Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 by Various

V >> Various >> Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

[Illustration]

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 613

NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1887.

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XXIV., No. 613.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. BIOGRAPHY.--Dr. Morell Mackenzie.--Biographical note and
portrait of the great English laryngologist--the physician
of the Prussian Crown Prince.--1 illustration. 9794

II. BOTANY.--Soudan Coffee.--The _Parkia biglobosa_.--Its
properties and appearance, with analyses of its beans.--8
illustrations. 9797

Wisconsin Cranberry Culture.--The great cranberry crop of
Wisconsin.--The Indian pickers and details of the
cultivation. 9796

III. CHEMISTRY.--Analysis of Kola Nut.--A new article
adapted as a substitute for cocoa and chocolate to military
and other dietaries.--Its use by the French and German
governments. 9785

Carbonic Acid in the Air.--By THOMAS C. VAN NUYS and
BENJAMIN F. ADAMS, Jr.--The results of eighteen analyses of
air by Van Nuys apparatus. 9785

The Crimson Line of Phosphorescent Alumina.--Note on Prof.
Crooke's recent investigation of the anomalies of the oxide
of aluminum as regards its spectrum. 9784

IV. ELECTRICITY.--Electric Time.--By M. LITTMANN.--An
abstruse research into a natural electric standard of
time.--The results and necessary formulae. 9793

New Method of Maintaining the Vibration of a
Pendulum.--Ingenious magneto-electric method of maintaining
the swinging of a pendulum. 9794

The Part that Electricity Plays in Crystallization.--C.
Decharme's investigations into this much debated
question.--The results of his work described.--3
illustrations. 9793

V. ENGINEERING.--A New Type of Railway Car.--A car with
lateral passageways, adapted for use in Africa--2
illustrations. 9792

Centrifugal Pumps at Mare Island Navy Yard, California.--By
H.R. CORNELIUS.--The great pumps for the Mare Island dry
docks.--Their capacity and practical working. 9792

Foundations of the Central Viaduct of Cleveland,
O.--Details of the foundations of this viaduct, probably
the largest of its kind ever constructed. 9792

VI. METALLURGY.--Chapin Wrought Iron.--By W.H. SEARLES.--An
interesting account of the combined pneumatic and
mechanical treatment of pig iron, giving as product a true
wrought iron. 9785

VII. METEOROLOGY.--On the Cause of Iridescence in
Clouds.--By G. JOHNSTONE STONEY.--An interesting theory of
the production of prismatic colors in clouds, referring it
to interference of light. 9798

The Height of Summer Clouds.--A compendious statement,
giving the most reliable estimation of the elevations of
different forms of clouds. 9797

VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--The British Association.--Portraits
of the president and section presidents of the late
Manchester meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, with report of the address of the
president, Sir Henry E. Roscoe.--9 illustrations. 9783

IX. PHYSIOLOGY.--Hypnotism in France.--A valuable review of
the present status of this subject, now so much studied in
Paris. 9795

The Duodenum a Siphon Trap.--By MAYO COLLIER, M.S., etc.--A
curious observation in anatomy.--The only trap found in the
intestinal canal.--Its uses.--2 illustrations. 9796

X. TECHNOLOGY.--Apparatus for Testing Champagne Bottles and
Corks.--Ingenious apparatus due to Mr. J. Salleron, for use
especially in the champagne industry.--2 illustrations. 9786

Celluloid.--Notes of the history and present method of
manufacture of this widely used substance. 9785

Centrifugal Extractors.--By ROBERT F. GIBSON.--The second
installment of this extensive and important paper, giving
many additional forms of centrifugal apparatus--12
illustrations. 9789

Cotton Industries of Japan.--An interesting account of the
primitive methods of treating cotton by the Japanese.--Their
methods of ginning, carding, etc., described. 9788

Gas from Oil.--Notes on a paper read by Dr. Stevenson
Macadam at a recent meeting of the British Gas Institute,
giving his results with petroleum gas. 9787

Improved Biscuit Machine.--A machine having a capacity for
making 4,000 small biscuits per minute.--1 illustration. 9787

Improved Cream Separator.--A centrifugal apparatus for
dairy use of high capacity.--3 illustrations. 9787

The Manufacture of Salt near Middlesbrough.--By Sir
LOWTHIAN BELL, Bart., F.C.S.--The history and origin of
this industry, the methods used, and the soda ash process
as there applied. 9788

* * * * *

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

[Illustration: THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER PORTRAITS OF THE
PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTS OF SECTIONS ]

The fifty-seventh annual meeting of the British Association was opened
on Wednesday evening, Aug. 31, 1887, at Manchester, by an address from
the president, Sir H.E. Roscoe, M.P. This was delivered in the Free
Trade Hall. The chair was occupied by Professor Williamson, who was
supported by the Bishop of Manchester, Sir F. Bramwell, Professor
Gamgee, Professor Milnes Marshall, Professor Wilkins, Professor Boyd
Dawkins, Professor Ward, and many other distinguished men. A telegram
was read from the retiring president, Sir Wm. Dawson, of Montreal,
congratulating the association and Manchester on this year's meeting.
The new president, Sir H. Roscoe, having been introduced to the
audience, was heartily applauded.

The president, in his inaugural address, said Manchester, distinguished
as the birthplace of two of the greatest discoveries of modern science,
welcomed the visit of the British Association for the third time. Those
discoveries were the atomic theory of which John Dalton was the author,
and the most far-reaching scientific principle of modern times, namely,
that of the conservation of energy, which was given to the world about
the year 1842 by Dr. Joule. While the place suggested these reminders,
the time, the year of the Queen's jubilee, excited a feeling of
thankfulness that they had lived in an age which had witnessed an
advance in our knowledge of nature and a consequent improvement in the
physical, moral, and intellectual well-being of the people hitherto
unknown.

PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY.

A sketch of that progress in the science of chemistry alone would be
the subject of his address. The initial point was the views of Dalton
and his contemporaries compared with the ideas which now prevail; and
he (the president) examined this comparison by the light which the
research of the last fifty years had thrown on the subject of the
Daltonian atoms, in the three-fold aspect of their size,
indivisibility, and mutual relationships, and their motions.

SIZE OF THE ATOM.

As to the size of the atom, Loschmidt, of Vienna, had come to the
conclusion that the diameter of an atom of oxygen or nitrogen was the
ten-millionth part of a centimeter. With the highest known magnifying
power we could distinguish the forty-thousandth part of a centimeter.
If, now, we imagine a cubic box each of whose sides had this length,
such a box, when filled with air, would contain from sixty to a
hundred millions of atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. As to the
indivisibility of the atom, the space of fifty years had completely
changed the face of the inquiry. Not only had the number of distinct,
well-established elementary bodies increased from fifty-three in 1837
to seventy in 1887, but the properties of these elements had been
studied, and were now known with a degree of precision then undreamt
of. Had the atoms of our present elements been made to yield? To this
a negative answer must undoubtedly be given, for even the highest of
terrestrial temperatures, that of the electric spark, had failed to
shake any one of these atoms in two. This was shown by the results
with which spectrum analysis had enriched our knowledge. Terrestrial
analysis had failed to furnish favorable evidence; and, turning to the
chemistry of the stars, the spectra of the white, which were
presumably the hottest stars, furnished no direct evidence that a
decomposition of any terrestrial atom had taken place; indeed, we
learned that the hydrogen atom, as we know it here, can endure
unscathed the inconceivably fierce temperature of stars presumably
many times more fervent than our sun, as Sirius and Vega. It was
therefore no matter for surprise if the earth-bound chemist should for
the present continue to regard the elements as the unalterable
foundation stones upon which his science is based.

ATOMIC MOTION.

Passing to the consideration of atoms in motion, while Dalton and
Graham indicated that they were in a continual state of motion, we
were indebted to Joule for the first accurate determination of the
rate of that motion. Clerk-Maxwell had calculated that a hydrogen
molecule, moving at the rate of seventy miles per minute, must, in one
second of time, knock against others no fewer than eighteen thousand
million times. This led to the reflection that in nature there is no
such thing as great or small, and that the structure of the smallest
particle, invisible even to our most searching vision, may be as
complicated as that of any one of the heavenly bodies which circle
round our sun. How did this wonderful atomic motion affect their
chemistry?

ATOMIC COMBINATION.

Lavoisier left unexplained the dynamics of combustion; but in 1843,
before the chemical section of the association meeting at Cork, Dr.
Joule announced the discovery which was to revolutionize modern
science, namely, the determination of the mechanical equivalent of
heat. Every change in the arrangement of the particles he found was
accompanied by a definite evolution or an absorption of heat. Heat was
evolved by the clashing of the atoms, and this amount was fixed and
definite. Thus to Joule we owe the foundation of chemical dynamics and
the basis of thermal chemistry. It was upon a knowledge of the mode of
arrangement of atoms, and on a recognition of their distinctive
properties, that the superstructure of modern organic chemistry
rested. We now assumed on good grounds that the atom of each element
possessed distinct capabilities of combination. The knowledge of the
mode in which the atoms in the molecule are arranged had given to
organic chemistry an impetus which had overcome many experimental
obstacles, and organic chemistry had now become synthetic.

Liebig and Wohler, in 1837, foresaw the artificial production in the
laboratories of all organic substances so far as they did not
constitute a living organism. And after fifty years their prophecy had
been fulfilled, for at the present time we could prepare an artificial
sweetening principle, an artificial alkaloid, and salacine.

SYNTHESIS.

We know now that the same laws regulate the formation of chemical
compounds in both animate and inanimate nature, and the chemist only
asked for a knowledge of the constitution of any definite chemical
compounds found in the organic world in order to be able to promise to
prepare it artificially. Seventeen years elapsed between Wohler's
discovery of the artificial production of urea and the next real
synthesis, which was accomplished by Kolbe, when in 1845 he prepared
acetic acid from its elements. Since then a splendid harvest of
results had been gathered in by chemists of all nations. In 1834 Dumas
made known the law of substitution, and showed that an exchange could
take place between the constituent atoms in a molecule, and upon this
law depended in great measure the astounding progress made in the wide
field of organic synthesis.

Perhaps the most remarkable result had been the production of an
artificial sweetening agent, termed saccharin, 250 times sweeter than
sugar, prepared by a complicated series of reactions from coal tar.
These discoveries were not only of scientific interest, for they had
given rise to the industry of coal tar colors, founded by our
countryman Perkin, the value of which was measured by millions
sterling annually. Another interesting application of synthetic
chemistry to the needs of everyday life was the discovery of a series
of valuable febrifuges, of which antipyrin might be named as the most
useful.

An important aspect in connection with the study of these bodies was
the physiological value which had been found to attach to the
introduction of certain organic radicals, so that an indication was
given of the possibility of preparing a compound which will possess
certain desired physiological properties, or even to foretell the kind
of action which such bodies may exert on the animal economy. But now
the question might well be put, Was any limit set to this synthetic
power of the chemist? Although the danger of dogmatizing as to the
progress of science had already been shown in too many instances, yet
one could not help feeling that the barrier between the organized and
unorganized worlds was one which the chemist at present saw no chance
of breaking down. True, there were those who professed to foresee that
the day would arrive when the chemist, by a succession of constructive
efforts, might pass beyond albumen, and gather the elements of
lifeless matter into a living structure. Whatever might be said
regarding this from other standpoints, the chemist could only say that
at present no such problem lay within his province.

Protoplasm, with which the simplest manifestations of life are
associated, was not a compound, but a structure built up of compounds.
The chemist might successfully synthesize any of its component
molecules, but he had no more reason to look forward to the synthetic
production of the structure than to imagine that the synthesis of
gallic acid led to the artificial production of gall nuts. Although
there was thus no prospect of effecting a synthesis of organized
material, yet the progress made in our knowledge of the chemistry of
life during the last fifty years had been very great, so much so
indeed that the sciences of physiological and of pathological
chemistry might be said to have entirely arisen within that period.

CHEMISTRY OF VITAL FUNCTIONS.

He would now briefly trace a few of the more important steps which had
marked the recent study of the relations between the vital phenomena
and those of the inorganic world. No portion of the science of
chemistry was of greater interest or greater complexity than that
which, bearing on the vital functions both of plants and of animals,
endeavored to unravel the tangled skein of the chemistry of life, and
to explain the principles according to which our bodies live, and
move, and have their being. If, therefore, in the less complicated
problems with which other portions of our science have to deal, we
found ourselves often far from possessing satisfactory solutions, we
could not be surprised to learn that with regard to the chemistry of
the living body--whether vegetable or animal--in health or disease, we
were still farther from a complete knowledge of phenomena, even those
of fundamental importance.

Liebig asked if we could distinguish, on the one hand, between the
kind of food which goes to create warmth and, on the other, that by
the oxidation of which the motions and mechanical energy of the body
are kept up. He thought he was able to do this, and he divided food
into two categories. The starchy or carbo-hydrate food was that, said
he, which by its combustion provided the warmth necessary for the
existence and life of the body. The albuminous or nitrogenous
constituents of our food, the flesh meat, the gluten, the casein out
of which our muscles are built up, were not available for the purpose
of creating warmth, but it was by the waste of those muscles that the
mechanical energy, the activity, the motions of the animal are
supplied.

Soon after the promulgation of these views, J.R. Mayer warmly attacked
them, throwing out the hypothesis that all muscular action is due to
the combustion of food, and not to the destruction of muscle.

What did modern research say to this question? Could it be brought to
the crucial test of experiment? It could; but how? In the first place,
we could ascertain the work done by a man or any other animal; we
could measure this work in terms of our mechanical standard, in
kilogramme-meters or foot-pounds. We could next determine what was the
destruction of nitrogenous tissue at rest and under exercise by the
amount of nitrogenous material thrown off by the body. And here we
must remember that these tissues were never completely burned, so that
free nitrogen was never eliminated. If now we knew the heat value of
the burned muscle, it was easy to convert this into its mechanical
equivalent and thus measure the energy generated. What was the result?

Was the weight of muscle destroyed by ascending the Faulhorn or by
working on the treadmill sufficient to produce on combustion heat
enough when transformed into mechanical exercise to lift the body up
to the summit of the Faulhorn or to do the work on the treadmill?

Careful experiment had shown that this was so far from being the case
that the actual energy developed was twice as great as that which
could possibly be produced by the oxidation of the nitrogenous
constituents eliminated from the body during twenty-four hours. That
was to say, taking the amount of nitrogenous substance cast off from
the body, not only while the work was being done, but during
twenty-four hours, the mechanical effect capable of being produced by
the muscular tissue from which this cast-off material was derived
would only raise the body half way up the Faulhorn, or enable the
prisoner to work half his time on the treadmill. Hence it was clear
that Liebig's proposition was not true.

The nitrogenous constituents of the food did doubtless go to repair
the waste of muscle, which, like every other portion of the body,
needed renewal, while the function of the non-nitrogenous food was not
only to supply the animal heat, but also to furnish, by its oxidation,
the muscular energy of the body. We thus came to the conclusion that
it was the potential energy of the food which furnished the actual
energy of the body, expressed in terms either of heat or of mechanical
work.

But there was one other factor which came into play in this question
of mechanical energy, and must be taken into account; and this factor
we were as yet unable to estimate in our usual terms. It concerned the
action of the mind on the body, and although incapable of exact
expression, exerted none the less an important influence on the
physics and chemistry of the body, so that a connection undoubtedly
existed between intellectual activity or mental work and bodily
nutrition. What was the expenditure of mechanical energy which
accompanied mental effort was a question which science was probably
far from answering; but that the body experienced exhaustion as the
result of mental activity was a well-recognized fact.

CHEMISTRY OF VEGETATION.

The phenomena of vegetation, no less than those of the animal world,
had, however, during the last fifty years been placed by the chemist
on an entirely new basis.

Liebig, in 1860, asserted that the whole of the carbon of vegetation
was obtained from the atmospheric carbonic acid, which, though only
present in the small relative proportion of four parts in 10,000 of
air, was contained in such absolutely large quantity that if all the
vegetation on the earth's surface were burned, the proportion of
carbonic acid which would thus be thrown into the air would not be
sufficient to double the present amount. That this conclusion was
correct needed experimental proof, but such proof could only be given
by long-continued and laborious experiment.

It was to our English agricultural chemists, Lawes and Gilbert, that
we owed the complete experimental proof required, and this experiment
was long and tedious, for it had taken forty-four years to give a
definite reply.

At Rothamsted a plot was set apart for the growth of wheat. For
forty-four successive years that field had grown wheat without the
addition of any carbonized manure, so that the only possible source
from which the plant could obtain the carbon for its growth was the
atmospheric carbonic acid. The quantity of carbon which on an average
was removed in the form of wheat and straw from a plot manured only
with mineral matter was 1,000 lb., while on another plot, for which a
nitrogenous manure was employed, 1,500 lb. more carbon was annually
removed, or 2,500 lb. of carbon were removed by this crop annually
without the addition of any carbonaceous manure. So that Liebig's
prevision had received a complete experimental verification.

CHEMICAL PATHOLOGY.

Touching us as human beings even still more closely than the foregoing
was the influence which chemistry had exerted on the science of
pathology, and in no direction had greater progress been made than in
the study of micro-organisms in relation to health and disease. In the
complicated chemical changes to which we gave the names of
fermentation and putrefaction, Pasteur had established the fundamental
principle that these processes were inseparately connected with the
life of certain low forms of organisms. Thus was founded the science
of bacteriology, which in Lister's hands had yielded such splendid
results in the treatment of surgical cases, and in those of Klebs,
Koch, and others, had been the means of detecting the cause of many
diseases both in man and animals, the latest and not the least
important of which was the remarkable series of successful researches
by Pasteur into the nature and mode of cure of that most dreadful of
maladies, hydrophobia. The value of his discovery was greater than
could be estimated by its present utility, for it showed that it might
be possible to avert other diseases besides hydrophobia by the
adoption of a somewhat similar method of investigation and of
treatment.

Here it might seem as if we had outstepped the boundaries of
chemistry, and had to do with phenomena purely vital. But recent
research indicated that this was not the case, and pointed to the
conclusion that the microscopist must again give way to the chemist,
and that it was by chemical rather than biological investigation that
the causes of diseases would be discovered, and the power of removing
them obtained. For we learned that the symptoms of infective diseases
were no more due to the microbes which constituted the infection than
alcoholic intoxication was produced by the yeast cell, but that these
symptoms were due to the presence of definite chemical compounds, the
result of the life of these microscopic organisms. So it was to the
action of these poisonous substances formed during the life of the
organism, rather than to that of the organism itself, that the special
characteristics of the disease were to be traced, for it had been
shown that the disease could be communicated by such poisons in the
entire absence of living organisms.

Had time permitted, he would have wished to have illustrated the
dependence of industrial success upon original investigation, and to
have pointed out the prodigious strides which chemical industry in
this country had made during the fifty years of her Majesty's reign.
As it was, he must be content to remark how much our modern life, both
in its artistic and useful aspects, owed to chemistry, and therefore
how essential a knowledge of the principles of the science was to all
who had the industrial progress of the country at heart. The country
was now beginning to see that if she was to maintain her commercial
and industrial supremacy, the education of her people from top to
bottom must be carried out on new lines. The question how this could
be most safely and surely accomplished was one of transcendent
national importance, and the statesman who solved this educational
problem would earn the gratitude of generations yet to come.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10