 Chapter 6 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 Colleen McMahon. Science in Short Chapters by W. Matthew Williams. Chapter 6. The Origin of Lunar Volcanoes. Many theoretical efforts, some of considerable violence, have been made to reconcile the supposed physical contradiction presented by the great magnitude and area of former volcanic activity of the moon and the present absence of water on its surface. So long as we accept the generally received belief that water is a necessary agent in the evolution of volcanic forces, the difficulties presented by the lunar surface are rather increased than diminished by further examination and speculation. We know that lava, scoriae, dust, and other products of volcanic action on this earth are mainly composed of mixed silicates, those of alumina and lime preponderating. When we consider that the solid crust of the earth is chiefly composed of salicylic acid and of basic oxides and carbonates which combine with salicylic acid when heated, a natural necessity for such a composition of volcanic products becomes evident. If the moon is composed of similar materials to those of the earth, the fusion of its crust must produce similar compounds, as they are formed independently of any atmospheric or aqueous agency. This being the case, the phenomena presented by the cooling of fused masses of mixed silicates in the absence of water become very interesting. Opportunities of studying such phenomena are offered at our great ironworks, where fused masses of iron cinder composed mainly of mixed silicates are continually to be seen in the process of cooling under a variety of circumstances. I have watched the cooling of such masses very frequently and have seen abundant displays of miniature volcanic phenomena, especially marked where the cooling has occurred under conditions most nearly resembling those of a gradually cooling planet or satellite. That is, when the fused cinder has been enclosed by a solid resisting and contracting crust. The most remarkable that I have seen are those presented by the cooling of the tap cinder from puddling furnaces. This, as it flows from the furnace, is received in stout iron boxes, cinder bogies, of circular or rectangular horizontal section. The following phenomena are usually observable on the cooling of the fused cinder in a circular bogie. First, a thin solid crust forms on the red-hot surface. This speedily cools sufficiently to blacken. If pierced by a slight thrust from an iron rod, the red-hot matter within is seen to be in a state of seething activity, and a considerable quantity exudes from the opening. If a bogie filled with fused cinder is left undisturbed, a veritable spontaneous volcanic eruption takes place through some portion, generally near the center, of the solid crust. In some cases, this eruption is sufficiently violent to eject small spurts of molten cinder to a height equal to four or five diameters of the whole mass. The crust once broken, a regular crater is rapidly formed and miniature streams of lava continue to pour from it, sometimes slowly and regularly, occasionally with jerks and spurts due to the bursting of bubbles of gas. The accumulation of these lava streams forms a regular cone, the height of which goes on increasing. I have seen a bogie about ten or twelve inches in diameter, and nine or ten inches deep, thus surmounted by a cone above five inches high, with a base equal to the whole diameter of the bogie. These cones and craters could be but little improved by a modeler desiring to represent a typical volcano in miniature. Similar craters and cones are formed on the surface of the cinder which is not confined by the sides of the bogie. I have seen them well displayed on the running out beds of refinery furnaces. These, when filled, form a small lake of molten iron covered with a layer of cinder. This cinder first skins over, as in the bogies, then small crevasses form in this crust, and through these the fused cinder oozes from below. The outflow of this chasm soon becomes localized, so as to form a single crater or a small chain of craters. These gradually develop into cones by the accumulation of outflowing lava, so that when the whole mass has solidified, it is covered more or less thickly with a number of such hillocks. These, however, are much smaller than in the former case, reaching to only one or two inches in height with a proportionate base. It is evident that the dimensions of these miniature volcanoes are determined mainly by the depth of the molten matter from which they are formed. In the case of the bogies, they are exaggerated by the overpowering resistance of the solid iron bottom and sides, which force all the exudation in the one direction of least resistance, vis toward the center of the thin upper crust, and thus a single crater and a single cone of the large relative dimensions above described are commonly formed. The magnitude and perfection of these miniature volcanoes vary considerably with the quality of the pig iron and the treatment it is received, and the difference appears to depend upon the evolution of gases, such as carbonic oxide, volatile chlorides, fluorides, etc. I mentioned the fluorides particularly, having been recently engaged in making some experiments on Mr. Henderson's process for refining pig iron by exposing it when fused to the action of a mixture of fluoride of calcium and oxides of iron, alumina, manganese, etc. The cinder separated from this iron displayed the phenomena above described very remarkably, and jets of yellowish flame were thrown up from the craters while the lava was flowing. The flame was succeeded by dense white vapors as the temperature of the cinder lowered, and a deposit of snow-like flocculent crystals was left upon and around the mouth or crater of each cone. The miniature representation of cosmical eruptions was thus rendered still more striking, even to the white deposit of the hallowed salts which Palmieri has described as remaining after the recent eruption of Vesuvius. The gases thus evolved have not yet been analytically examined, and the details of the powerful reactions displayed in this process still demand further study. But there can be no doubt that the combination of solicic acid with the base of the fluorar spar is the fundamental reaction to which the evolution of the volatile fluorides, etc., is mainly due. A corresponding evolution of gases takes place in cosmical volcanic action whenever solicic acid is fused in contact with limestone or other carbonate, and is still closer analogies presented by the fusion of silicates in contact with chlorides and oxides in the absence of water. If the composition of the moon is similar to that of the earth, chlorides of sodium, etc., must form an important part of its solid crust. They should correspond in quantity to the great deposit of such salts that would be left behind if the ocean of the earth were evaporated to dryness. The only assumptions demanded in applying these facts to the explanation of the surface configuration of the moon are first that our satellite resembles its primary in chemical composition, second that it is cooled down from a state of fusion, and third that the magnitude of the eruptions due to such fusion and cooling must bear some relation to the quantity of matter in action. The first and second are so commonly made and understood that I need not here repeat the well-known arguments upon which they are supported, but may remark that the facts above described afford new and weighty evidence in their favor. If the correspondence between the form of a freely suspended and rotating drop of liquid and that of a planet or satellite is accepted as evidence of the exertion of the same forces of cohesion, etc., on both, the correspondence between the configuration of the lunar surface and that of small quantities of fused and freely cooled earth crust matter should at least afford material support to the otherwise indicated inference, that the materials of the moon's crust are similar to those of the earth's, and that they have been cooled from a state of fusion. I think I may safely generalize to the extent of saying that no considerable mass of fused earthy silicates can cool down under circumstances of free radiation without first forming a heated solid crust, which, by further radiation, cooling and contraction, will assume a surface configuration resembling more or less closely that of the moon. Evidence of this is afforded by a survey of the spoil banks of blast furnaces, where thousands of blocks of cinder are heaped together, all of which will be found to have their upper surfaces that were freely exposed when cooling corrugated with radiating miniature lava streams that have flowed from one or more craters or openings that have been formed in the manner above described. The third assumption will, I think, be at once admitted in as much as I think it is but the expression of a physical necessity. According to this, the earth, if it is cooled as the moon is supposed to have done, should have displayed corresponding irregularities, and generally the magnitude of mountains of solidified planets and satellites should be on a scale proportionate to their whole mass. In comparing the mountains of the moon and Mercury with those of the earth, a large error is commonly made by taking the customary measurements of terrestrial mountain heights from the sea level. As those portions of the earth which rise above the waters are but its upper mountain slopes and the ocean bottom forms its lower plains and valleys, we must add the greatest ocean depths to our customary measurements. In order to state the full height of what remains of the original mountains of the earth, as all the stratified rocks have been formed by the wearing down of the original upper slopes and summits, we cannot expect to be able to recognize the original skeleton form of our waterwashed globe. If my calculation of the atmosphere of Mercury is correct, vis that its pressure is equal to about one seventh of the earth's, or four and a quarter inches of Mercury, there can be no liquid water on that planet, excepting perhaps over a small amount of circumpolar area, and during the extremes of its Apahilean winter. Thus the irregularities of the terminator indicating mountain elevations calculated to reach to one two hundred and fifty-third of the diameter of the planet are quite in accordance with the above stated theoretical consideration. There is one peculiar feature presented by the cones of the cooling cinder, which is especially interesting. The flow of fused cinder from the little crater is at first copious and continuous. Then it diminishes and becomes alternating by a rising and falling of the fused mass within the cone. Ultimately the flow ceases, and then the inner liquid sinks more or less below the level of the orifice. In some cases where much gas has evolved, this sinking is so considerable as to leave the cone as a mere hollow shell. The inner liquid, having settled down and solidified with a flat or slightly rounded surface, add about the level of the base of the cone or even lower. These hollow cones were remarkably displayed in some of the cinder of the Henderson Iron, and their formation was obviously promoted by the abundant evolution of gas. If such hollow cones were formed by the cooling of a mass like that of the moon, they would ultimately and gradually subside by their own weight. But how would they yield? Obviously, by a gradual hinge-like bending at the base towards the axis of the cone, this would occur with or without fracture according to the degree of viscosity of the crust and the amount of inclination. But the sides of the hollow cone shell and falling towards the axis would be crushing into smaller circumferences. What would result from this? I think it must be the formation of fissures, extending for the most part radially from the crater towards the base and a crumpling up of the shell of the cone by foldings in the same direction. Am I venturing too far in suggesting that in this manner may have been formed the mysterious rays and reels that extend so abundantly from several of the lunar craters? The upturned edges or walls of the broken crust and the chasms necessarily gaping between them appear to satisfy the peculiar phenomena of reflection which these rays present. These edges of the fractured crust would lean towards each other and form angular chasms while the foldings of the crust itself would form long concave troughs extending radially from the crater. These, when illuminated by rays falling upon them in the direction of the line of vision, must reflect more light towards the spectator than does the general convex lunar surface and thus they become especially visible at the full moon. Such foldings and fractures would occur after the subsidence and solidification of the lava forming liquid. That is, when the formation of new craters had ceased in any given region, hence they would extend across the minor lateral craters formed by outbursts from the sides of the main cone in the manner actually observed. The fact that the bottoms of the great walled craters of the moon are generally lower than the surrounding plains must not be forgotten in connection with this explanation. I will not venture further with the speculations suggested by the above described resemblances as my knowledge of the details of the telescopic appearances of the moon is but second hand. I have little doubt, however, that observers who have the privilege of direct familiarity with such details will find that the phenomena presented by the cooling of iron cinder or other fused silicates are worthy of further and more careful study. End of Chapter 6 Recording by Colleen McMahon Chapter 7 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 Avahi in August 2019. Science in Short Chapters by W. Matthew Williams Chapter 7 Note on the direct effect of sunspots on terrestrial climates. Professor Langley determines quantitatively the effects respectively produced by the radiations from the solar spots, penumbra and photosphere upon the face of a termopile and infers that these effects measure their relative influence on terrestrial climate. In thus assuming that the heat communicated to the termopile measures the solar contribution to terrestrial climate, Professor Langley omits an important factor. That is, the amount of heat absorbed in traversing the Earth's atmosphere. And in measuring the relative efficiency of the spots, penumbra and photosphere, he has not taken into account the variations of diathermancy of the intervening atmospheric matter which are due to the variations in the source of heat. Speaking generally, it may be affirmed that the radiations of obscure heat are more largely absorbed by the gases and vapours of our atmosphere than those of luminous heat. And the great differences in the mere luminosity of the spots, penumbra and photosphere justify the assumption that the radiations of a sunspot will, to use the expressive simile of Tyndall, lose far more by atmospheric sifting than will those from the photosphere. But the spot areas will be nonetheless effective on terrestrial climate on that account. A given amount of heat arrested by the Earth's atmosphere will have even greater climatic efficiency than if received upon its solid surface, inasmuch as the gases are worse radiators than the rocks, and will therefore, catorous peribus, retain a larger proportion of the heat they receive. I have long ago endeavored to show that the depth of the photosphere from the solar surface inwards is limited by dissociation, that the materials of the sun within the photosphere exist in a dissociated elementary condition that at the photosphere they are, for the most part, combined. This view has since been adopted by many eminent solar physicists and, if correct, demands a much higher temperature within the depths revealed by that withdrawal of the photospheric veil which constitutes a sunspot. If I am right in this, and also in supposing the spot radiations to be so much more abundantly absorbed than those of the photosphere, and if in spite of this higher temperature of the spots the surface of the Earth receives from them the lower degree of heat measured by Professor Langley, another interesting consequence must follow. The excess of spot heat directly absorbed by the atmosphere and mainly by the water dissolved or suspended in its upper regions must be especially effective in dissipating clouds and checking or modifying their formation. The meteorological results of this may be important and are worthy of careful study. In thus venturing to question some of Professor Langley's inferences, I am far from underrating the interest and importance of his researches. On the contrary, I regard the quantitative results he has obtained as especially valuable and opportune in affording means of testing the above-named and other speculations in solar physics. Similar observations repeated at different elevations would decide, so far as the lower regions are concerned, whether or not there is any difference in the quantity of heat imparted by the bright and obscure portions of the sun to our atmosphere. If the differences already observed by Professor Langley vary in ascending, a new means will be afforded of studying the constitution of the interior of the sun and its relations to the photosphere. Direct evidence of selective absorption by our atmosphere may thus be obtained, which would go far towards solving one of the crucial solar problems, that is, whether the darker regions are hotter or cooler than the photosphere. The obscure radiations from the moon must be absorbed by our atmosphere like those from the sunspot and may be sufficiently effective to account for the alleged dissipation of clouds by the full moon. In both cases, the climatic influence is greatly heightened by the fact that all the heat thus absorbed is directly effective in raising the temperature of the air. The action of the absorbed heat in reference to cloud formation is directly opposite to that of the transmitted solar heat, as this reaching the surface of the earth evaporates the superficial water and thereby produces the material of clouds. On the other hand, the heat which is absorbed by the air increases its vapor holding capacity and thus prevents the formation of clouds or even affects the dissolution of clouds already formed. End of Chapter 7 Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Melanie Young Science in Short Chapters by W. Matthew Williams Chapter 8 The Philosophy of the Radiometer and Its Cosmical Revelations So much speculation and not a little extravagant speculation has been devoted to the dynamics of the radiometer that I feel some compunction in adding another stone to the heap. My only apology and justification for so doing being that I propose to regard the subject from a very unsophisticated point of view and with somewhat heretical directness of vision, i.e. quite irrespective of atoms, molecules, or ether, or any other specific preconceptions concerning the essential kinetics of radiant forces. Beyond that of regarding such forces as affections or conditions of matter which are transmitted radially in constant quantity and therefore obey the necessary law of radial diffusion or inverse squares. The primary difficulty which appears to have generally been suggested by the movements of the radiometer is the case which it seems to present of mechanical action without any visible basis of corresponding reaction. A visible, tangible object pushed forward without any visible pushing agent or resisting fulcrum against which the moving body reacts. This difficulty has been met by the invocation of obedient and vivacious molecules of residual atmospheric matter which have been called upon to bound and rebound between the veins and the inner surfaces of the glass envelope of the instrument. How is it that the advocates of these activities have not sought to verify their speculations by modifying the shape and dimensions of the exhausted glass bulb or receiver? If the motion of the radiometer is due to such excursions and collisions, the length of excursion and the angles of collision must modify its motions, and such modification under given conditions would form a fine subject for the exercise of the ingenuity of molecular mathematicians. If their hypothetical data are sound, they should be able to predict the relative velocities or torsion force of a series of radiometers of similar construction in all other respects but with variable shapes and diameters of enclosing vessels. If we divest our minds of all visions of hypothetical atoms, molecules, ethers, etc., and simply look at the facts of radiation with the same humility of intellect as we usually regard gravitation, this primary difficulty of the radiometer at once vanishes. The force of gravitation is a radiant force acting somehow between or upon or by distant bodies, and these bodies, however far apart, act and react upon each other with mutual forces, precisely equal and exactly contrary. We conceive the sun pulling the earth in a certain direction, and receiving from the earth an equal pole in a precisely contrary direction, and we have hitherto demanded no ethereal or molecular link for the transmission of these mutually attractive forces. Why then should we not regard radiant repulsive energy in the same simple manner? If we do this, there is no difficulty in finding the ultimate reaction fulcrum of the radiometer veins. It is simply the radiating body, the match, the candle, the lamp, the sun, or whatever else may be the source of the impelling radiations. According to this view, the radiant source must be repelled with precisely the same energy as the arms or pendulum of the radiometer, and it would move backward or in opposite direction if equally free to move. If, by any means, we cause the glass envelope of the radiometer to become the radiant source, it should be repelled, and may even rotate in opposite direction to the veins or vice versa. This has been done with floating radiometers. Viewed thus as a simple matter of fact, irrespective of any preconceived kinetics of intervening media, the net result of Mr. Crook's researches become nothing less than the discovery of a new law of nature, of great magnitude, and the broadest possible generality. That is that the sun and all other radiant bodies, i.e. all the materials of the universe, exert a mechanical repulsive force in addition to the calorific, luminous, actinic, and electrical forces with which they have hitherto been credited. He has shown that this force is refrangeable and dispersible, that it is outspread with the spectrum, and is most concentrated or active in the region of the ultra-red rays, and progressively feeblest in the violet, or otherwise stated, it exists in closer companionship with heat than with light, and closer with light than with actinism. According to the Doctrine of Exchanges, which has now passed from the Domena Theory to that of demonstrated law, all bodies, whatever be their temperature, are perpetually radiating heat force, the amount of which varies, catcherous paribus, with their temperature. If we now add to this generalization that all bodies are similarly radiating mechanical force and suffering corresponding mechanical reaction, the theoretical difficulties of the radiometer vanish. What must follow in the case of a freely suspended body unequally heated on opposite sides? It must be repelled in a direction perpendicular to the surface of its hottest side. If two rockets were fixed to opposite sides of a pendant body and were to exert unequal ejective forces, the reaction of the stronger rocket would repel the body in the opposite direction to its preponderating ejection. This represents the radiometer vein with one side blackened and the other side bright. When exposed to luminous rays, the black side becomes warmer than the bright side by its active absorption and conversion of light into heat, and thus the blackened face radiates in excess and recedes. We may regard it thus as acting by its own radiations, or otherwise as acted upon by the more powerful radiant whose rays are differentially received by the black and bright sides. These different modes of regarding the action are perfectly consistent with each other and analogous to the two different modes of regarding gravitation. When we describe the sun as attracting the earth or otherwise, the earth as gravitating to the sun. Strictly speaking, neither of these descriptions is correct. As the gravitation is mutual and the total quantity exerted between the sun and the earth is equal to the sum of their energies. But it is sometimes convenient to regard the action from a solar standpoint and at others from a terrestrial. So with the radiometer and the strictly mutual repulsions between it and the predominating radiant, it appears to me that this unsophisticated conception of radiant mechanical repulsive force and its necessary mechanical reaction on the radiant body meets all the facts at present revealed by the experiments of Mr. Crookes and others. The attraction which occurs when the disc of the radiometer is surrounded with a considerable quantity of atmospheric matter is probably due to the inequality of atmospheric pressure. The absorbing face of the disc becomes heated above the temperature of the opposite face. The film of air in contact with the warmer face rises, leaving a relatively vacuous space in front. This produces a rush of air from back to front which carries the radiometer vein with it. When the exhaustion of the radiometer is carried so far that the residual air is only just sufficiently dense to neutralize the direct repulsion of radiation, the neutral point is reached. When exhaustion is carried beyond this, repulsion predominates. Taking Mr. Crookes' estimate of the mechanical energy of solar radiation at 32 grains per square foot, 200 weights per acre, 57 tons per square mile, etc., and accepting these as they are offered, i.e. merely as provisional and approximate estimates, we are led to a cosmical inference of the highest importance, one that must materially modify our interpretations of some of the grandest phenomena of the universe. Although the estimated sunlight pressure upon the Earth, the 3,000 millions of tons, is too small a fraction of the Earth's total weight to affect an easily measurable increase of the length of our year, the case is quite otherwise with the asteroids in the zones of meteoric matter revolving around the Sun. The mechanical repulsion of radiation is a superficial action and must therefore vary with the amount of surface exposed, while that of gravitation varies with the mass. Thus the ratio of radiant repulsion to the attraction of gravitation goes on increasing with the subdivision of masses and becomes an important fraction in the case of the smaller bodies of the solar system. A zone of meteorites traveling around the Sun would be broken up, sifted, and sorted into different orbits, according to their diameters. If this superficial repulsion operated against gravitation without any compensating agency, gravitation would be opposed in various degrees, neutralized and, in the case of cosmic dust, even reversed. Comments presenting so large a surface in proportion to their mass would either be driven away altogether or forced to move in orbits, utterly disobedient to present calculations. This would occur if the interplanetary spaces were as nearly vacuous as the torsion instrument with which Mr. Crookes made his measurements. Regarding the properties of our atmosphere only in the light of experimental data, irrespective of imaginary molecules, and their supposed gyrations or oscillations, we see at once that an interplanetary or interstellar vacuum must act like a sprinkle pump upon our atmosphere, upon the atmosphere of other planets and upon those of the Sun and the stars, and would continue such action until an equilibrium between the repulsive energy of the gas and the gravitation of the solid orbs had been established. Atmospheric matter would thus be universally diffused, with special accumulations around solid orbs, varying in quantity with their respective gravitating energy. Such a universal atmosphere would accelerate orbital motion, and this acceleration would vary with the surface of bodies. Its action being thus exactly opposed to that of radiant repulsion, it must, at a certain density, exactly neutralize it. That it does this is evident from the obedience of all the elements of the solar system to the calculated action of gravitation. And thus Mr. Crook's researches not only confirm the idea of universal atmospheric diffusion, but they afford a means by which we may ultimately measure the actual density of the universal atmosphere. If, as I have endeavored to show in my essay on the fuel of the Sun, the initial radiant energy of every star depends upon its mass, and its consequent condensation of atmospheric matter, the density of interplanetary atmosphere sufficient to neutralize the radiant mechanical energy of our Sun may be the same as is demanded to perform the same function for all the stars of the universe and all their attendant worlds, comets, and meteors. In order to prevent misunderstanding of the above, I must add that I have therein studiously assumed a negative position in reference to all hypothetical conceptions of the nature of heat, light, etc., and their modes of transmission, simply because I feel satisfied that the subject has hitherto been obscured and complicated by overstrained efforts to fit the phenomena to the excessively definite hypotheses of modern molecular mathematicians. The atoms invented by Dalton for the purpose of explaining the demonstrated laws of chemical combination performed this function admirably and had great educational value, so long as their purely imaginary origin was kept in view. But when such atoms are treated as facts and physical dogmas are based upon the assumption of their actual existence, they become dangerous physical superstitions. Regarding matter as continuous, i.e. supposing it to be simply as it appears to be, and co-extensive with the universe, in accordance with the experimental evidences of the unlimited expansibility of gaseous matter, we need only assume that our sensations of heat, light, etc., are produced by active conditions of such matter analogous to those which are proved to produce our sensations of sound. On this basis there is no difficulty in conceiving the rationale of the reaction which produces the repulsion of the radiometer. I may go even further and affirm that it is impossible to rationally conceive radiation producing any mechanical effects without mechanical reaction. If heat be motion and actual motion of actual matter, mechanical force must be exerted to produce it and a body which is warmer on one side than the other, i.e. which is exerting more outward motion producing force on one side than on the other, must be subject to proportionally unequal reaction and therefore, if free to move, must retreat in a direction contrary to that of its greater activity. Regarded thus, the residual air of the radiometer does act, not by collisions of particles between the vein and the inside of the glass vessel, but by the direct reaction of the radiant energy which would operate irrespective of vessels, i.e. upon naked radiometer veins if carried halfway to the moon, or otherwise freed from excess of atmospheric embarrassment. The recent experiments of Mr. Crookes, showing retardation of the radiometer with extreme exhaustion, seem to indicate that heat rays, like the electric discharge, demand a certain amount of atmospheric matter as their carrier. I cannot conclude these hasty and imperfect notes, written merely with suggestive intent, without quoting a passage from the preface to the correlation of physical forces, which, though written so long ago, appears to me worthy of the profoundest present consideration. It appears to me that heat and light may be considered as affections, or according to the undulatory theory, vibrations of matter itself, and not of a distinct ethereal fluid permeating it. These vibrations would be propagated just as sound is propagated by vibrations of wood or as waves by water. To my mind, all the consequences of the undulatory theory flow as easily from this as from the hypothesis of a specific ether. To suppose which, namely, to suppose a fluid, sewage and heiress, and of extreme tenuity penetrating solid bodies, we must assume, first, the existence of the fluid itself. Secondly, that bodies are, without exception, porous. Thirdly, that these porous communicate. Fourthly, that matter is limited in expansibility. None of these difficulties apply to the modification of this theory which I ventured to propose. And no other difficulty applies to it which does not equally apply to the received hypothesis. End of Chapter 8. Recording by Melanie Young. Chapter 9 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. Mathew Williams. On the social benefits of paraffin. To the inhabitants of Jupiter, who have always one, two or three of their four moons in active and efficient radiation, or of Saturn displaying the broad luminous oceans of his mighty rings, in addition to the minor lamps of his eight ever-changeful satellites, the relative merits of rush lights, candles, lamps and gas lights may be a question of indifference. But to us, the residents of a planet which has but one small moon that only displays her nearly full face during a few nights of each month. The subject of artificial light is only second in importance to those of food and artificial heat. And every step that is made in the improvement of our supplies of this primary necessary must have a momentous influence on the physical comfort and also upon the intellectual and moral progress of this world's human inhabitants. If a cockney Rip Van Winkle were to revisit his old horns, the changes produced by the introduction of gas would probably surprise him the most, of all he would see. He would be astonished to find respectable people and even unprotected females going alone, unarmed and without fear at night, up the by-streets which in his day were deemed so dangerous. And he would soon perceive that the bright gas lights had done more than all the laws, the magistrates and the police to drive out those crimes which can only flourish in darkness. The intimate connection between physical light and moral and intellectual light and progress is a subject well worthy of an exhaustive treatise. We must, however, drop the general subject and come down to our particular paraffin lamp. In the first place, this is the cheapest light that has ever been invented, cheaper than any kind of oil lamp, cheaper than the cheapest and nastiest of candles, and, for domestic purposes, cheaper than gas. For large warehouses, shops, streets, public buildings, etc., it is not so cheap as gas should be, but is considerably cheaper than gas actually is at the price extorted by the despotism of commercial monopoly. The reason why it is especially cheaper for domestic purposes is, first, because the small consumer of gas pays a higher price than the large consumer, and secondly, because a lamp can be placed on a table or wherever else its light is required, and therefore a small lamp flame will do the work of a much larger gas flame. We must remember that the intensity of light varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source of light. Thus, the amount of light received by this page from a light at one foot distance is four times as great as if it were two feet distant, nine times as great as at three feet, sixteen times as great as at four feet, one hundred times as great as at ten feet, and so on. Hence, the necessity of two or three great flames in a gas chandelier suspended from the ceiling of a moderate sized room. In a sitting room, lighted thus with gas, we are obliged in order to read comfortably by the distant source of light to burn so much gas that the atmosphere of the room is seriously polluted by the products of this extravagant combustion. A lamp at a moderate distance, say eighteen inches or two feet or thereabouts, will enable us to read or work with one tenth to one twentieth the amount of combustion, and therefore with so much less byciation of the atmosphere, and if we use a paraffin lamp at much less expense. But the chief value of the paraffin lamp is felt where gas is not obtainable in the country mansion or villa, the farmhouse, and most of all in the poor man's cottage. We have Bible societies for providing cheap Bibles. We have cheap standard works, cheap magazines, cheap newspapers, etc. But all these are unavailable to the poor man until he can get a good and cheap light, wherewith to read them at the only time he has for reading, namely in the evenings when his work is done. One shillings worth of cheap literature will require two shillings worth of dear candles to supply the light necessary for reading it. Therefore the cheapening of light has quite as much to do with the poor man's intellectual progress as the cheapening of books and periodicals. For a man to read comfortably, and his wife to do her needlework, they must have a candle for each if dependent on tallow dips. They may, and do, struggle on with one such candle, but the inconvenience soon sickens them of their occupation. The man lolls out for an idle stroll, soon encounters a far more bright and cheerful room than the gloomy one he has just left, and, moth-like, he is attracted by the light and finishes up his evening in the public house. We may preach, we may lecture, we may coax, weedle, or anathematize, but no amount of words of any kind will render a gloomy, ill-lighted cottage so attractive as the bright bar and tap room, and human nature, irrespective of conventional distinctions of rank and class, always seeks cheerfulness after a day of monotonous toil. Fifty years ago the middle classes were accustomed to spend their evenings in taverns, but now they prefer their homes, simply because they have learned to make their homes more comfortable and attractive. We have not yet learned how to supply the working millions with suburban villas, but if their small rooms can be made bright and cheerful during the long evenings, a most important step is made towards that general improvement of social habits, which necessarily results from a greater love of home. We may safely venture to predict that the paraffin lamp will have as much influence in elevating the domestic character of the poorer classes as the street lamps have had in purging the streets of our cities from the crimes of darkness that once infested them. A great deal has been said about the poisonous character of paraffin works. I admit that they have much to answer for in reference to trout, that the clumsy and wasteful management of certain ill-conducted works has interfered with the sport of the anglers of one or two of the trout streams of the United Kingdom, but all the assertions that have been made relative to injury to human health are quite contrary to truth. The fact is that the manufacture of mineral oils from cannell and shale is an unusually healthful occupation. The men certainly have dirty faces, but are curiously exempt from those diseases which are most fatal among the poor. I allude to typhus fever and all that terrible catalogue of ills usually classed under the head of zymotic diseases. This has been strikingly illustrated in the Flintshire district. The very sudden development of the oil trade in the neighbourhood of Leeswood caused that little village and the scattered cottages around to be crowded to an extent that created the utmost alarm among all who are familiar with the results of such overcrowding in poor, ill-drained and ill-ventilated cottages. Rooms were commonly filled with lodgers who economised the apartments on the box and cocks principle, the night workers sleeping during the day and the day workers during the night in the same beds. The extent to which this overcrowding was carried in many instances is hardly credible. Mr. R. Platt, who is surgeon to most of the collaries and oilworks of this district, reports that Leeswood has enjoyed a singular immunity from typhus and fever, that during a period when it was prevalent as a serious epidemic among the agricultural population living on the slopes of the surrounding mountains, no single case occurred among the oil-making population of Leeswood, though its position and overcrowding seemed so directly to court its visitation. If space permitted, I might give further illustrations in reference to Allied diseases. There is no difficulty in accounting for this. Carbolic acid, one of the most powerful of our disinfectants, is abundantly produced in the oilworks and this is carried by the clothes of the men and with the fumes of the oil into the dwellings of the workmen and through all the atmosphere of the neighbourhood and has thereby counteracted some of the most deadly agencies of organic poisons. Besides this, the paraffin oil itself is a good disinfectant. Even the mischief done to the trout is more than counterbalanced by the destruction of those mysterious fungoid growths which result from the admixture of sewage matter with the water of our rivers and are so destructive to human health and life. The carbolic acid and paraffin oil in destroying these as well as the trout are really acting as great purifiers of the river so that, after all, the only interest that has suffered is the sporting interest. This same interest has otherwise suffered. The old haunts of the snipe and woodcock of partridges, hares and pheasants are being ruthlessly and barbarously destroyed and, horrible to relate, hundreds of cottages inhabited by vulgar, hard-handed, thick-booted human beings are taking their place. Churches are being extended, schoolhouses and chapels built, penny readings, lectures, concerts etc. are in active operation and even drinking fountains are in the course of construction but the trout have suffered and the woodcocks are gone. We may thus measure the good against the evil as it stands here in the headquarters of oil-making and should add to one side the advantages which the cheap and brilliant light affords, advantages which we might continue to enumerate but they are so obvious that it is unnecessary to go further. There is one important and curious matter which must not be omitted. This, like the moral and intellectual advantages of the cheap paraffin light has hitherto remained unnoticed. Namely that the introduction of mineral oils and solid paraffin for the purposes of illumination and lubrication has largely increased the world's supply of food. This may not be generally obvious at first sight but to him, who, like the writer, has had many a supper at an Italian austerity with peasants and carbonari, it is obvious enough. He will remember how often he has seen the lamp that has lighted himself and companions to their supper filled from the same flask as supplied the salad which forms so important a part of the supper itself. Throughout the south of Europe salads are most important elements of national food and when thus abundantly eaten the oil is quite necessary. The oil is also used for many of the cookery operations where butter is used here and this same olive oil has hitherto been the chief and in some places the sole illuminating agent. The poor peasant of the south looks jealously at his lamp and feeds it stingily for it consumes his richest and choicest food and, if well supplied, would eat as much as a fair-sized baby. The Russian peasant and other northern people have a similar struggle in the matter of tallow. It is their choicest dainty and yet to their bitter grief they have been compelled to burn it. Hundreds and thousands of tons of this and of olive oil have been annually consumed for the lubrication of our steam engines and other machines. A better time is approaching now that paraffin lamps are so rapidly becoming the chief illuminators of the whole civilized world superseding the crude tallow candle and the antique olive oil lamp while at the same time the tallow candle is gradually being replaced by the beautiful sperm-like paraffin candle and, in addition to this, the greedy engines that have consumed so much of the olive oil and the tallow are learning to be satisfied with lubricators made from minerals kindred to themselves. The peasants of the sunny south will feed upon salads made doubly unctuous and nutritious by the abundant oil. Their fried meats, their pastry, omelets and sauces will be so much richer and better than here to fore and the Russian will enjoy more freely his well-beloved and necessary tallow when the candle is made and the engine lubricated with the fat extracted from coals and stones which no human stomach can envy. I might travel on to China and tell of the work that paraffin and paraffin oils have yet to do among the many millions there and in other countries of the east. The great wave of mineral light has not yet fairly broken upon their shores but when it has once burst through the outer barriers it will, without doubt, advance with great rapidity and with an influence whose beneficence can scarcely be exaggerated. The above was written in the early days of paraffin lamps and while the writer was engaged in the distillation of paraffin oils, etc. from the Leeswood canal. These are now practically superseded by American petroleum of similar composition but distilled in nature's oil works. The anticipations that appeared utopian at the time of writing have since been fully realized or even exceeded as the wholesale price of mineral oil has fallen from two shillings per gallon to an average of about eight pence and lamps have been greatly improved. At this price the cost of maintaining a light of given power in an ordinary lamp is about equal to that of ordinary London gas. If it were supplied at one shilling per thousand cubic feet. The mineral oil, being a fine hydrocarbon, does far less mischief than gas by its combustion as may be proved by warming a conservatory with a paraffin stove and another with a stove. In the latter all the delicate plants will be killed. In the first they scarcely suffer at all. If these facts were generally understood we should be in a better position for battle with the gas monopolies. The importation of petroleum to the United Kingdom during the first five months of 1882 amounted to twenty-six million, two hundred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and forty-six gallons. End of On the Social Benefits of Paraffin Chapter 10 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 Jeffrey Smith, New Orleans, Louisiana Science in Short Chapters by W. Mathew Williams Chapter 10 The Solidity of the Earth In his opening address to the mathematical and physical section of the British Association Sir William Thompson affirmed, with almost perfect certainty, that whatever may be the relative densities of rock, solid and melted, or at about the temperature of liquefaction, it is, I think, quite certain that cold solid rock is denser than hot melted rock. And no possible degree of rigidity in the crust could prevent it from breaking in pieces and sinking wholly below the liquid lava, and that this process must go on until the sunk portions of the crust build up from the bottom a sufficiently close-ribbed skeleton or frame to allow fresh encrustations to remain bridged across the now small areas of lava pools or lakes. Footnote Nature, Volume 14, Page 429 End of Footnote This would doubtless be the case if the material of the Earth were chemically homogeneous or of equal specific gravity throughout, and if it were chemically inert in reference to its superficial or atmospheric surroundings. But such is not the case. All we know of the Earth shows that it is composed of materials of varying specific gravities, and that the range of this variation exceeds that which is due to the difference between the theoretical internal heat of the Earth and its actual surface temperature. We know by direct experiment that these materials, when fused together, arrange themselves according to their specific gravities with the slight modification due to their mutual diffusibilities. If we take a mixture of the solid elements of which the Earth, so far as we know it, is composed, fused them, and leave them exposed to atmospheric action, what will occur? The heavy metals will sink, the heaviest to the bottom, the lighter metals, that is those that we call the metals of the Earth's, because they form the basis of the Earth's superficial crust, will rise along with the silicon, etc., to the surface. These in the silicon will oxidize and combine, forming silicates, and with a sufficient supply of carbonic acid, some of them, such as calcium, magnesium, etc., will form carbonates when the temperature sinks below that of the dissociation of such compounds. The scoria, thus formed, will float upon the heavy metals below and protect them from cooling by resisting their radiation. But if in the course of contraction of this crust some fissures are formed reaching to the melted metals below, the pressure of the floating solid will inject the fluid metal upwards into these fissures to a height corresponding to the flotation depth of the solid, and thus form metallic veins permeating the lower strata of the crust. I need scarcely add that this would rudely but fairly represent the know of the Earth. But it may be objected that I only describe an imaginary experiment. This is true as regards the whole of the materials united in a single fusion. Nobody has yet produced a complete model with platinum and gold in the center and all the other metals arranged in theoretical order with the oxidized, silicated, and carbonated crust outside. But with a limited number of elements this has been done, is being done daily on a scale of sufficient magnitude to amply refute Sir William Thompson's description of a fused Earth solidifying from the center outwards. This refutation is to be seen in our blast furnaces, refining furnaces, puddling furnaces, besamer ladles, steel melting pots, cupels, found recrucibles, in fact, in almost every metallurgical operation down to the simple fusion of lead or solder in a plumber's ladle with its familiar floating crust of dross or oxide. As an example I will, on account of its simplicity, take the open hearth finery and the refining of pig iron. Here a metallic mixture of iron, silicon, carbon, sulfur, etc. is simply fused and exposed to the superficial action of atmospheric air. What is the result? Oxidation of the more oxidizable constituents takes place, and these oxides at once arrange themselves according to their specific gravities. The oxidized carbon forms atmospheric matter and rises above all as carbonic acid, then the oxidized silicon, being lighter than the iron, floats above that and combines with aluminium or calcium that may have been in the pig and with some of the iron, thus forming a salacious crust closely resembling the predominating material of the Earth's crust. When the oxidation in the finery is carried far enough, the melted material is tapped out into a rectangular basin or mould, usually about ten feet long and about three feet wide where it settles and cools. During this cooling the silica and silicates, that is the rock matter, separate from the metallic matter and solidify on the surface of the crust, which behaves in a very interesting and instructive manner. At first a mere skin is formed. This gradually thickens and as it thickens and cools, becomes corrugated into mountain chains and valleys much higher and deeper in proportion to the whole mass than the mountain chains and valleys of our planet. After this crust has thickened to a certain extent, volcanic action commences. Rifts, dikes and faults are formed by the shrinkage of the metal below and streams of lava are ejected. Here and there these lava streams accumulate around their vent and form insulated conical volcanic mountains with decided craters from which the eruption continues for some time. These volcanoes are relatively far higher than Chimborazo. The magnitude of these actions varies with the quality of the pig iron. The open hearth finery is now but little used, but probably some are to be seen at work occasionally in the neighborhood of Glasgow, and I am sure that Sir William Thompson will find a visit to one of them very interesting. Failing this he may easily make an experiment by tapping into a good sized cinder bogey some melted pig iron from a puddling furnace taking it just before the iron comes to nature and leaving the melted mixture to cool slowly and undisturbed. The cinder of the blast furnace, which in like manner floats on the top of the melted pig iron, resembles still more closely the prevailing rock matter of the earth on account of the larger proportion and the varied compounds of earth metals it contains. For the volcanic phenomena alone he needs simply watch what occurs when in the ordinary course of puddling the cinder is run into a large bogey and the bogey is left to cool standing upright. I need scarcely add that these phenomena strikingly illustrate and confirm Mr. Mallet's theory of earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain formation. In merely passing through an iron making district one may see the results of what I have called the volcanic action by simply observing the form of those oyster shaped or cubicle blocks of cinder that are heaped in the vicinity of every blast furnace that has been at work for some time. Radial ridges or consolidated miniature lava streams are visible on the exposed face of nearly if not quite all of these. They rejected or squeezed up from below while the mass was cooling when the outer crust had consolidated but the inner portion still remained liquid. Many of these are large enough and sufficiently well marked to be visible from a railway carriage passing a cinder heap near the road. Chapter 11 of Science and 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 and Short Chapters by W. Mateu Williams. A Contribution to the History of Electric Lighting. As the subject of lighting by electricity is occupying so much public attention and the merits of various inventors and inventions are so keenly discussed the following facts may have some historical interest in connection with it. In October 1845 I was consulted by some American gentlemen concerning the construction of a large voltatic battery for experimenting upon an invention. Afterwards described and published in the specification of King's Patent Electric Light. Letters Patent Granted for Scotland November 26th 1845 Enrolled March 25th 1846 English Patent Sealed November 4th 1845 Mr. King was not the inventor but he and Mr. Doar supplied capital and Mr. Snyder also held a share which was afterward transferred to myself. The inventor was Mr. Starr a young man about 25 years of age and one of the ableist experimental investigators with whom I have ever had the privilege of near acquaintance. He had been working for some years on the subject commencing with the ordinary arc between charcoal points. His first efforts were directed to maintaining constancy and he showed me in January of 1846 an arrangement by which he succeeded in affecting an automatic renewal of contact by mean zone electromagnet the armature of which received the electric flow when the arc was broken and which thus magnetized brought the carbons together and then allowed them to be withdrawn to the required separation when the flow returned. This device is almost identical with that subsequently reinvented and patented by Mr. Strait quite independently I believe and which with modifications has since been rather extensively used. Although successful so far he was not satisfied he reasoned out the subject and concluded that the electric spark between metals the electric arc between the carbons and other luminous electric phenomenon are secondary effects due to the heating and illumination of electric carriers that the electric spark of the conductors of ordinary electrical machines is simply the transfer of incandescent particles of metal which affect a kind of electric convection known as the disruptive discharge and that the more brilliant arc between the carbon points is simply due to the use of a substance which breaks up more readily and gives a longer broader and more continuous stream of incandescent convection particles. This is now readily accepted but at that time it was only dawning upon the understanding of electricians I am satisfied that Mr. Starr worked out the principle quite originally he therefore concluded that the light being due to solid particles heated by electric disturbance it would be more advantageous as regards to steadiness, economy and simplicity to place in the current a continuous solid barrier which should present sufficient resistance to its passage to become bodily incandescent without disruption. This was the essence of the invention specified in King's Patent as a communication from abroad which claims the use of continuous metallic and carbon conductors intensely heated by the passage of a current of electricity for the purposes of illumination. The metal selected was platinum which as the specification states though not so infusible as iridium has but little affinity for oxygen and offers a great resistance to the passage of the current the form the thin sheets known by the name of leaf platinum is described as preferable these to be rolled between sheets of copper in order to secure uniformity and to be carefully cut in strips of equal width and with a clean edge in order that one part may not be fused before the other parts have obtained a sufficiently high temperature to produce a brilliant light this strip is to be suspended between forceps I need not describe the arrangement for regulating the distance between the forceps for directing the current etc. as we soon learned that this part of the invention was of no practical value on account of the narrow margin between efficient incandescence and the fusion of the platinum the experiments with the large battery I made consisting of 100 danielle cells with 2 square feet of working surface of each element in each cell and the copper plates about 3 quarters of an inch distant from the zinc satisfied all concerned that neither platinum nor any available alloy of platinum and iridium could be relied upon especially when the grand idea of subdividing the light by interposing several platinum strips in the same circuit and working with proportionally higher power was carried out this drove Mr. Starr to rely upon the second part of the specification viz. that of using a small stick of carbon made incandescent in a Torsillian vacuum it commenced with plumbago and after trying many other forms of carbon found that which lines gas retorts that have been lost and used to be the best the carbon stick of square section about 1 tenth of an inch thick and half an inch working length was held vertically by metallic forceps at each end in a barometer tube the upper part of which containing the carbon was enlarged to a sort of oblong bulb a thick platinum wire from the upper forceps was sealed into the top of the tube and projected beyond a similar wire passed downwards from the lower forceps and dipped into the mercury of the tube which was so long that when arranged as a barometer the enlarged end containing the carbon was vacuous considerable difficulty was at first encountered in supporting this fragile stick metal supports were not available on account of their expansion and finally little cylinders of porcelain were used one on each side of the carbon stick and about 3 eighths of an inch distant by connecting the mercury cup with one terminal of the battery and the upper platinum wire with the other a brilliant and perfectly steady light was produced not so intense as the ordinary disruption arc between carbons but equally if not more effective on account of the magnitude of brilliant radiating surface sub-curious phenomenon accompanied this illumination of the carbon the mercury column fell to about half its barometric height and presently the glass opposite the carbon stick became slightly dimmed by the deposition of a thin film of sooty deposit at first the depression of the mercury was attributed to the formation of mercurial vapor and is described accordingly in the specification but further observation refuted this theory for no return of the metal took place when the tube was cooled the depression was permanent the formation of vaporous carbon was suggested by one of the capitalists but neither Mr. Starr nor myself was satisfied with this nor with any other ceramize we were able to make during Mr. Starr's lifetime nor up to the period of final abandonment of the emitter prize when this occurred the remaining apparatus was assigned to me and I retained possession of the finally arranged tube and carbon for many years and have shown it in action worked by a small grove's battery in the town hall of Birmingham and many times to my pupils at the Birmingham and Midland Institute these exhibitions suggested an explanation of the mysterious gaseous matter which I believe to be the correct one and also of the carbon deposit it is this that the carbon contains occluded oxygen that when the carbon is heated some of this oxygen combines with the carbon forming carbonic oxide and carbonic acid and a little smoke I proved the presence of carbonic acid by the usual tests but did not quantitatively determine its proportions of the total atmosphere if I were fitting up another tube on this principle I should wash it with a strong solution of causic potash before filling it with mercury and allow some of the potash solution to float on the mercury surface by filling the tube while the glass remained moistened with the solution my object would be to get rid of the carbonic acid as soon as formed as the observations I have made lead me to believe that when the carbon stick is incandescent in an atmosphere of carbonic acid or carbonic oxide a certain degree of dissociation and recombination is continually occurring which weakens and would ultimately break up the carbon stick and increases the sooty deposit the large battery was arranged for intensity but even then it was found that the quantity I used the old fashioned terms of electricity was excessive and that it worked more advantageously when the cells were but partially filled with acid and sulfate a larger stick of carbon might have been used with the whole surface in full action after working the battery in various ways and duly considering the merits of the other forms of batteries then in use Mr. Starr was driven to the conclusion that for the purposes of practical illumination the voltatic battery is a hopeless source of power and that magneto-electric machinery driven by steam power must be used I fully concurred with him in this conclusion and so did Mr. King, Mr. Dore and all concerned Mr. Starr then set to work to devise a suitable diamo-electric machine and, following his usual course of starting from first principles concluded that all armatures hit or two constructed were defected in one fundamental element of their arrangement the thick copper wire surrounding the soft iron core necessarily follows a spiral course like that of a coarse screw thread but the electric current or lines of force which it is designed to pick up and carry circulate at right angles to the axis of the core and extend to some distance beyond its surface the problem thus presented is to wind around the soft iron a conductor that shall be broad enough to grasp a large proportion of this outspread force and yet shall follow its course as nearly as possible by standing out at right angles to the axis of the armature this he endeavored to effect by using a core of square section and winding round it a broad ribbon of sheet copper insulated on both sides by cementing on its surface a layer of silk ribbon this armature was laid with one side against one edge of the core and carried on thus to the angle then turned over so that its opposite side should be presented to the next side of the core this side to be followed in like manner the ribbon similarly turned again at the next corner and so on till the core became fully enclosed or armed with the continuous ribbon which thus encircled the core with its edges outwards and nearly at right angles to the axis in spite of its width which might be increased to any extent found by the experiment to be desirable at this stage my direct cooperation and confidential communication with Mr. Starr ceased as I remained in London while he went to Birmingham in order to get his machinery constructed and to apply it at the works of Messier's Elkington who had then recently introduced the principle of dynamo-electric motive power for electroplating etc. and were, I believe, using Woolrich's apparatus the patent for which was dated August 1st, 1842 and enrolled February 1st, 1843 I am unable to state the results of his efforts in Birmingham I only heard the murmurs of capitalists who loudly complained of expenditure without results they had dreamed the same dream that Mr. Edison has recently redreamed and has told the world so loudly they suppose that the mechanically excited current might be carried along great lengths of wire and the carbons interpose wherever required and that the same electricity would flow on and do the duty of illumination over and over again as a river may fall over a succession of weirs and turn water wheels at each Mr. Starr knew better his skepticism was misinterpreted he was taunted with failure and non-fulfillment of the anticipations he had raised and with the fruitless expenditure of large sums of other people's money he was a high-minder, honorable and very sensitive man suffering already from overworked brain before he went to Birmingham there he worked again still harder with further vexation and disappointment until one morning he was found dead in his bed having, during my short acquaintance with him, enjoyed his full confidence in reference to all his investigations I have no hesitation in affirming that his early death cut short the career of one who otherwise would have largely contributed to the progress of experimental science and have done honor to his country his martyrdom, for such it was, taught me a useful lesson I then much needed, Viz, to abstain from entering upon a costly series of physical investigations without being well assured of the means of completing them and, above all, of being able to afford to fail there are many others who sorely need to be impressed with the same lesson especially at this moment and in connection with this subject the warning is the most applicable to those who are now misled by a plausible but false analogy they look at the progress made in other things, the mighty achievements of modern science and therefore inferred at the electric light even though unsuccessful hit or two may be improved up to practical success as other things have been a great fallacy is hidden here as a matter of fact the progress made in electric lighting since Mr. Starr's death in 1846 has been very small indeed as regards to lamp itself no progress whatever has been made I am satisfied that Starr's continuous carbon stick properly managed in a true vacuum or an atmosphere free from oxygen, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid or other oxygen compound is the best that has yet been placed before the public for all purposes where exceptionally intense illumination as in lighthouses is not demand comparing electric with gas lighting the hopeful believers in progressive improvement appear to forget that gas making and gas lighting are as susceptible of further improvement as electric lighting and that as a matter of fact its practical progress during the last 40 years is incomparably greater than that of the electric light I refer more particularly to the practical and crucial question of economy the byproducts, the ammonical salts, the liquid hydrocarbons and their derivatives have been developed into so many useful forms by the achievement of modern chemistry that these with the coke are of sufficient value to cover the whole cost of manufacture and lead the gas itself as a volatile residue that costs nothing it would actually and practically cost nothing and might be profitably delivered to the burners of gas consumers a far better quality than now supplied in London at one shilling per thousand cubic feet if gas making were conducted on sound commercial principles that is if it were not a corporate monopoly and were subject to the wholesome stimulating influence of free competition and private enterprise as it is our gas and the price we pay for it are absurdities and all calculations respecting the comparative costs of new methods of illumination should be based not on what we do pay per candle power of gas light but what we ought to pay and should pay if the gas companies were subjected to desirable competition or visited with the national confiscation I think they deserve having had considerable practical experience in the commercial distillation of coal for the sake of its liquid and solid hydrocarbons I speak thus plainly and with full confidence there is yet another consideration and one of vital importance to be taken into account is that whether we use the electric light derived from a dynamo electric source or coal gas our primary source of illuminating power is coal or rather the chemical energy derivable from the combination of its hydrogen and carbon with oxygen now this chemical energy is a limited quantity and the progress of science can no more increase this quantity than it can make a ton of coal weight 2100 weight by increasing the quantity of its gravitating energy the demonstrable limits of scientific possibilities is the economic application of this limited store of energy by converting it into the demanded form of force without waste the more indirect and roundabout the method of application the greater must be the loss of power in the course of its transfer and conversion in heating the boiler that sets the dynamo electric machine to work about one half of the energy of the coal is wasted even with the best constructed furnaces this merely as regards the quantity of water evaporated in converting the heat force into mechanical power raising the piston etc. of the steam engine this working half is again seriously reduced in further converting this residue of mechanical power into electrical energy another unconsiderable loss is suffered in originating and sustaining the motion of the dynamo electric machine the dissipation of the electric energy that the armature cannot pick up and in overcoming the electrical resistances to its transfer I am unable to state the amount of this loss in trustworthy figures but should be very much surprised to learn that with the best arrangements now known more than one tenth of the original energy of the coal is made practically available this small illuminating residue may and doubtlessly will be increased by the progress of practical improvement but from the necessary nature of the problem the power available for illumination at the end of the series must always be but a small portion of that employed at the beginning in burning the gas derived from coal we obtain its illuminating power directly and if we burn it properly we obtain nearly all the coke residue is also directly used as a source of heat the chief waste of the original energy in the gas works is represented by the portion of the coke that is burned under the retorts and in obtaining that relatively small amount of steam power demanded in the works these are far more than paid for by the value of the liquid hydrocarbons and ammonium salts when they are properly utilized and including my narrative I may add that after Mr. Star's death Pattonese offered to engage me on certain terms to carry on his work I declined this simply because I had seen enough to convince me of the impossibility of any success at all corresponding to their anticipations during the intervening 30 years I have it stained from further meddling with the electric light because all that I had seen then and have heard of since has convinced me that although as a scientific achievement the electric light is a splendid success its practical application to all purposes where cost is a matter of serious consideration is hopeless and must of necessity continue to be so whoever can afford to pay some shillings per hour for a single splendid light of solar completeness can have it without difficulty but not so where the cost in pence per hour per burner has to be counted I should add that before the publication of King's specification Mr. now Sir William Grove proposed the use of a helix or coil of platinum made incandescent by electricity as a light to be used for certain purposes this was shown at the Royal Society on or about December 1st 1845 since the publication of the above in 1879 I have learned from a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Science by Professor Arrington that in 1841 an English patent was granted to the Des Moines for electric lighting by incandescence end of a contribution to the history of electric lighting Chapter 12 of Science and 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 Kristen Edwards Science and Short Chapters by W. Mateu Williams Chapter 12 The Formation of Coal in the course of a pedestrian excursion made in the summer of 1855 I came upon the Akin Sea one of the lakes of North Tyrol rarely visited by tourists it is situated about 30 miles northeast of Innisfrook and fills the basin of a deep valley the upper slopes of which are steep and richly wooded the water of this lake is remarkably transparent and colorless with one exception that of the fountain of Cyan a deep pool forming the source of the little Syracusean river it is the most transparent body of water I remember to have seen this transparency revealed a very remarkable sub aqueous landscape the bottom of the lake is strewn with branches and trunks of trees which in some parts are in almost forest like profusion as I was alone in a rather solitary region and carrying only a satchel of luggage my only means of further exploration were those afforded by swimming and diving being an expert in these and the July summer day very calm and hot I remained a long time in the water and by swimming very carefully to avoid ripples was able to survey a considerable area of the interesting scene below the fact which struck me the most forcibly and at first appeared surprising was the upright position of many of the large trunks which are of various lengths some altogether stripped of branches others with only a few of the larger branches remaining the roots of all these are more or less buried and they present the appearance of having grown where they stand other trunks were leaning at various angles and partly buried some trunks and many branches lying down on diving I found the bottom to consist of a loamy powder of gray color speckled with black particles of vegetable matter thin scaly fragments of bark and leaves I brought up several twigs and small branches and with considerable difficulty after a succession of immersions succeeded in raising a branch about as thick as my arm and about eight feet long above three fourths of which was buried and only the end above ground in the water my object was to examine the condition of the buried and immersed wood and I selected this as the oldest piece I could reach I found the wood very dark the bark entirely gone and the annual layers curiously loosened and separable from each other like successive rings of bark this continued till I had stripped the stick to about half of its original thickness when it became too compact to yield to further stripping the structure apparently results from the easy decomposition of the remains of the original cambium of each year and may explain the curious fact that so many specimens of fossilized wood exhibit the original structure of the stem although all the vegetable matter has been displaced by mineral substances if this stem had been immersed in water capable of precipitating or depositing mineral matter in very small interstices the deposit would have filled up the vacant spaces between these rings of wood as the slow decomposition of the vegetable matter proceeded at a later period as the more compact wood became decomposed it would be substituted by a further deposit and thus concentric strata would be formed presenting a mimic counterpart of the vegetable structure the stick examined appeared to be a branch of oak and was so fully saturated with water that it sank rapidly upon being released on looking around the origin of this subaqueous forest was obvious enough here and there the steep wooded slopes above the lake were broken by long alleys or downward strips of denuded ground where storm torrents or some such agency had cleared away the trees and swept most of them into the lake a few uprooted trees laying at the sides of these bare alleys told the story plainly enough most of these had a considerable quantity of earth and stones adhering to their roots this explains the upright position of the trees in the link such trees falling into water of sufficient depth to enable them to turn over must sink root downwards or float in an upright position according to the quantity of adhering soil the difference of depth would tend to a more rapid penetration of water in the lower parts where the pressure would be greatest and thus the upright or oblique position of many of the floating trunks would be maintained till they absorbed sufficient water to sink altogether it is generally assumed that fossil trees which are found in an upright position have grown on the spot where they are found the facts I have stated show that this inference is by no means necessary not even when the roots are attached and some soil is found among them in order to account for the other surroundings of these fossil trees a very violent hypothesis is commonly made namely that the soil on which they grew sank down some hundreds of feet without disturbing them this demands a great strain upon the scientific imagination even in reference to the few cases where the trees stand perpendicular as the majority slope considerably the difficulty is still greater I shall presently show how trees like those immersed in occupancy may have become and are now becoming embedded in rocks similar to those of the coal measures in the course of subsequent excursions on the fjords of Norway I was reminded of the subaqueous forest of the Aachen Sea and of the paper which I read at the British Association meeting of 1865 of which the above is an abstract not by again seeing such a deposit under water for none of the fjords approached the singular transparency of the lake but by a repetition on a far larger scale of the downward strips of denuded forest ground here in Norway their magnitude justifies me in describing them as vegetable avalanches they may be seen on the Songnifjorn and especially on those terminal branches of this great estuary of which the steep slopes are well wooded but the most remarkable display that I have seen was in the course of the magnificent and now easily made journey up the Storfjord and its extension and branches the Singsfjord Sönelfjord Nordalsfjord and Geirangerfjord here these avalanches of trees with their accompaniment of fragments of rock are of such frequent occurrence that sites of the farmhouses are commonly selected with reference to possible shelter houses in spite of this they do not always escape in the October previous to my last visit a boat house and boat were swept away and one of the most recent among the tracks that I saw reached within 20 yards of some farm buildings what has become of the millions of trees that are thus falling and have fallen into the Norwegian fjords during the whole of the present geological era in considering this question we must remember that the mountain slopes forming the banks of these fjords continue downwards under the waters of the fjords which reached to depths that in some parts are to be counted in thousands of feet it is evident that the loose stony and earthy matter that accompanies the trees will speedily sink to the bottom and rest at the foot of the slope somewhat like an ordinary subarial talus but not so the trees the impetus of their fall must launch them a float and impel them towards the middle of the estuary where they will be spread about and continue floating until by saturation they become dense enough to sink they will thus be pretty evenly distributed over the bottom at the middle part of the estuary they will form an almost purely vegetable deposit mingled only with the very small portion of mineral matter that is held in suspension in the apparently clear water this mineral matter must be distributed among the vegetable matter in the form of impalpable particles having a chemical composition similar to that of the rocks around near the shores a compound deposit must be formed consisting of trees and fragments of leaves, twigs and other vegetable matter mixed with larger proportions of the mineral debris if we look a little further at what is taking place in the fjords of Norway we shall see how this vegetable deposit will ultimately become succeeded by an overlying mineral deposit which must ultimately constitute a stratified rock all these fjords branch up into inland valleys down which pours a bronning torrent or a river of some magnitude these are more or less turbid with glacier mud or other detritus and great deposits of this material have already accumulated in such quantity as to constitute characteristic modern geological formations bearing the specific norsk name of urn as lardalsern, sundalsern, etc describing the small delta plains at the mouth of a river where it enters the termination of the fjord and which, from their exceptional fertility constitutes small agricultural settlements bearing these names which signify the river sands of lardal, sundal, etc these deposits stretch out into the fjord forming extensive shallows that are steadily growing and advancing further and further into the fjord one of the most remarkable examples of such deposits is that brought by the stur-elve or justadals-elve which flows down the justadal receiving the outpour from its glaciers and terminates at Mare fjorn when bathing here I found an extensive subaqueous plain stretching fairly across that blanche of the lister fjord into which the stur-elve flows the waters of the fjord into a distance of two or three miles beyond the mouth of the river these deposits must, if the present conditions last long enough finally extend to the body and even to the mouth of the fjords and thus cover the whole of the bottom vegetable bed with a stratified rock in which will be entombed and well preserved isolated specimens of the trees and other vegetable forms corresponding to those accumulated in a thick bed below which have been lying so long in the clear waters that they have become soddened into homogeneous vegetable pulp or mud only requiring the pressure of solid super stratum to convert them into coal the specimens of trees in the upper rock I need scarcely add would be derived from the same drifting as that which produced the lower pulp but these coming into the water at the period of its turbidity and of the rapid deposition of mineral matter would be sealed up one by one as the mineral particles surrounding it subsided fossils of estuarine animals would of course accompany these or of freshwater animals where instead of a fjord the scene of these proceedings isn't inland lake in reference to this I may state that at the inner extremities of the larger Norwegian fjords it is so slight that it is imperceptible to taste I have freely quenched my thirst with the water of this serf fjord the great inner branch of the Hardunger where pallid specimens of bladder rack were growing on its banks in the foregoing matter of fact picture of what is proceeding on a small scale in the Akanzee and on a larger in Norway we have I think a natural history of the formation not only of coal seams but also of the coal measures around and above them the theory which attributed our coal seams to such vegetable accumulations as the rafts of the Mississippi is now generally abandoned it fails to account for the state of preservation and the position of many of the vegetable remains associated with coal there is another serious objection to this theory that I have not seen expressed it is this in their mouths such vegetable deltas as are supposed would also bring considerable quantities of earthly matter in suspension and this would be deposited with the trees instead of the two or three percent of incompressible ash commonly found in coal we should thus have a quantity more nearly like that found in bituminous shales which may thus be formed namely from 20 to 80 percent the alternative hypothesis now more commonly accepted that the vegetation of our coal fields actually grew where we find it is also refuted by the composition of coal ash if the coal consisted simply of the vegetable matter of buried forests its composition should correspond to that of the ashes of plants and the refuse from our furnaces and fireplaces would be a most valuable manure this we know is not the case ordinary coal ash as Bischoff has shown nearly corresponds to that of the rocks with which it is associated and he says that the conversion of vegetable substances into coal has been affected by the agency of water and also that coal has been formed not from dwarfish mosses sledges and other plants which now contribute to the growth of our peat bogs but from the stems and trunks of the forest trees of the carboniferous period such as sigillari, leptodendra and coniferae all we know of these plants teaches us that they could not grow in a merely vegetable soil containing but 2 or 3 percent of mineral matter in order to give a depth sufficient for the formation of the South Staffershire 10 yard seam all these and other difficulties that have stood so long in the way of a satisfactory explanation of the origin of coal appeared to me to be removed if we suppose that during the carboniferous period Britain and other coal bearing countries had a configuration similar to that which now exists in Norway inland valleys terminating in marine estuaries together with inland lake basins if to this we super add the warm and humid climate usually attributed to the carboniferous period on the testimony of its vegetable fossils all the conditions requisite for producing the characteristic deposits of the coal measures are fulfilled we have first the under clay during which the hill slopes were slowly acquiring the first germs of subsequent forest life and we're nursing them in their scanty youth this deposit would be a mineral mud with a few fossils and that fragmentary or fine deposit of vegetable matter that darkens the carboniferous shales and strips the sandstones such a bed of dark consolidated mud or fine clay is found under every seam that constitutes the floor of the coal pit the characteristic striped rocks the lindsty or lindsy of the Welsh colliers is just such as I found in the course of formation in the occupancy near the shore as described above the prevalence of estuarine and lacustrine fossils in the coal measures is also in accordance with this the constitution of coal ash is perfectly so it's extreme softness and fineness of structure it's chemical resemblance to the rocks around and above and below and oblong basin form common to our coal seams the apparent contradiction of such total destruction of vegetable structure common to the true coal seams while immediately above and below them are delicate structures with a more rapid deposition of the latter and the slow sodding of the former as above described I do not however offer this as an explanation of the formation of every kind of coal on the contrary I am satisfied that canal coal and the black shales usually associated with it have a different origin from that of the ordinary varieties of bituminous coal and the products of distillation of canal and these shales form different series of hydrocarbons from those of common coal and that they are nearly identical with those obtained by the distillation of peat is suggestive of origin in peat bogs or something analogous to them to the above I may add the concluding sentences of the chapter on coal in Lyell's elements of geology speaking of fossils in the coal measures he says the rarity of air breathers is a very remarkable fact when we reflect that our opportunities of examining strata in close connection with ancient land exceed in this case all that we enjoy in regard to any other formations whether primary secondary or tertiary we have ransacked hundreds of soils replete with the fossil roots of trees have dug out hundreds of erect trunks and stumps which stood in the position in which they grew have broken up myriads of cubic feet of fuel still retaining its vegetable structure and after all we continue almost as much in the dark respecting the invertebrate air breathers of this epic as if the coal had been thrown down in mid ocean the early date of the carboniferous strata cannot explain the enigma we know that while the land supported a luxuriant vegetation the contemporaneous seas swarmed with life with articulata, melusca, radiata, and fishes we must therefore collect more facts if we expect to solve a problem which in the present state of science cannot but excite our wonder and we must remember how much the conditions of this problem have varied within the last twenty years we must be content to impute the scantiness of our data and our present perplexity partly to our want of diligence as collectors and partly to our want of skill as interpreters we must also confess that our ignorance is great of the laws which govern the fossilization of land animals whether of low or high degree the explanation of the origin of coal which I have given in the foregoing meets all these difficulties it shows how vast accumulations of vegetable matter may have been formed in close connection with the ancient land and yet as if the coal had been thrown down in mid ocean as far as the remains of terrestrial animals are concerned it explains the nearly total absence of land shells and of the remains of other animals that must have lived in the forests producing the coal and which would have been buried there with the coal had it been formed on land as usually supposed it also meets the cases of the rare and curious exceptions seeing that occasionally a land animal would here and there be drowned in such fjords under circumstances favorable to its fossilization End of Chapter 12