magneto-electricity, connected with which, as discoverers, are our
countrymen Dana, Green, Hare, Henry, Page, Rogers, and Saxton. The
reciprocal machine for producing shocks, invented by Page, and the
powerful galvanic magnet of Henry, are entitled to respectful notice.
This force, it was thought, might be substituted for steam; but no
experiments have as yet established its use, on any important scale, as
a motive power. The fact that an electrical spark could be produced by a
peculiar arrangement of a coil of wire, connected with a magnet, is a
recent discovery; and the first magneto-electric machine capable of
keeping up a continuous current was invented by Saxton.
Electricity and magnetism touch in some points upon heat. Heat produces
electrical currents; electrical currents produce heat. Heat destroys
magnetism. Melted iron is incapable of magnetic influence. Reduction of
temperature in iron so far decreases the force, that a celebrated
philosopher made an elaborate series of experiments to ascertain whether
a great reduction of temperature might not develop magnetic properties
in metals other than iron. This branch of thermo-electricity has
received from us but little attention. Franklin's experiments, by
placing differently colored cloths in the snow, and showing the depth to
which they sank, are still quoted, and great praise has been bestowed
abroad on a more elaborate series of experiments, by a descendant of
his, Dr. A. D. Bache, proving that this law does not hold good as to
heat, unaccompanied by light. The experiments of Saxon and Goddard
demonstrate that solid bodies do slowly evaporate. It is proper here to
mention our countryman, Count Rumford, whose discoveries as to the
nature and properties of heat, improvement in stoves and gunnery, and in
the structure of chimneys and economy of fuel, have been so great and
useful.
Light accompanies heat of a certain temperature. That it acts directly
to increase or decrease magnetic force, is not yet proved; and the
interesting experiments made by Dr. Draper, in Virginia, go to show that
it is without magnetic influence. The discussion of this subject forms,
the branch of optics, touching physical science on the one side, the
most refined, and the highest range of mathematics on the other.
Rittenhouse first suggested the true explanation of the experiment, of
the apparent conversion of a cameo into an intaglio, when viewed through
a compound microscope, and anticipated many years Brewster's theory.
Hopkinson wrote well on the experiment made by looking at a street lamp
through a slight texture of silk. Joscelyn, of New York, investigated
the causes of the irradiation manifested by luminous bodies, as for
instance the stars. Of late, photographic experiments have occupied much
attention, and Draper has advanced the bold idea, supported by
experiment, that the agent in the so-called photography, is not light,
nor heat, but an agent differing from any other known principle. Henry
has investigated the luminous emanation from lime, calcined with
sulphur, and certain other substances, and finds that it differs much
from light in some of its qualities.
Astronomy is the most ancient and highest branch of physics. One of our
earliest and greatest efforts in this branch was the invention of the
mariner's quadrant, by Godfrey, a glazier of Philadelphia. The transit
of Venus, in the last century, called forth the researches of
Rittenhouse, Owen, Biddle, and President Smith, near Philadelphia, and
of Winthrop, at Boston. Two orreries were made by Rittenhouse, as also a
machine for predicting eclipses. Most useful observations, connected
with the solar eclipses, from 1832 to 1840, have been made by Paine, of
Boston. We have now well-supplied observatories at West Point,
Washington, Cambridge, Philadelphia, Hudson, Ohio, and Tuskaloosa,
Alabama; and the valuable labors of Loomis, Bartlett, Gillis, Bond,
Pierce, Walker, and Kendall are well known. Mr. Adams, so distinguished
in this branch and that of weights and measures, laid last year the
corner stone of an observatory at Cincinnati, where will soon be one of
the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world. Most interesting
observations as to the great comet of 1843 were made by Alexander,
Anderson, Bartlett, Kendall, Pierce, Walker, Downes, and Loomis, and
valuable astronomical instruments have been constructed by Amasa
Holcomb, of Massachusetts, and Wm. J. Young, of Philadelphia.
It is difficult to class the brilliant meteors of November the 13th,
1833. If such meteors are periodic, the discovery was made by Professor
Olmsted; and Mr. Herrick, of New Haven, has added valuable suggestions.
The idea that observers, differently placed at the time of appearance
and disappearance of the same meteor, would give the means of
determining differences of longitude, was first applied in our own
country, where the difference of longitude of Princeton and Philadelphia
was determined by observations of Henry and Alexander, Espy and Bache.
In meteorology our countrymen have succeeded well. Dr. Wells, of South
Carolina, elaborated his beautiful and original theory of the formation
of dew, and supported it by many well-devised and conclusive
experiments. The series of hourly observations, by Professor Snell and
Captain Mordecai, are well known; and the efforts of New York and
Pennsylvania, of the medical department of the army, and its present
enlightened head, Dr. Lawson, have much advanced this branch of science.
The interesting question, Does our climate change? seems to be answered
thus far in the negative, by registers kept in Massachusetts and New
York. There are two rival theories of storms. That of Redfield, of a
rotary motion of a wide column of air, combined with a progressive
motion in a curved line. Espy builds on the law of physics, examines the
action of an upmoving column of air, shows the causes of its motion and
the results, and then deduces his most beautiful theory of rain and of
land and water spouts. This he puts to the test of observation; and in
the inward motion of wind toward the centre of storms, finds a striking
verification of his theory. This theory is also sustained by the
overthrow or injury, in the recent tornado at Natchez, of the houses
whose doors and windows were closed, while those which were open mostly
escaped unhurt. Mr. Espy must be considered, not only here, but
throughout the world, as at the head of this branch of science. This
subject has been greatly advanced by Professor Loomis, whose paper has
been pronounced, by the highest authority, to be the best specimen of
inductive reasoning which meteorology has produced. The most recent and
highly valuable meteorological works of Dr. Samuel Forry are much
esteemed. Many important discoveries in pneumatics were made by Dr.
Franklin and Count Rumford, and the air pump was also greatly improved
by Dr. Prince, of Salem.
Chemistry, in all its departments, has been successfully pursued among
us. Dana, Draper, Ellet, Emmet, Hare, the Mitchells, Silliman, and
Torrey, are well known as chemical philosophers; and Booth, Boyé,
Chilton, Keating, Mather, R. Rogers, Seybert, Shepherd, and Vanuxen, as
_analysts_; and F. Bache, Webster, Greene, Mitchell, Silliman, and Hare,
as authors. In my native town of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, resided
two adopted citizens, most eminent as chemists and philosophers,
Priestley and Cooper. The latter, who was one of my own preceptors, was
greatly distinguished as a writer, scholar, jurist, and physician, as
well as a chemist. Priestley, although I do not concur in his peculiar
views of theology, was certainly one of the most able and learned of
ecclesiastical writers, and possessed also a mind most vigorous and
original. His discoveries in pneumatic chemistry have exceeded those of
any other philosopher. He discovered vital air, many new acids, chemical
substances, paints, and dyes. He separated nitrous and oxygenous airs,
and first exhibited acids and alkalies in a gaseous form. He ascertained
that air could be purified by the process of vegetation, and that light
evolved pure air from vegetables. He detected the powerful action of
oxygenous air upon the blood, and first pointed out the true theory of
respiration. The eudiometer, a most curious instrument for fixing the
purity of air, by measuring the proportion of oxygen, was discovered by
Dr. Priestley. He lived and died in my native town, universally beloved
as a man, and greatly admired as a philosopher. Chemistry has actively
advanced among us during the present century. Hare's compound blowpipe
came from his hand so perfect, in 1802, that all succeeding attempts of
Dr. Clark, of England, and of all others, in Europe and America, to
improve upon it or go beyond the effects produced, have wholly failed.
His mode of mixing oxygen and hydrogen gases, the instant before burning
them, was at once simple, effective, and safe. The most refractory
metallic and mineral substances yielded to the intense heat produced by
the flame of the blowpipe. In chemical analysis, the useful labors of
Keating, Vanuxen, Seybert, Booth, Clemson, Litton, and Moss, would fill
many volumes. In organic chemistry, the researches of Clark, Hare, and
Boyé were rewarded by the discovery of a new ether, the most explosive
compound known to man. Mitchell's experiments on the penetration of
membranes by gases, and the ingenious extension of them by Dr. Rogers,
are worthy of all praise. The softening of indiarubber, by Dr. Mitchell,
renders it a most useful article. Dyer's discovery of soda ash yielded
him a competence. Our countrymen have also made most valuable
improvements in refining sugar, in the manufacture of lard oil and
stearin candles, and the preservation of timber by Earle's process.
Sugar and molasses have been extracted in our country from the
cornstalk, but with what, if any profit, as to either, is not yet
determined. No part of mechanics has produced such surprising results as
the steam engine, and our countrymen have been among the foremost and
most distinguished in this great and progressive branch. When Rumsey, of
Pennsylvania, made a steamboat, which moved against the current of the
James River four miles an hour, his achievement was so much in advance
of the age, as to acquire no public confidence. When John Fitch's boat
stemmed the current of the Delaware, contending successfully with sail
boats, it was called, in derision, the _scheme boat_. So the New
Yorkers, when the steamboat of their own truly great mechanic, Stevens,
after making a trip from Hoboken, burnt accidentally one of its boiler
tubes, it was proclaimed a failure. Fulton also encountered unbounded
ridicule and opposition, as he advanced to confer the greatest benefits
on mankind by the application of steam to navigation. So Oliver Evans,
of Pennsylvania (who has made such useful improvements in the flour
mill), was pronounced insane, when he applied to the Legislatures of
Pennsylvania and Maryland for special privileges in regard to the
application of steam to locomotion on common roads. In 1810 he was
escorted by a mob of boys, when his amphibolas was moved on wheels by
steam more than a mile through the streets of Philadelphia to the river
Schuylkill, and there, taking to the water, was paddled by steam to the
wharves of the Delaware, where it was to work as a dredging machine.
Fulton's was the first successful steamboat, Stevens's the first that
navigated the ocean, Oliver Evans's the first high-pressure engine
applied to steam navigation. Stevens's boat, by an accident, did not
precede Fulton's, and Stevens's engine was wholly American, and
constructed entirely by himself, and his propeller resembled much that
now introduced by Ericsson. Stevens united the highest mechanical skill
with a bold, original, inventive genius. His sons (especially Mr. Robert
L. Stevens, of New York) have inherited much of the extraordinary skill
and talent of their distinguished father. The first steamboat that ever
crossed the ocean was built by one of our countrymen, and their skill in
naval architecture has been put in requisition by the Emperor of Russia
and the Sultan of Turkey. The steam machines invented by our countrymen
to drive piles, load vessels, and excavate roads, are most ingenious and
useful. The use of steam, as a locomotive power, upon the water and the
land, is admirably adapted to our mighty rivers and extended territory.
From Washington to the mouth of the Oregon is but one half,[3] and to
the mouth of the Del Norte but one fourth, of the distance of the
railroads already constructed here; and to the latter point, at the rate
of motion (thirty miles an hour) now in daily use abroad, the trip would
be performed in two days, and to the former in four days. Thus, steam,
if we measure distance by the time in which it is traversed, renders our
whole Union, with its most extended limits, smaller than was the State
of New York ten years since. Steam cars have been moved, as an
experiment, both here and abroad, many hundred miles, at the rate of
sixty miles an hour; but what will be the highest velocity ultimately
attained in common use, either upon the water or the land, is a most
important problem, as yet entirely unsolved. Our respected citizens,
Morey and Drake, have endeavored to substitute the force of explosion of
gaseous compounds for steam. The first was the pioneer, and the second
has shown that the problem is still worth pursuing to solution. An
energetic Western mechanic made a bold but unsuccessful effort to put in
operation an engine acting by the expansion of air by heat; and a
similar most ingenious attempt was made by Mr. Walter Byrnes, of
Concordia, Louisiana; as also to substitute compressed air, and air
compressed and expanded, as a locomotive power. All attempts to use air
as a motive power, except the balloon, the sail vessel, the air gun, and
the windmill, have thus far failed; but what inventive genius may yet
accomplish in this respect, remains yet undetermined. There is, it is
true, a mile or more of pneumatic railway used between Dublin and
Kingstown. An air pump, driven by steam, exhausts the air from a
cylinder in which a piston moves; this cylinder is laid the whole length
of the road, and the piston is connected to a car above, so that, as the
piston moves forward on the exhaustion of the air in front of it, the
car is also carried forward. The original idea of this pneumatic railway
was derived from the contrivance of an American, quite unknown to fame,
who, as his sign expressed it, showed to visitors a new mode of carrying
the mail,[4] more simple, and quite as valuable, practically, as this
atmospheric railway. The submerged propeller of Ericsson, and the
submerged paddle wheel, the rival experiments of our two distinguished
naval officers, Stockton and Hunter, are now candidates for public
favor; and the Princeton on the ocean, as she moves in noiseless
majesty, at a speed never before attained at sea, seems to attest the
value of one of these experiments, while the other is yet to be
determined. The impenetrable iron steam vessel of Mr. Stevens is not yet
completed, nor have those terrific engines of war, his explosive shells,
yet been brought to the test of actual conflict.
In curious and useful mechanical inventions, our countrymen are
unsurpassed, and a visit to our new and beautiful Patent Office will
convince the close observer that the inventive genius of America never
was more active than at the present moment. The machines for working up
cotton, hemp, and wool, from their most crude state to the finest and
most useful fabrics, have all been improved among us. The cotton gin of
Eli Whitney has altered the destinies of one third of our country, and
doubled the exports of the Union. The ingenious improvements for
imitating medals, by parallel lines upon a plain surface, which, by the
distances between them, give all the effects of light and shade that
belong to a raised or depressed surface, invented by Gobrecht and
perfected by Spencer, has been rendered entirely automatic by Saxton, so
that it not only rules its lines at proper distances and of suitable
lengths, but when its work is done it stops. In hydraulics, we have
succeeded well; and the great aqueduct over the Potomac at Georgetown,
constructed by Major Turnbull, of the Topographical Corps, exhibits new
contrivances, in overcoming obstacles never heretofore encountered in
similar projects, and has been pronounced in Europe one of the most
skilful works of the age.
The abstract mathematics does not seem so well suited to the genius of
our countrymen as its application to other sciences. Those among us who
have most successfully pursued the pure mathematics, are chiefly our
much-esteemed adopted citizens, such as Nulty, Adrain, Bonnycastle,
Gill, and Hassler. Bowditch was an American, and is highly distinguished
at home and abroad. Such men as Plana and Babbage rank him among the
first class, and his commentary on the 'Mécanique Céleste' of Laplace,
has secured for him a niche in the temple of fame, near to that of its
illustrious author. Anderson and Strong are known to all who love
mathematics, and Fischer was cut off by death in the commencement of a
bright career. And may I here be indulged in grateful remembrance of two
of my own preceptors, Dr. R. M. Patterson and Eugene Nulty. The first
was the professor at my Alma Mater (the University of Pennsylvania) in
natural philosophy and the application of mathematics to many branches
of science. He was beloved and respected by all the class, as the
courteous gentleman and the profound scholar; and the Mint of the United
States, now under his direction, at Philadelphia, has reached the
highest point of system, skill, and efficiency. In the pure mathematics
Nulty is unsurpassed at home or abroad. In an earlier day, the elder
Patterson, Ellicot, and Mansfield cultivated this branch successfully in
connection with astronomy.
A new and extensive country is the great field for descriptive natural
history. The beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, shells, plants,
stones, and rocks are to be examined individually and classed; many new
varieties and species are found, and even new genera may occur. The
learned Mitchell, of New York, delighted in these branches. The eminent
Harlan, of Philadelphia, and McMultrie were of a later and more
philosophic school. Nuttall, of Cambridge, has distinguished himself in
natural history, and Haldeman is rising to eminence.
Ornithology is one of the most attractive branches of natural history.
Wilson was the pioneer; Ord, his biographer, followed, and his friend
Titian Peale; Audubon is universally known, and stands preëminent; and
the learned Nuttall and excellent and enthusiastic Townsend are much
respected. Most of these men have compassed sea and land, and
encountered many perils and hardships to find their specimens. They have
explored the mountains of the North, the swamps of Florida, the prairies
of the West, and accompanied the Exploring Expedition to the Antarctic,
and round the world. As botanists, the Bartrams, Barton, and Collins, of
Philadelphia, Torrey, of New York, Gray and Nuttall of Cambridge,
Darlington, of Westchester, are much esteemed. The first botanical
garden in our country was that of the Bartons, near Philadelphia; and
the first work on botany was from Barton, of the same city. Logan,
Woodward, Brailsford, Shelby, Cooper, Horsfield, Colden, Clayton,
Muhlenburg, Marshall, Cutler, and Hosack, were also distinguished in
this delightful branch.
A study of the shells of our country has raised to eminence the names of
Barnes, Conrad, Lea, and Raffinesque. The magnificent fresh-water shells
of our Western rivers are unrivalled in the Old World in size and
beauty. How interesting would be a collection of all the specimens which
the organic kingdom of America presents, properly classified and
arranged according to the regions and States whence they were brought!
Paris has the museum of the natural history of France, and London of
Great Britain; but Washington has no museum[5] of the United States,
though so much richer in all these specimens.
In mineralogy, the work of Cleveland is most distinguished. Shepherd,
Mather, Troost, Torrey, and a few others, still pursue mineralogy for
its own sake; but, generally, our mineralogists have turned geologists,
studying rocks on a large scale, instead of their individual
constituents, and vieing with their brethren in Europe in bold and
successful generalization, and in the application of physical science to
their subject. Maclure was one of the pioneers, and Eaton and Silliman
contributed much to the stock of knowledge. This school has given rise
to the great geological surveys made or progressing in several of the
States. Jackson, in Maine, Hitchcock, in Massachusetts; Vanuxen, Conrad,
and Mather, in New York; the Rogerses, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia; Ducatel, in Maryland; Owen and Locke, in the West; Troost, in
Tennessee; Horton, in Ohio; the courageous, scientific, and lamented
Nicolet, in Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, have made contributions, not
only to the geology of our country, but to the science of geology
itself, which are conceded to be among the most valuable of the present
day. The able reports of Owen and Nicolet were made to Congress, and
deserve the highest commendation.
In geographical science, the explorations of Lewis and Clark; of Long,
Nicolet, and the able and intrepid Fremont; the effective State survey
of Massachusetts; the surveys of our public lands; the determination of
the boundaries of our States, and especially those of Pennsylvania, by
Rittenhouse and Elliott; of part of Louisiana, by Graham and Kearny; of
Michigan, by Talcott; and of Maine, by Graham; have gained us great
credit. The national work of the coast survey, begun by the late Mr.
Hassler, and prosecuted through all discouragements and difficulties by
that indomitable man, has reflected honor upon his adopted country,
through the Government which liberally supported the work, and through
whose aid it is now progressing, under new auspices, with great
energy.[6] The lake survey is also now advancing under the direction of
Captain Williams, of the Topographical Corps. Among the important recent
explorations, is that of the enlightened, untiring, and intrepid
Fremont, to Oregon, which fixes the pass of the Rocky Mountains within
twenty miles of the northern boundary of Texas. Lieutenant Fremont is a
member of the Topographical Corps, which, together with that of
Engineers, contains so many distinguished officers, whose labors,
together with those of their most able and distinguished chiefs, Colonel
Totten and Colonel Abert, fill so large a portion of the public
documents, and are so well known and highly appreciated by both Houses
of Congress and by the country. The Emperor of Russia has entered the
ranks of our Topographical Corps, and employed one of their
distinguished members, Captain Whistler, to construct his great railroad
from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The travels of our countrymen, Stephens,
to Yucatan and Guatemala, to Egypt, Arabia, and Jerusalem, and of Dr.
Grant to Nestoria, have increased our knowledge of geography and of
antiquities, and have added new and striking proofs of the truths of
Christianity.