MECHANICS, USEFUL ARTS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, ASTRONOMY, GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, MINERALOGY, METEOROLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC. TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE DURING THE YEAR 1863; A LIST OF RECENT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS; OBITUARIES OF EMINENT SCIENTIFIC MEN, ETC. EDITED BY DAVID A. WELLS, A. M., M. D., AUTHOR OF PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY, FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY, ETC. BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET. NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1804, by GOULD AND LINCOLN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. NOTES BY THE EDITOR ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FOR THE YEAR 1863. THE thirty-third annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Sir William Armstrong (the gun-maker) being in the chair. The meeting was above the average, as respects the numbers in attendance and the interest of the papers brought forward. Sir Charles Lyell was selected as the President for 1864. From the annual address of the President, reviewing the recent progress of Science, we make the following extracts. Referring to the district of Newcastle as the birth-place of Stephenson, and of locomotives and railways, he said, "The history of railways shows what grand results may have their origin in small beginnings. When coal was first conveyed in this neighborhood from the pit to the shippingplace on the Tyne, the pack-horse, carrying a burden of three hundred-weight, was the only mode of transport employed. As soon as roads suitable for wheeled carriages were formed, carts were introduced, and this first step in mechanical appliance to facilitate transport had the effect of increasing the load which the horse was enabled to carry, from three hundred-weight to seventeen hundred-weight. The next improvement consisted in laying wooden bars or rails for the wheels of carts to run upon, and this was followed by the substitution of the fourwheeled wagon for the two-wheeled cart. By this further application of mechanical principles the original horse-load of three hundred-weight was augmented to forty-two hundred-weight. These were important results, and they were not obtained without the shipwreck of the fortunes of some men whose ideas were in advance of the times in which they lived. The next step in the progress of railways was the attachment of slips of iron to the wooden rails. Then came the iron tramway, consisting of cast-iron bars of an angular section; in this arrangement, the upright flange of the bar acted as a guide to keep the wheel on the track. The next advance was an important one, and consisted in transferring the guiding-flange from the rail to the wheel; this improvement enabled cast-iron edge-rails to be used. Finally, in 1820, after the lapse of about 200 years from the first employment of wooden bars, wrought-iron rails, rolled in long lengths, and of suitable section, were made, and eventually superseded all other forms of railway. Thus, the railway system, like all other large inventions, has risen to its present importance by a series of steps; and so gradual has been its progress that Europe finds itself committed to a gauge fortuitously determined by the distance between the wheels of the carts for which wooden rails were originally laid down. Last of all came the locomotive engine, that crowning achievement of mechanical science, which enables us to convey a load of 200 tons at a cost of fuel scarcely exceeding that of the corn and hay which the original pack-horse consumed in conveying its load of three hundredweight an equal distance. In thus glancing at the history of railways, we may observe how promptly the inventive faculty of man supplies the device which the circumstances of the moment require. No sooner is a road formed fit for wheeled carriages to pass along than the cart takes the place of the pack-saddle: no sooner is the wooden railway provided than the wagon is substituted for the cart: and no sooner is an iron railway formed, capable of carrying heavy loads, than the locomotive engine is found ready to commence its career. As in the vegetable kingdom fit conditions of soil and climate quickly cause the appearance of suitable plants, so in the intellectual world fitness of time and circumstance promptly calls forth appropriate devices. The seeds of invention exist, as it were, in the air, ready to germinate whenever suitable conditions arise, and no legislative interference is needed to insure their growth in proper season.' Necessity for a New System of Writing.—"The facility now given to the transmission of intelligence and the interchange of thought is one of the most remarkable features of the present age. Cheap and rapid postage to all parts of the world, paper and printing reduced to the lowest cost, electric telegraphs between nation and nation, town and town, all contribute to aid that commerce of ideas by which wealth and knowledge are augmented. But while so much facility is given to mental communications by new measures and new inventions, the fundamental art of expressing thought by written symbols remains as imperfect now as it has been for centuries past. It seems strange that |