce in other cases the neck consists of a great pipe choked up by bombs and blocks of trap more or less consolidated bombs which have been shot into the air and have fallen back again he then refers to one of these near portrush and proceeds to state that the rock on which stands the ruined castle of dunluse is formed of bombs of all sizes up to six feet in diameter of various kinds of basalt dolerite and amygdaloid firmly cemented and presenting a precipitous face to the sea in a note dated september 1877 mr hull states that subsequent examination since the above was written on the rock of dunluse castle and the cliffs adjoining has led him to suspect that we have here instead of old volcanic necks simply pipes formed by the filtration out of the chalk into which the basaltic masses have fallen and slipped down thus giving rise to their fragmental appearance further on page 146 he describes without any skeptical comment the remarkable mass of a glomerate made up as on the southern flanks of slip gulion of bombs of granite which have been torn up from the granite mass of the hills below and blown through the throat of an old crater other geologists still adhere firmly to the bomb theory some ascribing the bombs to sub aqueous rather than sub aerial ejection immediately under dunluse castle is a sea-worn cavern or tunnel which is about 40 or 50 feet high at its mouth affording a fine section of this curious conglomerate the floor of the cavern which slopes upward from the sea is strewn with a beach of boulders the resemblance of this beach to those i had recently examined at the foot of the boulder clay cliffs of galway bay and described in a paper read to the british association suggested the explanation of the origin of the rock i am about to offer in shape and size they are exactly like the galway shore boulders those nearest the sea being the most rounded higher up the slope where less is exposed to wave action they are subangular they differ from the galway boulders in being chiefly basaltic instead of being mainly composed of carboniferous limestone some of these at dunluse are granitic and a few if i am not greatly mistaken are of carboniferous limestone i had not at hand the means of positively deciding this neither could i find any unquestionable examples of glacial striation among them although at the upper part i saw some lines on boulders that were very suggestive of partially obliterated scratches on looking at the cavern walls surrounding me the theory so obviously suggested by the boulders on the floor was strikingly confirmed by their structure and general appearance the embedded bombs are subangular and of irregular shape and varying composition and the matrix of the rock is a brick-like material just such as would be formed by the baking of boulder clay the inference that i was looking upon a bank or deposit of glacier drift that had been baked by volcanic agency was irresistible i was unable to see on any part of the extensive section or among the fragments below a single specimen of an unequivocal volcanic bomb no approach to anything like those described by sir samuel baker in his nile tributaries of abyssinia the miniature representatives of which ejected from the besamer converter i have figured and described in nature volume three pages 389 and 410 where sir samuel baker's description is quoted i have witnessed the fall of masses of lava during a minor eruption of an inner crater of mount visuvious these as they fell upon the ground around me were flattened out into thin cakes there was no approach to the formation of subangular masses like those displayed upon the dunluse cavern walls some years ago a project for melting the basaltic rock known as rowley rag and casting it into molds for architectural purposes was carried out near oldbury and i had an opportunity of watching the experiment which was conducted on a large scale at great expense by messers chance it was found that if the basalt cooled rapidly it became a black obsidian and to prevent the formation of such brittle material the castings and the molds which enclosed them had to be kept at a red heat for some days and very gradually cooled begin footnote geologists who may be interested in seeing the results of this experiment will find on the edgbus investry hall and enville road near the five ways birmingham some columns massive window pieces doorways and ornamental steps cast from the fused rowley rag and slowly cooled and footnote it is physically impossible that lava ejected under water in lumps no larger than these boulders could have the granular structure which they display the fundamental idea upon which this bomb theory is based will not bear examination such bombs could not have been shot into either air or water and have fallen back again into the volcanic neck at any other time than during an actual eruption and at such time they could not have remained where they fell and have become embedded in any such matrix as now contains them true volcanic bombs and ordinary spattering lumps of lava are as we know flung obliquely out of active craters and distributed around while those which are ejected perpendicularly into the air and return are re-ejected and finally pulverized into volcanic dust if this perpendicular ejection and return are continued long enough in the course of a rapid drive around the antrim coast i observed other examples of this peculiar conglomerate and have reason to believe that it is far more common than is generally supposed i found it remarkably well displayed at a place almost as largely visited as the giant's causeway and where it nevertheless appears to have been hitherto unnoticed these karakarid where the public car stops to afford visitors an opportunity of examining or crossing the rope bridge etc here the whole formation is displayed in a manner that strikingly illustrates my theory there is an overlying stream of basalt forming the surface of the isolated rock and this basalt rests directly upon a base of conglomerate having exactly the appearance that would result from the slow baking of a mass of boulder clay the sea gully that separates the insular rock from mainland displays a fine section above 80 feet in thickness and has the advantage of full daylight as compared with the dunluse cave that this is no mere neck or pipe is evident from its extent its position below the basalt cap refutes the above quoted subsequent explanation which mr hull and others have recently adopted the heterogeneous bomb like character of the boulders is not so strongly marked as in the dunluse rock and this may arise from the closer proximity of the basalt which coming here in direct contact would be likely to heat the clay matrix itself formed mainly of ice ground basalt to incipient fusion and thereby render it more like the basalt boulders it contains than the other clay that had been less intensely heated on account of greater distance from the lava flow the path leading to the ladder by which the bridges approached passes over such conglomerate and further extensions are seen in sections around i saw sufficient in the course of my hurried visit to indicate the existence of a large area of this particular formation at a short distance from karaka reed on the way to ballet castle the car passes in sight of considerable deposits of ordinary boulder clay uncovered and unaltered the blocks of basalt etc embedded in this correspond in general size and shape with the bombs accepting that some of the latter have a laminated or shaley character near their surfaces I regret my inability to do justice to this subject and consequence of the fact that the above explanation of the origin of this curious formation only suggested itself when harrying homework after a somewhat protracted visit to ireland as i may not have an opportunity of further investigation for some time to come i offer the hypothesis in this crude form in order that it may be discussed and either confirmed or refuted by the geologists of the ordinance survey or others who have better opportunities of observation than i can possibly command should this conglomerate prove to be as i suppose a drift deposit altered by a subsequent flow of lava it will supply exceedingly interesting data for the determination of the chronological relations of the glacial epic to that period of volcanic activity to which the lavas of the northeast of ireland are due though it will know wise disturb the general conclusion that the great eruptions that overspread the cretaceous rocks of this region and supplied the boulders of my supposed metamorphosed drift occurred during the miocene period it will show that the volcanic epic was a vastly greater duration than is usually supposed or that there must have been two or more volcanic epics preglacial as usually understood and postglacial in order to supply the lava overflowing the drift this postglacial extension of the volcanic period has an especial interest in ireland as the annals of the four masters and other records of ancient irish history and tradition abound in accounts of physical changes many of which correspond remarkably with those of recent occurrence in the neighborhood of active and extinct volcanoes in a paper read before the royal irish academy june 23rd 1873 and published in its proceedings dr sigerson has collected some of the best authenticated of these accounts and compares them with similar phenomena recently discovered in naples sicily south america ciberia etc etc the great sobriety of diction and circumstantial precision of statement of names dates etc which characterize these accounts render them well worthy of the sort of comparison with strictly scientific data which dr sigerson has made as we now know that man existed in britain during the interglacial if not the preglacial period and as so violent of volcanic disturbance as that which poured out the lavas of antrim and the mourn district could scarcely have subsided suddenly but was probably followed by ages of declining activity it is not at all surprising that this period of minor activity should have extended into that of tradition and the earliest of historical records end of chapter 38 recording by andrew howley andrew j howley dot com chapter 39 of science and short chapters this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by andrew howley andrew j howley dot com science and short chapters by w matthew williams chapter 39 travertine the old exclamation about augustus finding roam of brick and leaving it of marble deceives many ancient roam was by no means a marble city although the quarries of masa and karara are not far distant the staple building materials of the imperial city even in its palmiest days were brick and travertine the brick however was very different from the porous cakes of rudely burnt clay of which the modern metropolis of the world is built i have examined on the spot a great many specimens and found them all to be a remarkably compact structure somewhere between the material of modern terracotta and that of common flower pots and similarly intermediate in color the roman builders appear to have had no standard size the bricks vary even in the same building the coliseum for example all that i have seen are much thinner than our bricks we should call them tiles but the most characteristic material is the travertine the walls of the coliseum are made up of a mixture of this and the tiles above mentioned the same as the case with most of the other very massive ruins as the baths etc many of the temples with columns and facings of marble have inner walls built of this mixture while others are entirely of travertine i was greatly surprised at the wondrous imperishability of this remarkable material in buildings of which the smooth crystalline marble had lost all its sharpness and original surface this dirty yellow spongy looking limestone remained without the slightest indication of weathering a most remarkable instance of this is afforded by the temple of neptune at pastem in calabria this is the most perfect ruin of a pure classic temple that now remains in existence and in my opinion is the finest i prefer it even to the parthenon we have a little sample of it in london the door columns at the entrance of the euston station are copies of those of its peristyle the originals are of travertine the blocks forming them are laid upon each other without mortar or cement and so truly flattened that in walking around the building and carefully prying i could find no crevice into which a slip of ordinary writing paper or the blade of a pen knife could be inserted yet this temple was an antiquarian monument in the days of the roman emperors the rough natural surface of the stone is exposed and at first sight appears as the weathered but this appearance is simply due to its natural sponge-like structure it appears to have been coated with some sort of stucco or smoothing film which either by forming a thin layer or possibly by only filling up the pores of the travertine gives a smooth surface upon which the coloring was applied this is now only indistinctly visible here and there and if i remember rightly some have disputed its existence but this travertine though so familiar to the italian is such a rarity here that some further description of its structure and composition may be demanded it is a limestone formed by chemical precipitation most limestones are more or less of organic origin are agglomerations of shells corals etc but this is formed by the same kind of action as that which produces the stalactites and limestone caverns it has some resemblance to the incrustation formed on boilers by calcareous water although the material of so many ancient edifices it is geologically speaking the youngest of all the hard rocks its formation is now in progress at some of the very quarries that supplied imperial Rome on the campania between romantively is a small circular lake from which a stream of tepid water that wells up from below is continually flowing its local name is the lake of tartarus the water like that of zoadone or soda water or champagne is super saturated with carbonic acid that was forced into it while under pressure down below this carbonic acid has dissolved some of the limestones through which the subterranean water passes and when it comes to the surface the carbonic acid flies away like that which escapes when we uncork a bottle of soda water though that suddenly and the lime losing its solvent is precipitated and forms a crust on whatever is covered by the water when i visited this lake in the month of february it was surrounded by a chavoda freeze of an extraordinary character thousands of tubes of about half an inch to one inch in diameter outside with calcareous walls of about one eighth of an inch in thickness these were standing up from two to three feet high and so close together that we had to break our way through the dense palisade they formed in order to reach the margin of the lake after some consideration and inquiry their origin was discovered they are the encrusted remains of bulrushes that had flourished in the summer and died down since during the time of their growth the water had risen and thus they became coated with a crust of compact travertine this deposition takes place so rapidly that a piece of lace left in the lake for a few hours comes out quite stiff every thread being coated with limestone such specimens and twigs similarly covered are sold to tourists or prepared by them if they have time to stop sir humphrey davie drove a stick into the bottom of the lake and left it standing upright in the water from may to the following april and then had some difficulty in breaking with a sharp pointed hammer the crust formed around the stick this crust was several inches in thickness that which i saw around the x-bowl rushes may have all been formed in a few days or weeks the rivulet that flows from the lake deposits travertine throughout its course and when it overflows leaves every blade of grass that it covers encrusted with this limestone near to the lake of tartarus is the sulfatara lake which contains similar calcareous water but strongly impregnated with sulfurated hydrogen consequently deposits a mixture of carbonate and sulfide of calcium sort of porous tufa some of it so porous that it floats like a stony scum forming what the ciceroan call floating islands lial and his principles of geology confounds these lakes describes tartarus under the name of sulfatara the travertine used as a building stone is chiefly derived from the quarries of ponte lucano and is the deposit that was formed on the bed of a lake like that of tartarus the celebrated cascade of the anio at tivoli forms calcareous stalactites all the country round has rivulets caverns and deposits where this formation may be seen in progress or completed it varies considerably in structure some specimens are compact and smooth others have the appearance of a petrified moss great varieties may be found among the materials of a single building it is however usually rough and more or less spongy looking as above stated but this structure does not seem to affect its stability at least not in the climate of italy whether it would stand long frosts is an open question the night frosts at and about Rome are rather severe but usually followed by a warm sunny day thus there is no great penetration of ice every specimen i have examined shows a remarkable compactness of molecular structure in spite of its visible porosity all give out a clear metallic ring when struck and the intimate surface if i may so describe the surface of the warm like structure it sometimes displays is always clear and smooth as though varnished to this i attribute its durability lest the above description should appear self contradictory i will explain a little further if melted glass were run into threads and those threads while soft were allowed to agglomerate loosely into a convoluted mass it would as regarded in mass have a porous or spongy looking structure but nevertheless its molecular structure would be compact and vitreous there would be mechanical but not molecular porosity travertine is similar have we any travertine in england this is a practical question of some importance and one to which i have no hesitation in replying yes there's plenty formed and forming in the neighborhood of matlock but that which i have seen on the face of caverns etc is not so compact and metal like as the italian this however does not prove the entire absence of the usual travertine not having commercial interests in the search i have only looked at what has come in my way but have little doubt that there are other kinds besides those i saw i have also seen travertine in course of formation in ireland where i think there is a fine field for exploration in the mountain limestone regions which have been disturbed by volcanic action of the miocene period the travertines of italy are found in the neighborhood of extinct volcanoes the classic associations of this material its remarkable stability and the faculty with which it may be worked render it worthy of more attention than it has yet received from british builders end of chapter 39