The Real Wonders of the World.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 4 September 1914, Page 2

The Real Wonders of the World.

(By GARRET P. SERVISS.)

"I am convinced," says an epistolary friend, "that the Panama CaTal is'the greatest wonder of construction that the world has ever

•:nown. and I don't see how it is >\er to be exceeded, unless mankind •should carry out Mr. Riker's idea ■>[ diverting and controlling the Gulf Stream, by means of a gigantic jetty thrown across the banks of Newfoundland. But I should like to .iiiow whether you regard such things as a true measure of the superiority of modern times: Couldn't /on make a list of seven modern wonders that would better represent the real progress of man ?" Of course, I can make such a list, a.nd so can anybody. Our great mechanical triumphs are only a vei\limited expression, of -the . advance of humanity. The greatest things that we have done are in the application of pure intelligence to the solution of . problems presented by the visible and tangible world around us. The ancients were as good metaphysicians as we are, but our chief glory consists in getting out of metaphysical mists, and using the intellect as a tool instead of as a toy. Plato was a steam engine without a connecting rod. But we are not satisfied with seeing puffs of vapour driven out by a piston ; we want to move something with our steam. If I were going to offer a list of seven modern wonders, conceived in this sense, of the application of the ■nind to something outside itself, l should wish, first, to define the icrm "modern," and I would make it Include the three.centuries that hav_e elapsed since the days of Galileo. The world.has never gone backward since his time. He was the first great experimental philosopher, and when he dropped a ten-pound and a one-pound cannon ball from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and proved. by ocular demonstration, that the-v Look the same time to fall to. the bottom, he overthrew forever the ancient method of drawing blind inferences about the physical world out of the mind, instead of using the senses as a test and the intelligence as a guide and interpreter. So, I should head the list of seven modern wonders with the discovery of the Law of Gravitation, which Galileo began experimentally, and Newton completed mathematically. To that law—although we do not yet know what gravitation is in its i.'.s.sence —we owe not only our accurate knowledge of the universe, hut many of our greatest engineering triumphs.

rseconn on uw> list, in the order of time, might stand the invention of the Telescope, which, as a means of research, must also be credited to Galileo, who worked entirely in the modern spirit vi using the mind as a means and not as an end in the exploration of the material world. By the invention of the telescope, and its corollary, the microscope, modern uniui enabled himself to penetrate, at the same time, the mysteries of illimitable space and the secrets of the realm of the infinitely little. What the results have beer, everybody knows. We can now deal with million.'; of suns on one hand and billions of microbes on the | other. Third, let us place the development of the science of Chemistry, which has taught us so much about the constitution of matter, and which, some think, may yoi, reveal the secret 01' life itself. To review only a small part' of what chemistry has achieved would, in Llst-IV. require a long article. There is hardly any part of human life and activity in which it does not plaits role. But there are certain things that haw.' grown out of chemical experiinentaiion which are, perhaps, worthy to stand by themselves in our list. Among- these I would put, as the fourth wonder. Photography, beginning as a means of obtaining lectures of the human face, more accurate in their details than the hand could draw, photography has now become a means of discovering- things invisible to the eye, both upon the earth and in the heavens. The greatest astronomical discoveries of recent years have been effected by photography. By using the X-ray, and by selecting certain chosen waves of light, we can picture, by photography, things hidden behind barriers impenetrable to ordinary vision, and things on distant bodies in space which are veiled from the eye by the confusing effects of so many kinds of light. Fifth, I would put the invention of the Spectroscope, an instrument which enables us to analyse light and so use it as a means of investigating the nature of substances and bodies, not only upon the earth but also in the sky. To the spectroscope we owe our knowledge of the constitution of the sun and the other stars. Sixth comes the use of Electricity, in telegraphy, and ; in the production of light, and the transference of power. These things are so recent that everybody knows all about them, or, at least, knows what their nature is. s Seventh, the establishment of the Law of Evolution. The idea of some such law was dimly present in the minds of some ancient, philosophers, but, after their manner, they never thought of testing it by close observation of nature. Most of them used their minds with about as much practical efTect as ,a miller would use his mill if he merely set the wheels turning, grinding only,air out of it.i Darwin set his mental millstones «t work upon facts, ascertained by actual observation, and the result was a wonderful grist of knowledge which has transformed every department of .science.

You will see, of course, that this is but an imperfect list of modern scientific wonders, but it covers many of the principal things, and, best of all, it promises, other, 'and perhaps greater, triumphs to come. —"London Budget.''