THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 
 
 FRANKLIN INSTITUTE 
 
 A.D. 1824 TO 1874. 
 
COMMEMORATIVE EXERCISES 
 
 AT THE 
 I 
 
 FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 FRANKLIN INSTITUTE 
 
 OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA FOR THE 
 PROMOTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS. 
 
 HELD ON FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 6, 1874, 
 
 MUSICAL FUND HALL 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 HALL OF THE INSTITUTE, 
 
 SEVENTH STREET BELOW MARKET STREET. 
 1874. 
 
COLUNS, PRINTER, 
 705 Jayrie Street. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AT the stated meeting of the Franklin Institute, held 
 in December, 1873, the president called attention to the 
 fact that an entry in the first minute book showed that 
 during the latter part of the year 1823 preliminary meet- 
 ings were held in the city of Philadelphia, which led to 
 the foundation of the Institute during the early part of 
 1824. He stated that the propriety of some formal 
 recognition by the Society of the completion of its first 
 fifty years had been discussed among some of its older 
 members. Upon motion of Mr. Hector Orr, a resolution 
 was passed, appointing a committee to consist of five 
 members, including the president of the Institute, as 
 chairman, to devise and carry out an appropriate cele- 
 bration of the Anniversary. The committee consisted 
 of Messrs. Coleman Sellers, Hector Orr, Frederick 
 Fraley, Bloomfield H. Moore, and William P. Tatham. 
 
 The meeting which had been held on February 5, 1824, 
 having been decided on as the one which most surely 
 marked the permanent foundation of the Institute as a 
 societj*, it was deemed advisable, if possible, to hold 
 the commemorative meeting on that day ; but inasmuch 
 as no suitable hall could be obtained for the evening of 
 
6 
 
 the 5th of February, the following day, namely, the 6th, 
 was fixed upon ; and at the meeting of the Institute in 
 January, it was resolved that "When we adjourn we 
 adjourn to meet at the Musical Fund Hall, on the even- 
 ing of February 6th." 
 
 The meeting was public, and largely attended, in spite 
 of the inclemency of the weather, the evening being 
 marked by one of the heaviest snow-storms of the 
 season. 
 
 The Programme for the evening was published as 
 follows : 
 
FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 
 
 1824-1874. 
 
 PROGRAMME OF EXERCISES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 MUSICAL FUND HALL. 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 6, 1874. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 ASSEMBLY CALLED TO ORDER BY 
 
 MR. COLEMAN SELLERS, 
 
 President of Franklin Institute. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 ADDRESS BY HON. FREDERICK FRALEY, 
 
 Treasurer of Franklin Institute. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 ADDRESS BY ROBERT E. ROGERS, M.D., 
 
 Professor of Chemistry in University of Pennsylvania, and Vice-President 
 of Franklin Institute. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 ADDRESS BY HENRY MORTON, Pn.D., 
 
 President of Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J. t and late 
 Secretary of Franklin Institute. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 CLOSING ADDRESS BY MR. COLEMAN SELLERS, 
 
 President of Franklin Institute. 
 
COMMEMORATIVE- EXERCISES 
 
 FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE OF 
 THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA FOR THE PRO- 
 MOTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS. 
 
 HELD AT MUSICAL FUND HALL, FEBRUARY 6, 1874. 
 
 AT 7 J P. M. the Board of Managers welcomed the 
 invited guests in the lower room of the hall, and at 
 8 o'clock precisely, they conducted them to the seats 
 provided for them on the stage. After prelude of 
 music by the orchestra, the President, Mr. COLEMAN 
 SELLERS, called the meeting to order and said: 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : The object of this meet- 
 ing is to commemorate the completion of fifty years 
 of active usefulness of the Franklin Institute. Half 
 a century ago some earnest mechanics met together 
 to found an Institution for the promotion of the 
 mechanic arts. How well the work then started 
 prospered you all know. It has been deemed fitting 
 that the ceremonies of this evening should so far as 
 is possible tell the story of the Society's history, 
 and also indicate the progress made in the arts and 
 sciences during the period of its existence. A society 
 founded so long ago, must of necessity have lost 
 from its roll of living members many of its earliest 
 friends. But few of those who signed their names 
 to the first pages of that honorable list are now 
 living. Of those who remain, some have long since 
 2 
 
10 
 
 withdrawn from active participation in the work of 
 this Institution. Among these was one at whose 
 office some of the preliminary meetings were held. 
 I allude to Mr. George Washington Smith. He was 
 invited to address you this evening, but his failing 
 health prevented, and he now writes : 
 
 FEBRUARY 5tli, 1874. 
 
 GENTLEMEN: A severe cold, which confines me to 
 my chamber, w r ill deprive me of the great pleasure 
 of attending the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding 
 of the now venerable Franklin Institute. I regret 
 this the more, as I am now the only survivor of the 
 original founders of the Society (some months before 
 the meeting, which organized the Society, on the 
 5th of February, 1824). Some members yet remain 
 of those who joined the Institute at this latter date 
 (at the meeting at the court-house in this city), and 
 also still feel an unabated interest in the welfare of 
 the body which they ushered into existence. 
 
 I fervently trust that, now we have entered into 
 years of discretion, we shall in the ensuing half cen- 
 tury equal and even surpass the useful labors of the 
 past, and that we will not permit any of our numer- 
 ous progeny in the United States to carry off the 
 palm which has so long decorated our paternal 
 brow and that in the next generation the Centen- 
 nial celebration may have nothing to regret in the 
 comparison with the present. 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen of the Committee of the 
 Franklin Institute, with great regard, your friend, 
 GEO. WASHINGTON SMITH. 
 
 To Messrs. SELLERS, TATHAM, FRALEY, MOORE, and ORR. 
 
11 
 
 Among those who early joined the Institute was 
 a young man intimate with its early founders ; he 
 alone of all, remains yet in active co-operation in the 
 work of the Society. During the entire period of 
 its existence since his connection with it, he has held 
 prominent position in its board of management. 
 During these years he has taken active part in much 
 that has tended to benefit his fellow citizens. He 
 has been selected to relate the history of the Insti- 
 tute, for he has helped to make that history, and 
 his mature mind has made him a leader in its 
 councils. To-day he stands in our midst, one of our 
 most valued citizens, faithful in all his trusts, and pro- 
 minent in the councils of trade, as he was for years 
 in the council of the State. Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 it is with pride I announce him as historian, and 
 introduce to you the Hon. FREDERICK FRALEY, Trea- 
 surer of the Franklin Institute. 
 
 ADDRESS OF HOX. FREDERICK FRALEY. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT: 
 
 I thank you most cordially for your eloquent and 
 flattering introduction to this meeting. If there 
 were anything calculated to disturb my equanimity, 
 it would be found in the compliments you have paid 
 to me, for my long connection with, and services to 
 the Franklin Institute. But I shall rely on the 
 abundance of my materials, for presenting to this 
 audience in the limited time which your arrange- 
 ments allow, a brief sketch of the history of our 
 Institution. I shall avail myself of the privilege 
 you have so courteously granted me, when prepar- 
 
12 
 
 ing my remarks for publication, so to amplify and 
 collate them, that they may in some respects be 
 worthy of this great occasion for our rejoicing. I 
 esteem it a very great honor to have been selected 
 as the historian of the Institute ; and, if I shall fail 
 in words to do full justice to my subject, I shall not 
 fail in feeling that I ought to put into my utter- 
 ances the obligations I personally owe to the In- 
 stitute for the many benefits I have derived from 
 my long connection with it. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: 
 
 Upwards of fifty years ago there were two young 
 men residing in the city of Philadelphia, wholly 
 unknown to each other, and in different walks of 
 life, who conceived the same idea, for founding a 
 new institution for diffusing a knowledge of science 
 among mechanics and manufacturers. One of them 
 was the late SAMUEL V. MERBICK, then not quite 
 twenty-one years of age, who had been bred in a 
 merchant's counting-house, and, up to the time of 
 which we are speaking, considered himself devoted 
 to commercial pursuits. But one of those casualties 
 which overturn occasionally business establishments, 
 had fallen upon a firm engaged in the manufacture 
 of fire engines, to whom the uncle of Mr. Mer- 
 rick (the late highly honored and esteemed John 
 Vaughan) had loaned a considerable amount of 
 money, and for which he had been obliged to take 
 the property of the firm. Mr. Vaughan made several 
 unsuccessful efforts to sell the property so acquired, 
 and at length, in despair of getting anything out of 
 it, suddenly said to his nephew, one morning : " Sam, 
 how would you like to be a mechanic?" The youth- 
 
13 
 
 ful clerk responded, " Uncle, I am willing to do any- 
 thing you may recommend ;" and behold by a speedy 
 transformation the clerk .changed into a machinist ! 
 Mr. Yaughan immediately formed a partnership be- 
 tween his nephew and the late JOHN AGXEW ; and 
 the firm continued for many years in existence, with 
 very favorable results. But Mr. Merrick, in his new 
 vocation, soon found that he was not a mechanic, 
 and needed information and instruction to make 
 him one. 
 
 At that time there existed in Philadelphia an 
 association of mechanics, which met at short inter- 
 vals, for the consideration of mechanical and scien- 
 tific subjects, and for mutual improvement by con- 
 versation and discussion. Mr. Merrick sought to 
 become a member of this body, obtained a nomina- 
 tion, but, to his mortification and chagrin, was black- 
 balled. He was in almost daily intercourse with the 
 gentleman who proposed him for membership ; and 
 the subject of his rejection was freely spoken of. 
 This friend was the late WILLIAM KNEASS, of Phila- 
 delphia, then a copper-plate engraver, an artist of 
 much repute and merit in those days ; and after- 
 wards the engraver and die-sinker in the Mint of 
 the United States, which honorable and responsible 
 office he filled for many years. In one of these con- 
 ferences Mr. Kneass said, jestingly : " Why don't 
 you get up a new Institution to suit yourself?" Al- 
 though this was said in jest, our young friend took 
 it to heart, thought over it, and finally called on 
 Mr. Kneass, and exacted from him a promise, that 
 he would attend a meeting for the purpose of con- 
 sidering such a project. 
 
 Mr. Merrick accordingly called such a meeting, to 
 be held at the hall of the American Philosophical 
 
14 
 
 Society ; but no one attended. He renewed his call 
 for another meeting, with the same result; and then, 
 having called on Mr. Kneass to remonstrate with 
 him for his desertion, that gentleman said: "If you 
 are really in earnest about this matter, I will tell 
 you who will help you ;" and he then narrated to 
 him the history of an abortive attempt made some 
 time before by Professor WILLIAM H. KEATING, of 
 the University of Pennsylvania, to establish an in- 
 stitution somewhat like that which had been con- 
 ceived by Mr. Merrick. 
 
 Professor William II. Keating was the other of 
 the two young men of whom I have just spoken. 
 He had received a thorough liberal education, had 
 graduated with honor at our University, and then 
 went abroad to perfect his scientific training in the 
 polytechnic and mining schools of France and Swit- 
 zerland. 
 
 He returned full of zeal for the diffusion of science 
 applied to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and 
 the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, enter- 
 ing cordially into his views, established a Professor- 
 ship of Chemistry, in its application to Agriculture 
 and the Mechanic Arts, and elected Mr. Keating, 
 then just arrived at manhood, to fill the honorable 
 and novel position. 
 
 On the subjects of his Chair, Professor Keating 
 delivered several courses of lectures, and opened a 
 laboratory for the instruction of students, in the 
 basement of the old University building, at Ninth 
 Street, between Chestnut and Market Streets. The 
 house had been built as a residence for the Presidents 
 of the United States, by the State of Pennsylvania ; 
 but, not being needed for that purpose, in conse- 
 quence of the removal of the seat of government of 
 
15 
 
 the United States to Washington City, it was sold 
 to the University by the State. It was taken down 
 in 1829 to give place to the two College Halls which 
 lately stood on the same site ; and now the venerable 
 institution, in which this start in applied science 
 was first made in our country, has risen in greater 
 glory arid usefulness, in West Philadelphia. 
 
 While working earnestly in the sphere to which 
 he had been called, Mr. Keating sought to interest 
 his friends and others in an enlarged scheme for 
 scientific instruction; and he also had called meet- 
 ings which proved abortive. He supposed that it 
 was practicable to get the fund given by the Will of 
 Christopher Ludwig (late Baker-General to Gene- 
 ral Washington), for the support of a Charity School, 
 transferred to an institution of higher aims in in- 
 struction. And especially did he hope for this, be- 
 cause, by the public school system then recently 
 established in Philadelphia, the establishment and 
 support of purely charitable schools had been super- 
 seded. But in this praiseworthy attempt he failed, 
 and he and Mr. Merrick were both stranded in their 
 hopes. And now, by the kind intervention of Mr. 
 Kneass, these two ardent men were brought to- 
 gether. Mr. Kneass gave Mr. Merrick a history of 
 Mr. Keating's efforts, and advised him to call and 
 see him. This Mr. Merrick speedily did, and, intro- 
 ducing himself, the kindred spirits went earnestly to 
 work in concert. They compared notes ; looked into 
 the history and objects of the Andersonian Institution 
 at Glasgow ; and finally agreed to make another 
 effort to get a meeting, under the shadow of whose 
 authority they might make an appeal to the public. 
 
 Such a meeting was accordingly convened, and 
 
16 
 
 tradition, and some memoranda, indicate that the 
 following gentlemen attended: SAMUEL Y. MERRICK, 
 THOMAS FLETCHER, MATTHIAS W. BALDWIN, DAVID 
 H. MASON, and ORAN COLTON. 
 
 A committee was appointed, consisting of some 
 of those present, and of others selected outside, who 
 were supposed to he willing to unite ; and James 
 Roualdson, Samuel R. Wood, Samuel Y. Merrick, 
 M. T. Wickham, W. H. Keating, Thomas Fletcher, 
 and James Rush were appointed to draught a plan 
 of organization, constitution, etc. etc. 
 
 The preparation of these details was confided to 
 Mr. Merrick, and he states that, when he presented 
 them to Mr. Wood, he said : a Thee need not read 
 them; I arn perfectly willing to adopt them; but 
 thee cannot succeed in establishing thy Institute." 
 Mr. Wood then described to him certain professional 
 jealousies which he said were prevailing in the city; 
 and if either side joined Mr. Merrick in carrying 
 out his plan, it would be sure to be attacked by the 
 other, and thus inevitably become partisan in its 
 character. The small meeting was again convened, 
 the plan approved, and Messrs. Merrick and Keat- 
 ing, nothing daunted, prepared to carry it into exe- 
 cution. 
 
 They called to their aid Dr. Robert E. Griffith, 
 and George Washington Smith, Esq., who happily 
 still survives to share in the glory of this anniver- 
 sary. And these four young men, taking the Phila- 
 delphia Directory in their hands, selected from it 
 the names of some 1200 to 1600 citizens, whom they 
 thought might possibly take an interest in such a 
 work, and invited them, by circular letters, to attend 
 a meeting to be held at the county court-house, at 
 
17 
 
 Sixth and Chestnut Streets, on the evening of the 
 oth of February, 1824, when and where the long 
 cherished project was to be submitted for final ap- 
 proval. 
 
 I must here pause for a moment to make a brief 
 comment on this history of the labors of the real 
 founders of the Institute. 
 
 In the year 1866, Mr. Merrick placed in my hands 
 a letter* in which he very amply records his own 
 labors in the good work, and the hearty co-operation 
 he received from Professor Keating. As the time 
 has now come in which I am fully justified in mak- 
 ing that letter public, I shall place a copy of it at 
 the disposal of the Institute for publication, as part 
 of the proceedings of the evening. 
 
 Professor Keating, so far as I know, never pre- 
 pared any account of his own labors in the great 
 work, and he has left it to tradition, and the memory 
 of loving friends, to give him his proper share of 
 honor. 
 
 My own acquaintance with both of these noble- 
 hearted and generous men dates from about the 
 year 1823, when I attended the lectures of Professor 
 Keating in the University, and when I was asso- 
 ciated with Mr. Merrick as a member of the Phila- 
 delphia Hose Company, the first hose company that 
 was established in the city, and whose honorable 
 record for many years was the pride and glory of its 
 members. 
 
 During the whole of the remainder of their lives, 
 I was the intimate friend of both, and it is a gratifi- 
 cation to me of the purest and most exalted character, 
 that I am permitted to stand here, upon this occa- 
 
 * See letter at close of this article, p. 39. 
 
18 
 
 sion, and bear my hearty testimony to their worth 
 and virtues. 
 
 "We have now reached the time when the public 
 meeting was held. The citizens responded most cor- 
 dially to the call, and the court-house was tilled to 
 overflowing. 
 
 Mr. JAMES RONALDSON (a Scotchman by birth, but 
 an American in every fibre, who was himself engaged 
 in mechanical pursuits, originally a baker, but then 
 a type founder, doing in that line the most exten- 
 sive business in the United States) was selected to 
 preside. 
 
 PETER A. BROWNE, Esq., then an eloquent and dis- 
 tinguished member of the Philadelphia bar, made 
 an earnest and effective speech, in which he sketched 
 the plan and purposes of the new Institution, and 
 his speech was warmly applauded. He was followed 
 by others in earnest and eloquent remarks ; a letter 
 was read from NICHOLAS BIDDLE, Esq., then in the 
 acme of his reputation, giving his approval and ten- 
 dering membership and support. 
 
 The Constitution was submitted, considered, 
 amended, and then unanimously adopted. 
 
 Lists were then circulated, on which those present 
 enrolled themselves for membership. 
 
 A committee was appointed to nominate candidates 
 for officers and managers, and to take the needed 
 order for holding an election on the 16th of the same 
 month. At this meeting I enrolled myself as a 
 member, although not quite of age, and have con- 
 tinued that membership to this day, and may w T ith 
 truth say to the Institute, that " nought but death 
 shall part thee and me!" 
 
19 
 
 By the time the election was held, the roll con- 
 tained between 400 and 500 members. 
 
 Mr. Ronaldson was elected President, and held the 
 office until the year 1842. 
 
 The Board of Managers then chosen, of whom, of 
 course, Merrick and Keating were members, went 
 energetically to work, and soon had the Institute 
 thoroughly organized. 
 
 Standing Committees on Instruction; on Inven- 
 tions ; on Premiums and Exhibitions ; on the Library ; 
 and on Models and Minerals, were appointed, and 
 took hold of their duties with zeal and earnestness. 
 
 Professorships of Chemistry ; of Natural Philo- 
 sophy and Mechanics ; and of Architecture, were 
 forthwith established, and respectively filled by the 
 election of Professor Keating to the first, Professor 
 Robert M. Patterson to the second, and William 
 Strickland, Esq., to the third. 
 
 And here I may be permitted to pause and say a 
 word about the University of Pennsylvania, and its 
 ancient and continued interest in and aid to the 
 Institute. Profs. Keating and Patterson both held 
 chairs in that Institution, when they were called into 
 our service, and from that day to the present time 
 our relations to the University have been cordial 
 and complete, for of her gifted Professors we have 
 had, in addition to those already named, Alex. Dallas 
 Bache, John F. Frazer, Henry Reed, and Roswell 
 Park, and from her Medical Department, Professors 
 Hare, James Rogers, and Robert E. Rogers. 
 
 The first course of lectures was delivered in the 
 old Academy building, on Fourth, near Arch Street, 
 belonging to the University of Pennsylvania ; the use 
 of the building being granted to us by the trustees. 
 
20 
 
 In addition to the lectures on the subjects above 
 named, there were a number of volunteer lectures, 
 delivered by members of the Institute, on various 
 subjects connected with science and the arts. 
 
 The foundations thus laid for instruction were 
 rapidly enlarged, and to those like myself, who have 
 been of them and in them for half a century, their 
 proportions and usefulness have been really wonder- 
 
 fui. 
 
 Soon a school, in which should be taught archi- 
 tectural and mechanical drawing, was established, 
 and it was rapidly filled with pupils. Among the 
 earliest of these was my friend, who is now sitting 
 on the platform, almost as venerable-looking as my- 
 self, THOMAS U. WALTER, Esq., then a young brick- 
 layer, but, thanks to that school, afterwards the ac- 
 complished and successful architect of the Girard 
 College, then Professor of Architecture in the Insti- 
 tute, and finally commending himself and his works 
 to posterity as the architect of the Capitol at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 But, not content with this special school, the 
 Managers determined to establish another, in which 
 all the useful branches of English Literature and 
 mathematics, and the ancient and modern lan- 
 guages should be taught : in short, a high school. 
 This was placed under the charge of WALTER R. 
 JOHNSON, Esq., with able assistants, and was soon 
 filled with pupils. The Drawing School has been 
 very successfully continued down to the present day, 
 and is now more flourishing than ever before, but 
 the High School was discontinued after a few years' 
 time upon the resignation of Mr. Johnson. By this 
 time the public schools of the city had been much 
 
21 
 
 improved by the introduction of new methods of in- 
 struction, and the establishment of the Central High 
 School of Philadelphia supplied all the needs that our 
 High School was intended to provide for. The Depart- 
 ment of Instruction, with various changes and en- 
 largement of the features, has continued in successful 
 operation down to the present time. Its Professors 
 of Chemistry have been W. H. Keating, Franklin 
 Bache, John K. Mitchell, and John F. Frazer, men 
 who were remarkable for the extent of their knowl- 
 edge, and whose names are identified with the sci- 
 entific reputation of our city. With the same hon- 
 orable and enduring notice we place here the names 
 of our Professors of Natural Philosophy and Me- 
 chanics, Robert M. Patterson, Thomas P. Jones. 
 Walter E. Johnson, and John C. Cresson. My space 
 will not permit me to name all their successors, who, 
 taking up their mantles, have won, and are continu- 
 ing to win, laurels in the same fields. Nor can I be- 
 gin to make a list of those who have contributed by 
 valuable lectures to fill up more effectually the meas- 
 ure of useful instruction that we have diffused. But 
 I see one of them now near me, the venerable Dr. 
 Gouverneur Emerson, who fully forty years ago de- 
 livered a course on meteorology the first of that 
 character, probably, in this country, and who since 
 then has kept up his interest and knowledge of that 
 important part of atmospheric science, and has lived 
 to witness, in the establishment of the Signal Service 
 Bureau of the United States, the recognition and 
 utility of the infant science he was then aiding in 
 ushering into life. 
 
 The Committee on Inventions soon became a cen- 
 tre from which radiated the most useful and interest- 
 
22 
 
 ing results. The late ISAIAH LUKENS, a distinguished 
 mechanician, was for many years its chairman, and, 
 with the Professors in the Institute, and such asso- 
 ciates as Alexander Dallas Bache, Benjamin Reeves, 
 Samuel V. Merrick, Rufus Tyler, Matthias W. Bald- 
 win, John Agnew, George Washington Smith, John 
 Wiegand, and others, gave wise counsel to inventors, 
 put them in the way of knowing what had previ- 
 ously been accomplished, saved them from the loss of 
 money and of reputation, by showing them when 
 their inventions were not new ; and when any matter 
 of real novelty or value was presented, endorsing it 
 most heartily with their approval, and giving that 
 potential aid which would almost certainly secure 
 public recognition and reward. 
 
 This committee continued its labors as originally 
 constituted for many years, and upon its suggestions 
 committees were raised for investigating the various 
 forms of water-wheels, for giving economical value 
 to water-power. 
 
 On this subject, experiments of great number, and 
 on almost every form of water motor then known, 
 were made, and the results tabulated and commented 
 on in such an exhaustive manner that the report 
 continues to this day to be a most valuable text- 
 book on water-power. 
 
 Following this, and in the same lead of practical 
 usefulness, a committee was raised to investigate the 
 causes of explosion on steam-boilers, and in this in- 
 vestigation, the Institute succeeded in getting the 
 co-operation of the government of the United States, 
 an appropriation for defraying the cost of the expe- 
 riments being made by Congress. But no part of 
 the money so appropriated was paid as compensation 
 
23 
 
 to the experimenters. These were all volunteers, 
 devoting many months of valuable time to the inves- 
 tigation, and ascertaining most valuable facts, which 
 have since been utilized for the benefit and safety of 
 the public. 
 
 Connected with these experiments on explosions 
 caused by steam, came almost naturally an investi- 
 gation of the strength of materials. For this pur- 
 pose, the committee devised testing apparatus of 
 various forms, and applied them in the most exten- 
 sive and crucial way to the metals, and materials of 
 all kinds used in machines, steam-boilers, buildings, 
 and other branches of the useful arts. The reports 
 on explosions, and on the strength of materials, were 
 published also, and are of equal reputation and use 
 as those on water-power. 
 
 The Committee on Inventions was subsequently 
 abolished, and in its place was established the 
 " Committee on Science and Arts." This committee 
 was intended to cover not only the ground originally 
 occupied by the Committee on Inventions, but to 
 embrace a wider field, and to interest in its operation 
 a larger number of members. Every one, therefore, 
 who felt an interest in developing the domains of 
 invention or science, was invited to enroll himself as 
 a member, and thereby to pledge himself to devote 
 his time and knowledge to the service of the com- 
 mittee, and through it to the public. This volun- 
 tary association still exists ; and its long course of 
 labors and usefulness is attested by its memoirs, and 
 by the vast number of reports made on inventions 
 and other matters submitted to its scrutiny. And 
 this seems a fitting place to introduce the name of 
 one of the most illustrious of our members, Alexan- 
 
24 
 
 der Dallas Bache. He was the great-grandson of the 
 world-renowned Dr. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ; and in 
 many traits of character resembled his great ances- 
 tor. After receiving a sufficient preliminary educa- 
 tion to fit him for it, he was appointed a Cadet in 
 the Military Academy of the United States at West 
 Point, and graduated there, after his four years' 
 course, with distinguished honor. He was duly 
 appointed a second-lieutenant in the artillery corps, 
 and placed in charge of the construction of some of 
 the forts in the New England States. A vacancy 
 having occurred in the Professorship of Chemistry 
 and Natural Philosophy in the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, he was elected to the chair, and removed 
 to Philadelphia. He soon joined the Institute, 
 and became one of its most prominent and useful 
 members. Hs served on the Committees of Instruc- 
 tion, Inventions, Publications, and Exhibitions. His 
 knowledge was great, and his aptitude for applying 
 it wonderful. 
 
 He became, as it were, a centre around which 
 every department of the Institute could revolve^ 
 and, like that other great centre, the sun, he had the 
 faculty of controlling, and keeping in harmony and 
 efficient working order, all who came within his in- 
 fluence. 
 
 To him, the investigations on water-power, ex- 
 plosions of steam, and strength of materials, owe 
 much of their value. He supervised the reduction 
 of the results of experiments, tabulated them, and 
 mainly prepared the reports. 
 
 To his efforts the organization of the Committee 
 on Science was mainly due. He presided over it for 
 many years, and by his skill and wisdom in selecting 
 
25 
 
 its sub-committees, rendered it useful and powerful. 
 After a long service with us, and with the University, 
 and after having laid the foundations for instruction 
 in the Girard College for Orphans, and for the Cen- 
 tral High School, he left us to accept the appoint- 
 ment of Superintendent of the Coast Survey of the 
 United States. In this new Held of labor and useful- 
 ness he was the same patient, devoted, and successful 
 worker, and brought that great national work up 
 to a state of accuracy and comprehensiveness that 
 has challenged the admiration of the world. Until 
 death, he was the warm friend and earnest advo- 
 cate of the Institute. He was my early schoolmate ; 
 the affectionate friend and associate of my manhood ; 
 and his virtues and worth are among the most pre- 
 cious of my memories. 
 
 One of the methods adopted by the Institute for 
 the promotion of the mechanic arts was to reward 
 inventors, manufacturers, and mechanics, by the dis- 
 tribution of medals and premiums. To this end, the 
 Committee on Premiums and Exhibitions was ap- 
 pointed. 
 
 It very soon announced that an Exhibition of 
 American Manufactures would be held in the city 
 of Philadelphia, and published a long list of pre- 
 miums that would then be awarded. A very exten- 
 sive circulation of this intention was given by letters 
 addressed to those whose interests would be promoted 
 by the Exhibition, and also by advertisements to 
 direct public attention to the undertaking. It was 
 held in the Carpenters' Hall, in Philadelphia, in the 
 autumn of 1824, and was crowned with complete 
 success. It attracted large crowds of people, who 
 hitherto had had no conception of the extent and 
 3 
 
26 
 
 variety of our home productions, and reacted in 
 many curious and unexpected ways to bring pro- 
 ducers and consumers together, and to diffuse a 
 knowledge of our domestic skill and resources. These 
 Exhibitions were continued at short intervals for 
 many years, and grew in public favor and usefulness; 
 but were suspended a few years ago in consequence 
 of an inability to get a hall of sufficient size for a 
 proper display. It would be impossible to estimate 
 the value of these Exhibitions, for it is only those 
 who, from year to year, watched the progress of manu- 
 factures in the United States, as their products were 
 brought together in friendly competition on our 
 tables, that can realize the astonishing developments 
 of our industry which have marked the half century 
 now closed. The Institute, having secured, for an Ex- 
 hibition to be held in the autumn of the present year, 
 by the liberality of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
 pany, a building of ample size, and in a most favor- 
 able location, will resume this well-tried part of its 
 system of operations, and in the coming display, lay 
 the groundwork, and stimulate preparation for the 
 great Centennial International Exhibition, which in 
 1876 is to commemorate the hundredth anniversary 
 of our existence as a nation. 
 
 "Without a library, the Institute would have been 
 but half armed ; and soon, under the auspices of the 
 committee charged with attention to that feature of 
 the Institution, books began to take their places on 
 our shelves, to accumulate, to be used, and gradually 
 to assume the numbers and variety which now cha- 
 racterize our large and valuable collection. 
 
 In natural connection with the library comes the 
 Journal. At the outset, the pecuniary means of 
 
27 
 
 the Institute were too limited to permit it to venture 
 alone on such a publication. But an arrangement 
 was made with THOMAS P. JOXES, Esq., then Pro- 
 fessor of Xatural Philosophy and Mechanics, to edit 
 and publish a periodical devoted to science and the 
 arts, under the title of the Franklin Journal. In 
 this form, and with limited aid from our treasury, 
 the publication was continued until 1828, when the 
 Institute assumed the responsibility of continuing 
 it, under the title of The Journal of the Franklin 
 Institute ; and so it has continued to this time. 
 
 Of the great value of the Journal, in diffusing 
 information of varied character, on subjects of 
 science and the arts, you, who have had the best 
 opportunities for judging, can make a proper esti- 
 mate. I will only say that, to have stood the tests 
 of competition, active and extensive as they have 
 been, furnishes pretty strong proof that it has been 
 well and ably managed ; and although its balance 
 sheets do not show an absolute profit in money, 
 the results of its exchanges are on your bookshelves, 
 and are of far more worth than mere money. 
 
 And now let us stop for a moment to pay a passing 
 tribute to the memory and worth of an old officer of 
 the Institute, to whom the Journal was as the apple 
 of his eye. 
 
 You all recollect WILLIAM HAMILTON, for nearly 
 half a century our loved and trusted Actuary. He 
 went in and out before us for this long period, the 
 very embodiment of our Franklin Institute. I be- 
 came a member of the Board of Managers just after 
 his election in the year 1828. 
 
 With the exception of a few years I have been 
 Treasurer or Secretary during his whole term, and 
 
28 
 
 these offices brought me into almost daily intercourse 
 with Mr. Hamilton. And I may truly say that I 
 have often marvelled at the devotion which charac- 
 terized him in our service. The interests of the 
 Institute seemed to be the blood that circulated in 
 his arteries and the marrow of his bones. 
 
 Rarely affected by illness, he was always at his 
 post ; he knew every detail of our working move- 
 ments : he was ready to produce book, report, ac- 
 count, or model, at any call ; he seemed to know 
 every member ; he maintained his good temper and 
 courtesy when often sorely tried ; and, by his kind- 
 heartedness and good management, kept many from 
 straying from our fold. He was scrupulously honest 
 and trustworthy ; and all his thoughts and actions 
 were regulated and controlled by a simple religious 
 and conscientious spirit. No one who knew him 
 thoroughly could fail to love and honor him. 
 
 He seemed, at his fourscore years, to have scarcely 
 lost the vigor and elasticity of his manhood ; and, 
 within a week of his death, he was discharging 
 every duty of his office as carefully and with as 
 much love and interest as ever. He was a loving 
 and faithful servant ; and deserves our gratitude 
 and enduring remembrance. 
 
 The editors of the Journal have been Thomas P. 
 Jones, A. D. Bache, Charles B. Trego, John F. 
 Frazer, Henry Morton, and William II. Wahl ; and 
 as this sketch is going through the press, Professor 
 George F. Barker of the University has assumed 
 that duty. 
 
 Among the early committees we find that on 
 Models and Minerals, and, thanks to its labors, we 
 have quite a respectable collection of both ; and had 
 
29 
 
 
 we space for more, the contributions of willing in- 
 ventors and friends would no doubt be large. In 
 our collection are to be found some curious and 
 interesting specimens of ingenuity. One of these is 
 the mode.1 of a machine for producing perpetual 
 motion. 
 
 This is the work of Isaiah Lukens, before men- 
 tioned as Chairman of the Committee on Inventions. 
 He was also one of the early Yice-Presidents. Some 
 of the older of my audience will recollect the excite- 
 ment caused by the announcement that a Mr. Red- 
 heffer had discovered the perpetual motion. Mr. 
 Lukens visited the place of the exhibition of Red- 
 heffer's machine, and, after a brief examination, dis- 
 covered the trick. Returning to his workshop he 
 immediately constructed a machine in imitation of 
 Redheffer's, but with. the motor concealed in a 
 different way. He then sent for Redheffer, informed 
 him that he had discovered his trick and fraud, told 
 him that the machine before him was also a fraud, 
 arid challenged him to point it out, which Redheffer 
 ineffectually tried to do, and gave up in despair. 
 
 But the labors and services of the Institute were 
 not bounded by what we have been describing. The 
 lectures of Mr. JAMES P. ESPY, and his essays on 
 meteorology, and the theories adverse thereto of 
 Redfield and others, caused a large share of public 
 attention to be directed to that subject. Dr. Emer- 
 son had awakened our members many years before 
 to its importance ; and the Legislature of Pennsyl- 
 vania made a liberal appropriation for the purchase 
 of instruments, and for the collection of facts by 
 observers in all parts of the State. 
 
 The purchase of instruments, the organization of 
 
30 
 
 the corps of observers, and the tabulation and publi- 
 cation of the results, and the whole expenditure of 
 the appropriation, were placed in charge of the Insti- 
 tute. The fund was carefully managed, and for a 
 number of years monthly tables of the observations 
 were published in the Journal. Subsequently, the 
 Institute was requested by the State Legislature to 
 examine and report upon our system of weights 
 and measures. A special committee was called, 
 which thoroughly went through the work, and, 
 upon its report, the law was enacted which is now 
 in force for the commonwealth. 
 
 The general interest created by the existence and 
 working of the Institute caused more attention to 
 be paid to technology and to science generally ; 
 and gave rise to a movement for the establishment 
 of a school of arts in the year 1837. The Institute 
 headed this movement, and applied to the councils 
 of the city for a grant of a large plot of ground in 
 West Philadelphia as a site for the buildings of the 
 proposed school. 
 
 This was promptly and cheerfully granted, and 
 the Legislature was appealed to by memorials from 
 all parts of the State, to endow the school by a 
 liberal appropriation. The House of Representatives 
 passed the bill for this purpose, but immediately 
 reconsidered its action, the members seeming to be 
 alarmed at their own courage in venturing so far 
 out of the old paths. 
 
 It was well understood, then, that if the bill had 
 reached the Senate it would have been promptly 
 passed ; and Governor Ritner had promised to give 
 it his approval. The seed then planted was watched 
 with care, and efforts were often made to resuscitate 
 
31 
 
 the enterprise. It was finally taken up by the trus- 
 tees of the University, among whom are to be found 
 now a number of the active members of the Insti- 
 tute ; and, by the cordial concurrence and aid of Dr. 
 Charles J. Stille, the Provost, the Department of 
 Science was established in the University on a most 
 comprehensive basis, and is now in successful opera- 
 tion. Thus it has been that the philanthropic efforts 
 of Merrick and Keating to start our Institute were 
 crowned with such complete success. 
 
 As I have before stated, the first course of lectures 
 was delivered in the old Academy Building on 
 Fourth Street. The Institute very soon rented the 
 lower story of the Old Carpenter's Hall, in the rear 
 of Chestnut Street, east of Fourth Street, a place 
 rendered memorable and almost sacred by the 
 sessions of the first Continental Congress. 
 
 By this time we felt so sure of our hold on the 
 public, that we determined to build a hall, and, to 
 carry out this intention, a purchase was made of the 
 lot on Seventh Street between Market and Chestnut 
 Streets. 
 
 The corner-stone was laid with appropriate Masonic 
 and other ceremonies, on the eighth day of June, 
 1825, at noon, and the edifice w,as erected by con- 
 tract, from plans and estimates furnished by John 
 Haviland, Esq., the architect. We were obliged to 
 have an eye to revenue from the building, and to aid 
 us in that, then important matter, an agreement was 
 made with the United States, that we would arrange 
 and finish the second story so that it might be occu- 
 pied as a court-room, and offices for the Circuit and 
 District Courts. When the building was completed, 
 a lease was accordingly made for a term of years at 
 
32 
 
 $1500 per annum. But after a short occupancy, this 
 lease was cancelled, as it was found to be incon- 
 venient for members of the bar to be so far from the 
 county court-house at Sixth and Chestnut Streets. 
 The United States then agreed to give up the 
 premises, and to pay $900 per annum for the re- 
 mainder of the term, and the city rented them the 
 second story of Independence Hall. 
 
 The building was completed, and we entered into 
 the Occupancy of all except the second story in 1826, 
 and then began to feel that w r e had got out of our 
 " long clothes." 
 
 On the cancellation of the lease to the United 
 States, we obtained possession of the whole build- 
 ing ; and therein, all the manifold labors of the In- 
 stitute have been conceived and carried into execu- 
 tion. 
 
 This dear old hall is associated with so many 
 pleasant and useful memories, that whenever re- 
 moval to a new building has been agitated, it has 
 given rise to strong emotions. 
 
 But it has so happened that the intention of re- 
 moval has several times been seriously considered. 
 It very nearly culminated in the year 1836, when 
 the Masonic Hall property on Chestnut Street west 
 of Seventh Street was purchased by the Institute for 
 the sum of $110,500. 
 
 Plans for a new and enlarged hall were prepared 
 by William Strickland, Esq., architect, aided by a 
 committee of the Institute. A plan for a building 
 loan was adopted, and a part of it subscribed for, 
 which enabled the Institute to pay the first instal- 
 ment of the purchase- money. But the great finan- 
 cial crash of May, 1837, struck our project down, 
 
33 
 
 and after vainly struggling for several years to carry 
 it out, we had at last to surrender it, and at a fear- 
 ful loss of many thousands of dollars. At different 
 times since, projects of removal have been started, 
 but grown wise by the experience of 1837, we have 
 not been again tempted into any uncertain contracts. 
 The old hall has been modified and improved in 
 its interior; and, although small and inconvenient 
 in some respects for our present wants, will not 
 hastily be abandoned. 
 
 Mr. James Ronaldson served as President until 
 January, 1842, when he resigned ; but he maintained 
 his interest in the Institution until he died, and 
 gave it by his will a legacy of five hundred dollars. 
 
 He was succeeded by Samuel V. Merrick, the ac- 
 knowledged Founder of the Institute, and the man 
 above all others who impressed on it at the beginning, 
 nearly all of its practical features, as Keating did 
 those for its science. 
 
 Mr. Merrick held the office of President until 
 January, 1855, when he resigned. 
 
 But his resignation of office did not sever him 
 from active duty. As in the beginning, so through- 
 out his whole life, every faculty he enjoyed, every 
 hour that was needful for its service, time, talents, 
 and money, were always ready for the Institute. 
 And if asked to point "out his monument, standing 
 in our hall, we should reply " Circumspice" 
 
 Mr. Merrick was succeeded in the Presidency by 
 John C. Cresson. My relations to Mr. Cresson make 
 it difficult for me to speak of his merits and services. 
 He was elected a member in 1834. He had early in 
 life chosen agriculture for a profession, and, in pre- 
 paring for it, after receiving a good classical educa- 
 
34 
 
 tion, he paid considerable attention to the study of 
 chemistry, natural philosophy, and mechanics. He 
 attended the lectures of Professor Keating in the 
 University in 1823. Very soon after his election as 
 a member, he relinquished his agricultural pursuits, 
 and engaged in commercial business in the city. He 
 became an active and useful member of our import- 
 ant committees. 
 
 Shortly after the Philadelphia gas-works were 
 built, under the charge of Mr. Merrick, as engineer; 
 Mr. Cresson was appointed superintendent of the 
 works, and subsequently engineer. He gave such 
 evidence of his thorough knowledge of natural phi- 
 losophy and mechanics that he was elected Professor 
 in 1837, and held that office for several years. 
 
 On the resignation of Professor Bache as Chair- 
 man of the Committee on Science and the Arts, 
 Professor Cresson was elected its chairman, and still 
 holds that place. As the worthy coadjutor, friend, 
 and associate of Merrick, Keating, Bache, and the 
 other active members of the Institute, he was con- 
 sidered the fittest man to succeed Mr. Merrick. His 
 able administration was universally recognized, and 
 he occupies a high and honorable place in our records 
 and history. 
 
 He declined a re-election in 1864, and WILLIAM 
 SELLERS, Esq., was chosen his successor. 
 
 Under the administration of this estimable and 
 distinguished mechanical engineer a new impulse 
 was given to the career of the Institute. The plan 
 of organization was modified, and a large sum was 
 raised by Mr. Sellers and his friends to reduce the 
 debt, to repair and alter the hall, and to bring the 
 Institution into more effectual contact with manu- 
 
35 
 
 facturers and mechanics. Professor HENRY MORTON, 
 who was winning an enviable reputation as a physi- 
 cist and lecturer, was chosen Secretary ; and with a 
 liberal salary and enlarged powers was made its chief 
 executive officer. He was also entrusted with the 
 editorship of the Journal, and, until his election as 
 President of the "Stevens Institute," devoted his 
 rare abilities to our service. It is with great pleasure 
 that I see him here on this occasion, to unite with us 
 in proclaiming the advantages of such institutions. 
 
 One of the principal changes made by the advice 
 of Mr. Sellers and his friends was to have the whole 
 of our property represented by stock, the shares of 
 which could be purchased at a moderate price, and 
 giving the privileges of membership transferable for 
 the benefit of heirs or purchasers. The introduction 
 of these new elements of strength was hailed with 
 much pleasure by those who had held offices for so 
 many years. Death had diminished the number of 
 the old associates, and age and physical infirmity 
 were depriving them of their ancient ardor and zeal. 
 But they were still ready, with their old attach- 
 ment, to aid with their counsel and presence these 
 new and active workers ; and the Institute was 
 strengthened and benefited by the combination of 
 such elements. 
 
 Mr. Sellers declined a re-election in 1868, and was 
 succeeded by JOHN YAUGHAN MERRICK, Esq., the 
 eldest son of the distinguished Founder. He in- 
 herited all the interest so long held by his father, 
 and energetically carried out the new and enlarged 
 policy. 
 
 He declined a re-election in January, 1870, and 
 was succeeded by COLEMAN SELLERS, Esq., who now 
 
36 
 
 holds the office, and is ably and faithfully discharg- 
 ing its duties. 
 
 He is also by profession a mechanical engineer, 
 and has won, by his ingenuity and skill, an honor- 
 able name in his profession. 
 
 In making up this record of our Presidents, it is a 
 remarkable fact that they have all been characterized 
 by the possession of rare gifts of administration and 
 of public confidence. 
 
 JOHN SCOTT, a chemist of Edinburgh, gave by his 
 will to the corporation of the city .of Philadelphia 
 a legacy for the establishment of a premium, to be 
 given by a medal and money to the inventors of 
 anything new or useful. In the year 1834, the city 
 councils placed the awarding of the Scott's Legacy 
 Medal and Premium in the hands of the Institute, 
 and it has so faithfully and carefully discharged that 
 duty that its stewardship still continues. 
 
 In the year 1848, the late ELLIOTT CRESSON, Esq., 
 placed in the charge of trustees a sufficient sum of 
 money to provide a gold medal, which was to be 
 awarded by the Institute to the inventor of any 
 new or useful discovery. As this premium is to be 
 given only for matters of real novelty and merit, it 
 is, of course, rarely issued. The first recipient of it 
 was Gen. Benjamin C. Tilghrnan, Esq., of Philadel- 
 phia, the discoverer of the application of the sand 
 blast, for a variety of useful and ornamental pur- 
 poses. 
 
 And in 1859,. URIAH A. BOYDEN, of Boston, Mass., 
 placed in charge of the Institute the sum of one 
 thousand dollars, to be awarded to " any resident 
 of North America who shall determine by experi- 
 ment whether all rays of light, and other physical 
 
37 
 
 rays, are or are not transmitted with the same 
 velocity." The claim to be made in the form of an 
 essay, announcing the result and its manner of 
 ascertainment, to be presented before the first day of 
 January, 1873. 
 
 The awarding of this premium was placed in the 
 hands of a committee. 
 
 Several essays were received, but no one of them 
 was considered of sufficient merit to entitle k to the 
 prize. 
 
 Mr. Boyden has generously allowed the premium 
 to remain with the Institute, in the hope that it may 
 be earned by some worthy mathematician. 
 
 Having now brought this historical sketch clown 
 to the present time, we may be permitted to linger 
 a little while over our personal experiences, and to 
 bear our testimony to the many advantages we have 
 enjoyed from our connection with the Institute. 
 Speaking for myself, I may say, most truly, that it 
 has been to me my school of schools. As an original 
 member, and then a very young man, I was imme- 
 diately associated with the founders, and with those 
 older and accomplished men who had joined with 
 them. Together we walked for over forty years, 
 not in the wilderness but by pleasant paths, study- 
 ing by the way all that was new and useful in 
 science and the arts, and accumulating priceless 
 treasures of knowledge. 
 
 My friend, Professor Robert E. Rogers, is about 
 to follow me with the wonderful record of the .pro- 
 gress of science in the last half century. Modern 
 physical science has been made within that time, 
 and, as each brilliant discovery was announced in 
 chemistry, physics, or mechanics, it was brought 
 into our field in the hall of the Institute, and the 
 
38 
 
 band of brothers there assembled lovingly together 
 made themselves, in their respective walks, masters 
 of the new discoveries; and in not a few instances 
 enlarged and perfected their applications. I am 
 thankful that for the half century I have been an 
 active member of the Institute, I owe to its teach- 
 ings and their influence on my mind very much of 
 the knowledge and information that have given any 
 useful influence to my life ; and my earnest prayer 
 for the young members of it is, that they shall de- 
 rive as much advantage from its teachings as I have 
 realized. I see around me here to-night some of the 
 original members, and others who were speedily 
 enrolled. 
 
 As I entered this hall, I was greeted by one of 
 the original members, Mr. GEORGE S. LANG, with 
 vivid reminders of our first meeting at the county 
 court-house in February 1824. Here also I see on 
 this platform the venerable forms of my friends, 
 Henry C. Carey, David S. Brown, Gouverneur Emer- 
 son, Thomas U. Walter, and Hector Orr, earty and 
 earnest laborers in the fields I have been describing. 
 
 The numbers of the Old Guard are gradually 
 diminishing, but the golden cord that has bound us 
 together so long still encircles the survivors. Of the 
 illustrious dead, how shall I venture to make up the 
 record? Merrick, Keating, Patterson, Strickland, 
 Bache, Peale, Frazer, Lukens, Baldwin, Tyler, were 
 chiefs on the roll of the departed. 
 
 George Washington Smith, Carey, Emerson, Cres- 
 son, Wiegand, Booth, Roberts, Trego, still survive, 
 with their love for the Institute undiminished by age. 
 Did space permit, I might swell to a large extent 
 this list of devoted men; but I content myself with 
 the types I have selected, and say in all sincerity, of 
 
39 
 
 those not named, that the working force of the In- 
 stitute was imbued with the spirit of such chiefs. 
 
 I now close my attempt to place before you a his- 
 tory of the Institute. 
 
 It has honorably lived for half a century; it is 
 again endowed with the invigoration of youth and 
 earnestness; it has all the experience of the past in 
 its treasure house ; it has all the bright promise of 
 the future for its encouragement. 
 
 As we now rejoice over what we have accom- 
 plished, so may those who come after us celebrate 
 with even more fervor its CENTENNIAL. And, when 
 the hundred years are ended, may new hands keep 
 our banner up, waving, in glorious pride, over new 
 victories won for the benefit and improvement of 
 mankind, and cheer the old Institute onward, with 
 the well-earned cry of Esto Perpetua ! 
 
 LETTER OF MR. MERRICK TO MR. FRALEY. 
 
 PHILAD., 11 Sept. 1866. 
 DEAR FRALEY 
 
 Reflecting upon our little talk on old times this morning, I have 
 concluded that justice to myself and other friends connected with 
 the early history of the Franklin Institute, calls for such informa- 
 tion as you seem to need in relation to its origin. In this I may 
 subject myself to a charge of egotism ; but I think you know me 
 well enough to acquit me of any intentional wrong to any one. 
 
 I look back on the incipiency of that Institution, feeling that 
 if I had done nothing else in my life, I should have something to 
 be proud of in the part I took in its founding. 
 
 You know that I was reared in a counting-house, and destined 
 to a mercantile life. 
 
 Circumstances which need not be detailed changed its objects ; 
 and at an age before maturity I found myself an owner of a 
 workshop, without a mechanical education and with scarcely a 
 mechanical idea. 
 
40 
 
 On contemplating the position thus assumed I was made aware 
 of two facts: that without knowledge I could not succeed, while 
 it was too late again ^to go to school ; and, secondly, that as a me- 
 chanic I was socially degraded, for in those days, as people des- 
 pised mere mechanics, my own position shared that of my class. 
 
 There existed at that time a society of mechanics who statedly 
 met for discussion and mutual improvement, into which I desired 
 admission for the same object. Being proposed, I was black- 
 balled under the influence of personal ill-will entertained by a 
 prominent member. 
 
 Well acquainted with Mr. Win. H. Kneass, engraver, who 
 occupied a shop in Fourth St., in my daily work I frequently 
 called for friendly chat. Mr. K. had proposed me to the Asso- 
 ciation, and was much annoyed at the issue of the vote. 
 
 Discussing the matter with him one day with no very pleasant 
 feelings, he jestingly asked me why I did not start a new society 
 having a wider field of usefulness. 
 
 I was very young and had but a limited acquaintance ; yet 
 after a night's reflection I determined to act on his suggestion, 
 though I knew he was not serious. 
 
 With this view I called a meeting at the Philosophical Hall of 
 some fifteen or twenty gentlemen who I supposed would take an 
 interest in so useful a movement. The night of meeting came, 
 and no one responded to the call. 
 
 After talking the matter over the next day with several who 
 professed an interest in the project, I called a second meeting, 
 with a similar result. 
 
 A further conference with Mr. Kneass was the consequence of 
 the second failure ; to whom I complained that he had not kept 
 his appointment. He then said seriously that he thought I was 
 wasting my time. That it was impossible to unite the mechanics 
 of Philadelphia in such an enterprise, and I had better abandon 
 the idea. I replied that I had a better opinion of the public 
 spirit of Philadelphia, and that I was determined to succeed. 
 
 He replied that as I was bent on going forward, he would tell 
 me where I was likely to get help. He then gave me an account 
 of the above abortive movement in the same direction which had 
 been made the year before ; and stated that William H. Keating, 
 a young professor, had been secretary of those meetings, and had 
 showed much interest in the success of the plan ; and that I 
 would find Mr. Keating at the University in Ninth Street. 
 
41 
 
 I called on Mr. Keating, introduced myself, stated the object 
 of my visit, and asked of him the history of the last failure, and 
 if he would join me in the present movement. Mr. Keating cor- 
 dially responded and entered heartily into my views. 
 
 He gave all the information required as to the former attempt 
 and failure ; and an account of the Andersonian Institute of 
 Glasgow, on which it was proposed to model, in some respects, 
 the new Institution. 
 
 After perusing these documents, we had several interviews, 
 during which we agreed upon a name, and sketched a programme 
 of the purposes we proposed to incorporate in the new Institution. 
 
 It was then agreed, as a point-d' -appui was necessary, to call 
 a small meeting which would by proper action give an official 
 start to the machine. Accordingly I summoned a third meeting, 
 to which four gentlemen responded. Its action was confined to 
 the passage of a resolution approving the design, and to the ap- 
 pointment of a committee to carry out the idea by public meeting 
 or otherwise. 
 
 The minute of this meeting is the managers' book, and it con- 
 sisted of five persons. The correctness of names is somewhat in 
 doubt, as none were taken down at the time, but those which 
 appear were appended some years afterwards from a memoran- 
 dum in the hands of the chairman. This is, however, of no conse- 
 quence, as they did not project or found the Institute, but merely 
 passed formal resolutions on which the founders acted. 
 
 Having thus obtained the official authority of a meeting, the 
 committee was convened. Mr. S. K. Wood and myself were ap- 
 pointed a sub-committee to draft a constitution. This labor fell 
 to my share, and when ready Mr. Wood was called to revise and 
 adopt it, ready for the general committee. 
 
 When commencing to read the draft Mr. Wood stopped me 
 and said, " Thee need not read that paper. I have no doubt it is 
 all right, and I will agree to report it ; but I want to satisfy thee 
 that this Institution can never succeed and had better be aban- 
 doned." 
 
 I then listened to a long explanation of the quarrel between two 
 rival architects, and learned that there existed such a feud be- 
 tween them and their respective friends that in his opinion they 
 could never coalesce ; and If either party took up the proposed 
 plan, the Institute would be partisan in its character, and be 
 opposed by the other. 
 
 I name this to show the obstacles thrown ?n the way of the 
 4 
 
42 
 
 incipient Institution, and I think that was the real reason for the 
 failure the year before. 
 
 Unconvinced by Mr. Wood's reasoning, the draft of the con- 
 stitution was reported and adopted by the committee at large, 
 which also agreed upon its presentation for final adoption to a 
 public meeting to be convened for the purpose of forming an as- 
 sociation. 
 
 Determined that the Institute should not be smothered by rival 
 interests, Mr. Keating and myself, aided by Dr. R. E. Griffith 
 and G. W. Smith, who were deeply interested in its success, had 
 circulars printed to the number of 12 or 1500. One of us read 
 from the Directory probable names, and the others addressed the 
 notes to every person who from his occupation would be likely 
 to favor the movement. These notes were distributed through 
 the post-office, and the result was the assembling of more citizens 
 than could be crowded into the county court-house, the place 
 agreed on. 
 
 This meeting, of which no record exists within my knowledge, 
 was presided over by James Ronaldson, Esq., and after the pur- 
 poses of the proposed Institution had been fully explained by Col. 
 P. A. Browne and others, an animated discussion took place 
 until the subject was fully understood by a highly intelligent as- 
 sembly, who unanimously accorded their approbation of the pur- 
 pose in view. After which the constitution w r as presented, criti- 
 cally discussed, and after amendment was unanimous^ adopted, 
 and a day fixed for the election of officers from those w r ho should 
 previously enroll their names, and which numbered some three 
 to four hundred. 
 
 The election having taken place, the Franklin Institute assumed 
 its position among the Institutions of the State, find has since 
 attained a gratifying pre-eminence. 
 
 The meeting was a perfect success ; and the novel mode of 
 throwing the Association open to the world without the interven- 
 tion of cliques, made it universally popular. 
 
 I have been, perhaps, more minute in details than would be 
 proper for a public purpose, but having prepared them for your 
 eye, it may be pardoned. 
 
 I simply desire to secure a record of these proceedings some- 
 where, and therefore request that, when you have perused this, 
 you will consign it to one of your " pigeon holes" for future re- 
 ference, if occasion should occur. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 S. V. MERRICK. 
 
43 
 
 AFTER the music had ceased, which followed Mr. 
 Fraley's address, the President announced the next 
 speaker, saying that, in seeking for some one to speak 
 on the progress of the arts and sciences during the 
 period comprised in the existence of the Franklin 
 Institute, it was but natural that the committee 
 should look to the University of Pennsylvania for a 
 fitting person. The teachers of that great school have 
 been prominent in our scientific work, so that some- 
 how the two institutions seem almost as if connected. 
 Thus, the Professor of Chemistry in the medical de- 
 partment of the University is also a vice-president 
 of the Franklin Institute; being himself not only a 
 chemist and physician, but has shown himself to be 
 a mechanic too in the highest sense of the word ; he 
 has made himself familiar with the progress of the 
 mechanic arts, and knows well the part played by 
 the sciences in that progress. I now introduce to 
 the audience Dr. ROBERT E. EOGERS, Vice-President 
 of the Franklin Institute. 
 
 ADDRESS OF PROF. ROBERT E. ROGERS. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: 
 
 For a country which will two years hence cele- 
 brate only its first ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY as 
 a Nation, occasions like the present are rare and of 
 peculiar interest. 
 
 Fifty years ago, the Franklin Institute of Phila- 
 delphia pledged itself to the sciences and the arts ; 
 on that occasion it promised them its love and de- 
 votion ; during the interval that has since elapsed 
 
44 
 
 they have lived together in happy companionship. 
 To-night we celebrate their GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 Permit me, Mr. President, to thank you cordially 
 for the words of compliment with which you have 
 introduced me, and to express my high sense of the 
 honor which the Institute has bestowed in assigning 
 to me the responsible and difficult duty which I am 
 called upon this evening to perform. 
 
 This honor I should have felt myself constrained 
 to decline, in view of the almost unlimited range 
 of the theme and an oppressive consciousness of 
 insufficient time amid my other labors for the 
 preparation of anything worthy of the occasion, but 
 for the assurance of friends, that all allowance will be 
 made for any short-comings. I have, therefore, con- 
 sented to attempt to sketch, in brief outline, some 
 of the more important discoveries in science, and 
 improvements in the arts, which have been made 
 during these past fifty years within the lifetime of 
 the Franklin Institute. 
 
 A little more than a hundred years ago, the 
 genius of Watt produced a marvel in the shape of a 
 practical steam engine ;(!)* and Fulton, and Stevens, 
 and others in this country had, a little later, made 
 successful application of it on rivers and lakes. But 
 it was left for the period we are here met to com- 
 memorate to spread the network of the iron rail, 
 almost over the surface of the globe; and to intro- 
 duce the Locomotive not, it is true, in its perfect 
 form, but in those two vital features which, in 1829, 
 were successfully applied by Robert Stephenson 
 namely, the injection of the exhaust steam into the 
 
 * All the references in the text refer to the notes in the Ap- 
 pendix. 
 
45 
 
 smoke-stack, and the multitubular form of boiler ; 
 the former originating in the fertile brain of Ste- 
 phenson, the latter, it is stated, the suggestion of Mr. 
 Booth, who was then in the interest of the Liver- 
 pool and Manchester Railway Company; inventions 
 which alone give to the machine that steam-generat- 
 ing power adequate to fulfil the requirements of 
 trade and travel, and which, to this day, have not 
 been superseded. (2)* 
 
 Who has not read, with enthusiastic admiration, 
 of the competitive trial on the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway, of the Rocket, the Novelty, and the 
 Sans Pareil, of October, 1829, in which the former, 
 that of Stephenson, so triumphantly took the prize ? 
 
 At this period it had been ascertained that, on 
 level tracts and with moderate loads, the tires of 
 the driving wheels might be smooth. 
 
 The next result to be accomplished was to dis- 
 pense with cog-wheels and notched rails, stationary 
 engines and inclined planes, and to enable the loco- 
 motive not only to draw at high speed its ponderous 
 train of cars over the level track, but also to climb 
 steep grades by a power within itself. This was 
 effected by the discovery made quite within the 
 period we note, that by sufficiently loading the en- 
 gine over the driving wheels, and by increasing the 
 number of the driving wheels, their adhesion is ren- 
 dered adequate to overcome the increased resistance 
 due to gravity, and to enable it thereby with almost 
 equal facility to cross the mountain as to traverse 
 the plain.(3) 
 
 Much credit is due to Mr. Moncure Robinson for 
 
 * This is the usually accepted history of these improvements. 
 For another statement see note 2 of Appendix. 
 
46 
 
 
 
 his zeal and perseverance in urging the introduction 
 into the service of the Reading Railroad of this class 
 of locomotives, now so almost universally in use. 
 
 The interest awakened at home and abroad by the 
 performance of the Gowan & Marx, is so distinctly 
 pointed out by the able writer, M. Michel Chevalier, 
 in his treatise " Histoire et Description des Voies de 
 Communication aux Etats Unis,"(4) and by the late 
 Joseph Harrison, Jr., in his volume the "Locomo- 
 tive," that I deem it in place to make the quota- 
 tions given in the Appendix.(5) 
 
 To this period belongs also the mighty Marine En- 
 gine, and the improved form of propeller,(6) which, 
 revolutionizing navigation, have rendered the ocean 
 also a crowded highway of swiftly moving commerce. 
 Not a few of those here assembled will fail to recall 
 the curiosity and amazement with which they be- 
 held anchored in American waters, in succession, 
 the "Sirius" and the "Great Western," the first 
 steam-ships that had crossed the Atlantic, so proudly 
 solving the great problem that had agitated the 
 nautical and commercial world. (7) 
 
 Glancing over the industrial arts, there would 
 seem to be no end to the varied and multifarious 
 directions in which the potent energies of steam 
 have, in these recent years, been applied. 
 
 At an earlier period had been invented the cotton 
 gin of Whitney, to take the place of the tedious 
 process of hand picking ; and the spinning mule of 
 Cartwright, twisting from the thinnest fibre to the 
 stoutest cable; and the power loom of Arkwright, 
 weaving from the finest gossamer to the coarsest 
 canvas or carpet ; but favorably comparing with 
 these inventions, both in ingenuity and value to the 
 
47 
 
 world, are the steam printing presses of Hoe, and 
 of Bullock of our own time and country, and of 
 Walter, of England,(8) w T hich, with their almost 
 living fingers, and, as by human guidance, lift, and 
 carry, and turn over for the type the paper to be 
 printed, and are able to throw off an edition of one 
 hundred thousand double-printed sheets within the 
 brief space of a few hours ; and the Steam Hammer, 
 in its improved forms, with its delicate touch or 
 giant power that can shape the needle or forge the 
 anchor. 
 
 While we have snatched the oar from the sluggish 
 barge, and torn the white canvas from the kissing 
 breeze, and through the agencies of steam have 
 covered the rivers and the seas with those quick 
 and sure messengers of trade, whose wings no cur- 
 rent can arrest, and scarcely tide or tempest can 
 delay, so in the manufactory, where the weary horse 
 or fluctuating wind or stream slowly and unsteadily 
 performed their appointed tasks, we have planted 
 the engine with its highly improved capabilities, 
 whose untiring energy whirls the spindle or throws 
 the shuttle, and performs besides in its hundred 
 handed dexterity, with new forms of machinery, 
 every variety of labor, from that of pumping, saw- 
 ing, planing, hoisting, grinding, pounding, boring, 
 threshing, rolling, and propelling the furnace-blast, 
 to that of dragging the ponderous gang plough over 
 the stretches of our western prairies. 
 
 It was as far back as 1790 that Galvani evoked 
 the first fact in dynamic electricity ; this led to 
 Yolta's discovery in 1800 of the Voltaic pile, and 
 the device of the crown of cups ; and was followed 
 later in the same year by the startling discoveries 
 
48 
 
 by Davy of the true nature of the battery's action, 
 and by its agency of the metals of the alkalies and 
 alkaline earths. 
 
 While all honor and admiration are due to each of 
 these gifted philosophers, it was reserved for a period 
 almost within the last half century to witness the 
 experiments of Oersted and Ampere in the deflection 
 of the magnetic needle by the galvanic current, the 
 magnetization of iron by the same influence, by 
 Arago, and within this period, of Sturgeon and our 
 own Prof. Henry (9) to produce the electro-magnet, 
 and of Faraday the once humble bookbinder to 
 write his name in letters of gold among men, for 
 his extensive and profound researches in electricity, 
 static and dynamic. 
 
 Upon the combined discoveries and researches of 
 these philosophers is based that second marvel of 
 modern civilization the Electric Telegraph the 
 most prominent forms of which are those of Morse 
 and Wheatstone, the Mechanical(lO) and the Needle 
 or oscillating, the one for the land, the other for the 
 sea. 
 
 Wonderful as is this achievement, it is but one of 
 the innumerable fruits of these discoveries, which so 
 much contribute to the comfort, enjoyment, and re- 
 finement of mankind. 
 
 Mark for instance the whole range of Electro- 
 chemistry ; the decomposition by the galvanic cur- 
 rent, of the metallic salts in the processes of electro- 
 plating of copper, nickel, silver, and gold, whereby 
 engravings of maps and verniers, busts, medals, and 
 other objects of use and ornament may be reproduced 
 as perfect fac-similes, and the beautiful semblance 
 of the precious metals made to take the place of 
 
49 
 
 base and less attractive alloys; and the dissipation 
 of the threatening tumor and treatment of other 
 maladies by its destructive chemical or heating 
 powers. 
 
 And then the electro-carbon light whose splendor 
 is only surpassed by that of the sun himself. And 
 again the no less powerful but more convenient 
 -magneto-electric light, which now glows from the 
 towers of Le Hevre and Dungeness to warn the 
 storm-beaten and bewildered mariner as he approaches 
 the rock-bound coast.(ll) 
 
 Witness through electro-magnetism the various 
 signal instruments, as the burglar-alarm, the fire- 
 alarm, the factor} 7 and depot-watchman's check 
 clock, and more valuable perhaps than many of 
 these, the chronograph, by which the longitudes of 
 places on the earth's surface are ascertained with 
 more precision than ever before attained, replacing 
 the old methods of determining the occurrence of 
 celestial phenomena, such as the transit of stars and 
 planets, wherein the observation is recorded directly 
 by the touch of an electro-magnetic trigger, a 
 method known and recognized as the American 
 method, instead of by the eye and hand. 
 
 In this connection must be named the whole cata- 
 logue of the constant galvanic batteries, those of 
 Daniel, Grove, Bunsen, and Callan, and the water 
 batteries of Gassiot, and that of the Bichromate of 
 Potassium and Sulphuric Acid, and later, the Gravity 
 battery, without whose agency the manifold modern 
 applications of this subtile power could not have 
 been accomplished. (12) And here too we must men- 
 tion the steam electrical machine devised by Arm- 
 strong, and so fully investigated by Faraday. 
 
50 
 
 Within this same period we are also to note the 
 remarkable discovery of Diamagnetism by that great 
 man and his researches therein, and the discovery 
 by Seebeck of a whole new class of phenomena 
 under the title of Thermo-electricity, and also the 
 device of those curious and instructive instruments 
 for the production of induced electricity, the Ruhm- 
 korff and Ritchie coils, the Holtz and Toepler and 
 other non-friction electrical machines with their 
 brilliant companions for illustration, the vacuum 
 tubes of Gassiot, Geissler, and GaifFe, and the cas- 
 cade of Gassiot ; and under the same head we are to 
 make record of the practical applications of these 
 agencies as seen in the blasting of rocks, and the 
 exploding of mines and torpedoes in marine warfare. 
 
 We turn next to the field of astronomy, and here 
 it is curious to note, in passing, that a period of fifty 
 years (as referred to by Sir David Brewster) seems to 
 have been the interval between each important step 
 in connection with the great instrument of research 
 in that science the Telescope. 
 
 After the telescope of Galileo, came that of New- 
 ton ; and fifty years after that of Newton, was con- 
 structed that of Hadley .; fifty years after Hadley's, 
 the instrument of Sir William Herschel, by which so 
 many grand and startling discoveries were achieved. 
 
 Fifty years later brings us to our own epoch, when 
 we are permitted to gaze with astonished vision 
 through those marvellous productions of Lord ROSB, 
 Alvan Clark, and Lassel ; instruments capable of 
 bringing the moon, lying in space 240,000 miles 
 away ,(13) to the near distance of 90 miles, revealing 
 its rocks, mountains, valleys, and extinct volcanoes : 
 "the crescent of the planet Venus with its moun- 
 
51 
 
 tainous outline," the system of double and treble stars, 
 the nebulae, and starry clusters of every variety of 
 shape, and those " spiral nebular formations," which, 
 while they awaken unbounded curiosity and restless 
 speculation, continue to baffle human comprehension. 
 
 In this domain of science we are called upon to 
 record, as made within the period of which we are 
 now speaking, observations and discoveries of the 
 highest interest. Thus, those regularly recurring 
 showers of meteors, which, within the last half 
 century, have so much attracted the attention of 
 astronomers, and which were first distinctly proved 
 by our countryman, Olmsted, to be rings or groups 
 of bodies, revolving around the sun, in orbits inter- 
 secting the pathway of the earth, have, of late, been 
 considered as arranging themselves into some rela- 
 tionship with Cometary forms, and are regarded as 
 being most probably so many great companies of 
 far out-lying skirmishers to those attenuated bodies. 
 
 Within this period the list of Asteroids, which 
 was before only four, has been increased to more 
 than one hundred and thirty; and through the patient 
 toil, philosophical acumen in dealing with the intri- 
 cate question of planetary perturbations, and the 
 profound mathematical calculations of Leverrier, 
 Adams, and Peirce, a new world has been discovered, 
 to take its place among the sisterhood of planets, 
 having eight times the diameter, or more than five 
 hundred times the cubical mass of the planet upon 
 which we dwell a discovery which will shine forth 
 in eternal commemoration of one of the grandest 
 efforts of the human intellect in modern times. 
 
 Cognate with astronomy is the science of optics. 
 
 During the past fifty years whole regions of hith- 
 erto unexplored territory have been mapped out ; 
 
52 
 
 distinct and totally new branches of the subject have 
 sprung into existence. Indeed, it may be questioned 
 whether any department of human knowledge has 
 been so prolific in discovery and so rich in the ac- 
 cessions of truth within this period as this one of 
 Light. 
 
 The Emission theory of Newton was opposed, and 
 the doctrine of Wave motion was advocated by Huy- 
 gen and Euler long anterior, yet the wave doctrine 
 did not take its final shape until a much later period. 
 
 The philosophical mind of Dr. Thomas Young, 
 who died no earlier than 1829, had grasped this 
 theory of light, and had contributed much towards 
 establishing it by his experiments and calculations. 
 There was needed, however, some further testimony 
 in its behalf to secure its general adoption. This 
 was supplied by the experiments and mathematical 
 calculations of Fresnell ; and it has now become the 
 universally accepted view. 
 
 This point established and it has been done with- 
 in the past five decades the lifetime to-day of the 
 Franklin Institute, we may now call up, in rapid 
 narration, not attempting any strictly chronological 
 order, some of the more prominent discoveries in 
 this branch of science. 
 
 Although Mai us had discovered the polarization 
 of light by reflection as early as 1810, and the same 
 philosopher, and Biot and Brewster had a little later, 
 and independently of each other, discovered the same 
 result by refraction, yet we can claim justly for the 
 period in which we are now interested, the addition 
 of many important observations and discoveries 
 which have contributed to render this branch of 
 
53 
 
 knowledge one of the most interesting as well as 
 one of the most perfect of the physical sciences. 
 Among the illustrious names to be mentioned in this 
 connection, besides those referred to, are Arago and 
 Sir John Herschel. 
 
 While the great improvements referred to, in the 
 telescope, were in progress, the instrument by which 
 we are enabled to look into the intimate structure of 
 the materials around us, was receiving steadily new 
 accessions, both to its power and to the variety ot 
 its applications. Although the Microscope, in its 
 early and simple form, was a means of important 
 discovery especially in the structure of organic forms, 
 it was not until within the last fifty years, that it 
 received those improvements, which fitted it for ac- 
 curate and precise research. 
 
 These improvements, commencing with Pritchard, 
 Oberhauser, and Chevallier, and advancing in the 
 workshops of Ross, Powel and Leland, Smith and 
 Beck, Nachet, and others in Europe, and in those of 
 Spencer, Wales, Towles, and Zentmayer in this 
 country, have at length given to the naturalist and 
 Investigator in Physics a means of exploration, 
 which, in the marvels of its discoveries among the 
 almost infinitely small parts of bodies, rivals and 
 perhaps excels the stupendous revelations of the 
 telescope among the masses and spaces of the 
 heavens. 
 
 By the increased power and perfection of its com- 
 posite objectives, and the use of polarizing and 
 other appendages, it has become one of the most 
 precious of our " instruments of precision," giving 
 us, among other results, so clear and faithful a view 
 of the minutest living structure, as to enable us 
 
54 
 
 to mark the elementary cell in each stage of its de- 
 velopment, and leading us to that great physiologi- 
 cal law which makes the living microscopic cell the 
 physical origin of every organic form and of all 
 organic growth. 
 
 Nor let us omit to mention, that while thus enlarg- 
 ing our philosophical conception of the relation of 
 living tissues and forms, it becomes in the hands oi 
 the physician, an instrument of essential daily use in 
 judging of the nature and seat of disease, guiding to 
 a wise diagnosis and an enlightened treatment. 
 
 In connection with the chemical action of light, a 
 vast field of observation and discovery has been ex- 
 plored. 
 
 It is probable that Watt and Bolton in 1799 suc- 
 ceeded in taking sun pictures on paper, although no 
 written account of their method has been transmitted 
 to us ; and it is well established that in 1802, Sir 
 Humphry Davy and Thomas Wedge wood actually 
 accomplished the same result ; but it was not until 
 Niepce and Daguerre, of Paris, between the years 
 1827 and 1839 successfully devised the method of 
 producing those extraordinary heliographic pictures, 
 known as the Daguerrotype. 
 
 Who that is of sufficient age does not remember 
 the amazement and delight with which he first in- 
 spected those charming pictures of trees and build- 
 ings, landscapes and grazing herds, with all their 
 minutest details sketched by the sun, on the silver 
 plate with his own actinic pencil ; and then a little 
 later their intense enjoyment through the sentiment 
 involved, of those speaking portraits of loving friends, 
 first produced by our philosophic investigator Prof. 
 Draper ? 
 
55 
 
 In 1839 Mr. Fox Talbot first successfully produced 
 what he called "photogenic" drawings, upon paper 
 first charged with iodide of silver, then dipped in 
 nitrate of silver and subsequently in iodide of potas- 
 sium, and after exposure to the object developed to 
 view, by washing in a mixture of aceto-nitrate and 
 gallic acid, and finally fixed by means of hyposul- 
 phite of sodium. 
 
 From this has sprung the exquisite art of modern 
 photography, which in its many sided applications 
 has become a familiar and almost necessary member 
 of every household. 
 
 Quickly following the Talbotype, we have had de- 
 vised in rapid succession an almost endless variety of 
 modifications of the paper photograph, and we now 
 witness as but of yesterday that triumph of patient 
 skill in this same progress, the Woodburytype, which 
 first calls upon the sun to paint his faithful picture 
 upon the sensitized film, then transfers it with un- 
 failing accuracy to a metallic plate, from which it 
 may be printed on paper by means of appropriate 
 ink, as in lithographic or copperplate work. 
 
 To this may be added the still more recent, and 
 perhaps more perfect invention just coming into use, 
 which, under the name of the Heliotype accomplishes 
 the same end by printing directly from the film itself, 
 hardened after it has received the picture. 
 
 Nor should we, in this enumeration of the achieve- 
 ments of photography, omit to mention its uses to the 
 astronomer. 
 
 The world has already become familiar with those 
 remarkable photographic pictures of the moon, ob- 
 tained by our ingenious countryman, Mr. Rutherford, 
 in which is depicted, with marvellous fidelity, every 
 
56 
 
 feature of our satellite which the telescope reveals. 
 And at this very moment, another of our country- 
 men, the astronomer Gould, in his observatory nt 
 Cordoba, on the plains of the Upper La Plata, is 
 engaged in mapping, by photographic instruments 
 and processes, and with a precision unequalled by 
 any other method, the constellations of the Southern 
 hemisphere. 
 
 In 1802, Dr. Wollaston, allowing the light of the 
 sun, after passing through a narrow slit in a darkened 
 room, to fall upon a prism of glass, observed a few 
 dark lines crossing at different places, the prismatic 
 spectrum. 
 
 In 1814, the skilful optician, Fraunhofer, counted 
 and mapped as many as 576 of these lines. He 
 ascertained that light so treated, if it were of the 
 sun, whether as his direct rays or by reflection, as 
 from the moon or any of the planets, gave these lines 
 always in precisely the same relative position to each 
 other, and to the colors of the spectrum ; and, on the 
 other hand, that when the light of the stars, which are 
 self-luminous, was so observed, it gave for each star 
 its own dark lines, and differently located from those 
 of the sun. He was able to assign no reason for these 
 phenomena, but concluded that they were due to a 
 cause beyond the influence of our Atmosphere. 
 
 After an interval of some years, in which little of 
 direct observation had been made, a new impulse was 
 given to the investigation of these phenomena. 
 J. W. Draper, of this country, M. Faucoult of 
 France, Drs. Balfour Stewart, and Miller of Eng- 
 land, had enunciated a doctrine known as that of 
 " exchanges," more especially in connection with 
 
57 
 
 the phenomena of radiation and absorption of 
 caloric.(14)* 
 
 This, followed out with the aid of sagacious gene- 
 ralizations and ingeniously devised experiments, in 
 the hands of Kirchoff, culminated in that grand dis- 
 covery which, under the name of spectrum analysis, 
 not only furnishes the means of the most delicate 
 qualitative determination of substances even to the 
 discovery of new elements, but extending its powers 
 beyond the earth, has supplied us with a solar and 
 stellar chemistry. 
 
 Truly the revelations of science are more strange 
 than fiction. 
 
 Who that saw with Wollaston, for the first time, 
 a few dark lines traced at intervals across the column 
 of the prismatic spectrum, could have conceived that 
 they should lead to the amazing discoveries and 
 generalizations which have followed, and that to-day 
 we should witness Kirchoff, Bunsen, Huggens, Lock- 
 yer, Jansen, and Secchi, pointing their spectroscope 
 to the skies to bid the sun, and planets, and stars, and 
 even the comets and nebulae themselves to reveal to 
 man the hidden secrets of their nature and composi- 
 tion ? 
 
 Next in sequence we may properly speak of the 
 kindred branch of science Acoustics that fascinat- 
 ing subject which has ever been a source of delight 
 to the student of the laws which govern the pheno- 
 
 * Dr. John W. Draper has, in the number of "Nature" for 
 July 30th of the present year, entered a reclaimer, in connection 
 with the announcement of the fundamental facts, on which rests 
 the doctrine of Spectrum Analysis. I deem it due that distin- 
 guished investigator to quote his statement. See Appendix. 
 5 
 
58 
 
 mena of sound, and of exquisite enjoyment in its 
 musical relation to the mass of mankind. 
 
 Yet it is interesting and singular to note that, 
 while men have lived in the grand musical triumphs 
 of each period in succession, musical composition 
 and execution have been, in a great measure, inde- 
 pendent of the science of its physical phenomena. 
 It is, indeed, to be doubted whether Handel, Hay- 
 den, Mozart, or Bethoven ever concerned themselves 
 at all with the wave length of this note or that, or 
 whether they even knew accurately the relative 
 length of strings or pipes, which produced one octave 
 above another. 
 
 Therefore, since the esthetic relations, and all the 
 charms of music could be realized without the labors 
 of the experimenter and the natural philosopher, it 
 is not unnatural that within the term of years in 
 which we are now particularly interested, no great 
 number of marked discoveries of facts should have 
 been made. Yet RO attractive is the whole subject 
 of sound, not only as a study within itself, but in 
 its relations to the phenomena of light and heat, 
 which it is so well adapted to elucidate, it was to be 
 expected that it would be made the theme of exten- 
 sive illustration. Therefore in the department of 
 experimental acoustics, few branches of science have 
 within these recent years witnessed a progress so 
 great. To the ingenuity and skill of Savart, See- 
 beck, Cladni, Wheatstone, Lissajeau, Helmholtz, 
 Koenig, Kundt, and Mayer, of Hoboken, we are in- 
 debted for the large ' portion of the instructive ap- 
 paratus seen at the present time on the counter of 
 the lecture room. (15) 
 
 Let us next visit the laboratory of the chemist, 
 
59 
 
 look into the furnace of the metallurgist, and enter 
 the dye-house of the manufacturer, to take account 
 of a few of the results which have been accomplished 
 in these directions within the last fifty years ; and 
 here a processson of almost endless length passes 
 before our view. 
 
 We witness, just on the verge of the period we 
 are discussing, the first distinct isolation, from Peru- 
 vian bark, of that precious alkaloid Quinia, whose 
 wondrous sanative powers have rescued so many 
 sufiferers from malarious poisoning. We see im- 
 provements made in the extraction of nearly all the 
 remedial proximate principles, as Morphia, Quinia, 
 Strychnia, and the like, and the application to pur- 
 poses of blasting and mining of explosive compounds, 
 Fulminating mercury, Fulminating silver, White 
 Powder, Gun Cotton, and ]N"itro-glycerine, with its 
 modifications Dinamite and "Giant Powder." 
 
 We note the new treatment by Tilghman of fats 
 and oils for the separation of stearic and margaric 
 acid from glycerine for candles, and the uses of that 
 latter substance in medicine as well as in the arts ; 
 the manipulation of Gum-elastic by which it is on the 
 one hand rendered soluble and suitable to form belt- 
 ing, tubing, bags, and waterproof shoes, coats, blan- 
 kets, tents, etc., and on the other turned into Vulcanite 
 and Ebonite with their numberless applications ; and 
 of Gutta Percha too, that wonderful gum, so plastic 
 when warm, so firm and resisting when cold, and 
 so highly endowed with electro-insulating power. 
 
 We should do injustice to the profound science, 
 and the skill displayed in the chemical arts, did we 
 not here note those magnificent pigments and dyeing 
 materials which have, within recent years, been re- 
 
60 
 
 vealed by the treatment of coal tar, the waste pro- 
 duct of gas making. I allude to the various Aniline 
 colors whose rich brilliancy of tints vie with the 
 hues of the solar spectrum. 
 
 These are all dependent for their production upon 
 the discovery of Benzole, made by Faraday. 
 
 Among these products we have a bla*ck, blue, 
 green, brown, purple, pink, violet, yellow, and a red, 
 adapted for dyeing, for calico printing, the manu- 
 facture of the lake pigments and lithographic inks. 
 And, more singular than all, Alizarine, which re- 
 presents the coloring principles of madder furnish- 
 ing the first example of the synthetical production of 
 a natural coloring matter. 
 
 Thus we see, derived from the most humble origin ? 
 a rich variety of shades wherewith art may adorn 
 her work, or beauty and fashion array themselves. 
 
 In immediate connection with this theme, I would 
 here refer to those startling discoveries of Berthelot 
 and others recently given to the world, in which it 
 was ascertained that by the synthetic method, or by 
 what may be termed the inverted process of chemical 
 reaction, a large number of organic substances may 
 be produced, such as alcohol, wood spirit, grape 
 sugar, formic acid, and vinegar, without the instru- 
 mentality of a previous organic substance. 
 
 While thus referring to the recent labors of chem- 
 istry in works conducing to the power and wealth 
 and civilization of the world, we must not forget 
 those beneficient discoveries which have secured to 
 man immunity from pain in circumstances of other- 
 wise agonizing suffering ; for it is to this science that 
 we are indebted for those anaesthetic agents nitrous 
 oxide gas, ether, and chloroform which are now so 
 
61 
 
 universally employed in medicine and surgery, and 
 which are recognized by all as a precious boon to the 
 operating surgeon, and a priceless blessing to suffer- 
 ing humanity. 
 
 Leaving untouched, for want of time, the whole 
 of the sciences of geology and natural history, we 
 may glance at a few of the developments which 
 have been made within the last half century per- 
 taining to mining interests. 
 
 At the beginning of this period bituminous coals 
 were taken from the earth in Great Britain and on 
 the continent in quantities measured annually by 
 the few hundreds of thousands of tons ; now, the 
 quantity is summed up by millions. To-day the 
 yearly product of Great Britain alone is not less 
 than one hundred and ten millions of tons, an amount, 
 if estimated in mechanical energy, equal to a labor- 
 ing population of not fewer than twenty-Jive millions 
 of able-bodied men. 
 
 We have to record as discovered within this 
 period, the vast beds of anthracite coal, the black 
 diamond of our own State more precious than the 
 mines of Golconda which has added so vastly to 
 the prosperity and wealth, not only of this Com- 
 monwealth, but to that of the whole country ; to 
 refer to the petroleum of our western counties, 
 which, until within recent years, had been known 
 only in small quantity and as a useless object of 
 curiosity, now flowing or being pumped from innu- 
 merable artesian wells, and yielding, under chemical 
 treatment, lubricating and burning oils, volatile 
 products, as gasoline, rigolene, etc., with solid 
 paraffine for candles and telegraphic insulating pur- 
 poses; also to the mines of California, Colorado, 
 
62 
 
 Nevada, Utah, and Australia, rich in their precious 
 treasures of gold, silver, and mercury; and in this 
 connection, to those extraordinary devices of engi- 
 neering skill, those mountain canals or flumes, and 
 powerful hydraulic jets, for battering down the vast 
 auriferous gravel hills of some of these regions, for 
 the washing out and collection of their precious 
 contents. 
 
 In metallurgic processes great progress has been 
 made in the extraction and treatment of iron, cop- 
 per, lead, quicksilver, nickel, aluminium, and the 
 precious metals. 
 
 Thus the anthracite furnace has taken the place 
 of the charcoal furnace, and the hot blast has 
 superseded the cold blast in the smelting of iron ; 
 and more striking than these is the improved manu- 
 facture of steel by the remarkable method of Besse- 
 mer, accomplished by driving a blast of air through 
 molten iron just after it has been received from the 
 furnace in a clay-lined crucible, a process which 
 seerns destined to revolutionize this great branch of 
 industry. 
 
 And still more recently we have to hail as of to- 
 day, the discovery of that remarkable alloy of cop- 
 per and tin associated with a small percentage of 
 phosphorus, which seems to endow it with proper- 
 ties of great value. This substance has been named 
 Phosphor-bronze. 
 
 In the art of war, too, we are called upon to 
 chronicle vast changes. Whether these changes, 
 which are pointed to as improvements, and as mark- 
 ing a higher civilization, are really blessings or 
 otherwise, depends upon the result, whether a 
 greater and more inevitable destruction of life and 
 
63 
 
 property has had the effect of leading more gene- 
 rally to the substitution of arbitration for a resort to 
 arms. 
 
 The percussion cap and wafer, with their many 
 modes of use, among them the needle-gun, have su- 
 perseded the old flint lock ; the twisted barrel has 
 replaced the smooth bore ; the turreted monitor has 
 found its way into naval architecture in place of the 
 high-floating ship ; the iron armor has been substi- 
 tuted for the wooden sides, and the light ball has 
 yielded its place to the ponderous steel-pointed mis- 
 sile, charged with its destructive fulminate, until 
 the grim sarcasm comes to have a peculiar point, 
 that ships are made so strong that no balls can pierce 
 them, and balls so heavy, and sent so swiftly that no 
 ships can resist them. 
 
 In the earlier views in regard to the actions and 
 changes of matter, the opinion was entertained that 
 substances were often annihilated, and that with this 
 ended all that pertained to them. Thus, that in the 
 burning of a mass of coal, by the combustion it was 
 destroyed, and that the transient heat which it 
 evolved after communicating itself to surrounding 
 objects was then dissipated and lost. 
 
 Another view has now come to be adopted, this 
 is, that seeming destruction of a body is only its 
 transformation into some other shape, and the dis- 
 appearance of the energy attending that transmu- 
 tation is only the conversion of one force into another. 
 The latter statement is, in brief, an expression of the 
 modern doctrine of the " correlation and conserva- 
 tion of the physical forces." 
 
 The first step towards this great generalization is 
 doubtless due to our own countryman, Benjamin 
 
64 
 
 Thompson, afterwards Count Rumford, whose famous 
 experiment of the rotation of a solid plunger re- 
 volving within a hollow cylinder of iron surrounded 
 by water, demonstrated that heat might be pro- 
 duced for an indefinite length of time by continuous 
 friction, and led him to the sagacious conclusion that 
 the motion, was actually converted into heat; in other 
 words, that the visible motion of the revolving mass 
 was changed by the friction into a vibratory motion 
 of the particles of the apparatus and surrounding 
 water, and that this latter motion constituted the 
 heat developed, that is, that heat is but a "mode of 
 motion" 
 
 This conclusion, in recent years confirmed by 
 various researches and by like processes of experi- 
 ment and mathematical analysis, through the labors 
 of Mayer, Joule, Grove, Wm. Thompson, Helmholtz, 
 Clausius, Faraday, and Tyndall, has been developed 
 into a comprehensive law now universally accepted, 
 a law which embraces not only mechanical power 
 and heat, but also light, electricity, magnetism, 
 and chemical action in one grand bond of mutual 
 correlation or equivalency. 
 
 To complete the list of topics that might come 
 within the province of the duty assigned me, it 
 would be necessary to transfer to my pages the 
 contents of the scientific and practical journals of the 
 world. I will, therefore, close the enumeration by 
 naming, without adhering to chronological order, 
 only a few out of the many that have a claim to 
 consideration. Thus, the mechanical mowers and 
 reapers, the Ericsson air-engine, the gas-engines of 
 Lenoir and Hugon, the infinite variety of sewing 
 machines, the fog-horn, street railways, the ice ma- 
 
65 
 
 chine, the sand blast of the Tilghman Brothers, the 
 gunpowder pile-driver, the manufacture of carbonate 
 of sodium by Le Blanc's process, and the revival of an 
 old process by the reaction between carbonate of am- 
 monium and chloride of sodium, the manufacture of 
 lucifer matches, the preservation of meats and vege- 
 tables, the silvering of glass by metallic silver instead 
 of by mercury, the introduction of carbolic acid and 
 the permanganate of potassium as disinfectants, the 
 preparation of oxygen by the continuous method, 
 and of chlorine by the revival of the binoxide of 
 manganese. And in connection with education, the 
 creation of institutions for instruction in applied 
 sciences, of Institutes of Technology (16). And, lastly, 
 in the noble field of benevolence, the introduction 
 of the humane and merciful treatment of those de- 
 prived of reason, in place of the cruelties of the 
 strait jacket and the terrors of the ducking stool. 
 
 Did time permit, I would attempt to recall to 
 your minds in detail, however imperfect the effort, 
 wherein this Institute has done its part, but 
 to do this I should weary your patience. I will, 
 therefore, simply refer to the experiments it has 
 conducted in the investigation of the strength of 
 materials; to its careful search into the causes of 
 steam-boiler explosions ; to the numerous reports of 
 its committees upon matters within its province; to 
 its library of valuable scientific and practical works 
 for consultation ; its collections of minerals and 
 models, the one a help and to give incentive to the 
 study of an important practical branch of natural 
 science bearing upon mining interests, the other 
 facilitating inventive talent ; to the courses of in- 
 structive lectures delivered during each winter 
 
66 
 
 upon physics, chemistry, geology, and other scien- 
 tific and practical branches; to its monthly meet- 
 ings for the reading and discussion of papers upon 
 science and the arts, and the exhibition of novel 
 inventions ; and then to those unseen but deeply 
 felt influences which it has exerted, in aiding seekers 
 after information in various directions of thought, 
 by guiding them to persons and authors best capable 
 of supplying their wants. 
 
 I would refer also to its Drawing School, where 
 large numbers of young men and women nightly re- 
 sort, for the acquirement, under able instructors, of 
 that art so valuable in almost every walk of life. 
 
 And, lastly, to its Journal, the pioneer reporter 
 of the mechanic arts in this country, which, keep- 
 ing pace with the progress of science and industry, 
 is to-day a living representative of many of the 
 largest interests of our country. With such a record 
 of the past, may not our Institute anticipate yet 
 brighter prospects in the future, and should we not 
 all exclaim in earnest words, " Esto perpetua" ? 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 (1) In 1763 James Watt, of Greenock, Scotland, devised his 
 first form of low pressure Steam Engine. In this engine the 
 steam was condensed directly within the steam cylinder. 
 
 In 1765 he introduced the use of a separate condenser, thereby 
 greatly economizing the steam. In this form it was single act- 
 ing that is, it received the steam on but one side of the piston, 
 and was only adapted to the purposes of pumping. 
 
 In 1784 he caused the steam to act upon both sides of the piston, 
 and thus invented the double-acting engine. 
 
 Between this date and 1800 he added many important details 
 improved the system of condensation, and finally added the cut- 
 off by which the steam could be used expansively, thus perfect- 
 ing the machine which, in its great principles has not since been 
 displaced. 
 
67 
 
 (2) Long anterior to this period Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, 
 employed a single large tube or flue passing through his boilers, 
 to enable the heated products of combustion to act more efficiently 
 on the water. 
 
 It is due to this highly gifted inventor to state that he was the 
 first to put into practical application the use of high steam, in 
 what is now known as the high-pressure steam-engine and 
 that he is also a competitor for the honor of having first applied 
 the paddle wheel to the propulsion of boats. 
 
 Prof. Tresca, of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, Paris, 
 in his Treatise on the Steam Engine, awards to Joel Barlow, 
 author of the "Columbiad," the credit of priority in the inven- 
 tion of the Multitubular Boiler. 
 
 A gentleman who has had access to the original papers of 
 Oliver Evans, has furnished the following statement, which I 
 deem it proper to here quote : 
 
 " The first essential to the modern locomotive, is the high pres- 
 sure steam-engine, and British writers generally accord it to 
 Messrs. Trevithick and Vivian, who in 1802, took out in England 
 a patent therefor ; but, in the American edition of the 2d English 
 edition of Wood's 'Treatise on Railroads,' 1831, Messrs. Tre- 
 vithick and Vivian are distinctly charged with having copied, 
 without acknowledgment, the plans and specifications of Oliver 
 Evans, which in 1794-5 were sent by him to England, in charge 
 of Mr. Joseph Stacy Sampson. I also find that in a work entitled 
 the 'Young Steam Engineer's Guide,' written by Oliver Evans, 
 and published in Philadelphia in 1805, Mr. Evans speaks of 
 having in 1794-5, sent 'drawings, specifications, and explana- 
 tions' of his plans to England, ' to be shown to steam engineers.' 
 Mr. Evans also speaks of Mr. Joseph Stacy Sampson, of Boston, 
 who, he states, carried the papers to England, and ' died there, 
 but the papers may have survived.' 
 
 "The multitubular boiler, which, next to the high -pressure 
 engine, forms the most essential part of the steam carriage, is by 
 Smiles, who wrote in 1857, accorded to George Stephenson, but 
 I find that both Nicholas Wood, and Dr. Lardner (high British 
 authorties on the steam-engine), who respectively wrote in 1831 
 and 1835, distinctly declare the multitubular boiler to be due to 
 Mr. Booth, Treasurer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 
 who they state suggested to Mr. Stephenson the use of the tubes, 
 to conduct the heated air through the boiler of his engine the 
 * Rocket' which won the prize in the competitive test on the 
 
68 . 
 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Indeed, both Mr. Wood 
 and Dr. Lardner concur in stating, that a portion of the 500 
 prize won by the ' Rocket' was paid to Mr. Booth. 
 
 " It is a curious fact that the multitubular boiler in all its essen- 
 tial particulars existed in America almost one-third of a century 
 before its introduction into Great Britain. The boiler which 
 Oliver Evans had devised to generate steam for his high-pressure 
 engine had a tube to conduct the heated air through the water, 
 and in 1803 John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, took out a 
 patent for a boiler composed entirely of tubes, which, in 1805, 
 he also patented in England. A boiler constructed by Mr. Stevens 
 was * 2 feet long, 15 inches wide, and 10 or 12 inches high, and 
 consisted of 81 tubes, 2 feet long, and 1 inch in diameter.' But, 
 unfortunately, all of these tubes were filled with heated water 
 instead of heated air. 
 
 "In 1791, Col. James Rumsey, of Virginia, took out a patent for 
 a boiler consisting of 'homogeneous incurvated tubes.' Plans 
 and specifications of all three of these boilers found their way to 
 England ; Col. Rumsey 's as early as 1792-3. Is it too much to 
 surmise, that the principles of construction they severally devel- 
 oped, ultimately suggested the multitubular boiler of the existing 
 locomotive ? 
 
 "Smiles claims for Stephenson the introduction of the exhaust 
 steam in the chimney stack, for the purpose of increasing the 
 draught of the furnace, but Nicholas Wood writes that in ' the 
 introduction of those engines it was necessary to resort to the 
 application of waste steam thrown upwards to create a sufficient 
 current of air through the fire. ' It seems that to Mr. Hackworth, 
 rather than to Mr. Stephenson, we are indebted for the complete 
 development of the principle. 
 
 "Smiles claims for Stephenson the discovery that sufficient 
 adhesion existed between the wheels of the steam carriage and 
 the rails for the purpose of locomotion, but Nicholas Wood, who 
 was present when Stephenson's engine was tried, accords the credit 
 to Mr. Blackett, and, speaking of Mr. Stephenson's engine, writes, 
 'grooved sheaves were fixed upon the hinder travelling wheels 
 of the engine, and similar grooved sheaves upon the fore wheels 
 of the convoy carriage containing the coals and water, with an 
 endless chain, working over each, to procure the adhesion of the 
 wheels of the convoy carriage, in addition to the adhesion of the 
 engine wheels ; but on trial it was not found necessary to resort 
 to the aid of this contrivance.' 
 
69 
 
 " In short, if Nicholas "Wood, Dr. Lardner, and others who 
 wrote nearly one-fourth of a century before Smiles, made truthful 
 record, the locomotive owes but little to the inventive genius of 
 Mr. Stephenson. Grave doubts exist as to the validity of every 
 important claim advanced by Smiles for him as the author, or 
 even improver of the steam carriage. Mr. Stephenson doubtless 
 acted an important part in executing the inventions of other and 
 more ingenious minds. But that, and that alone, appears to have 
 been the full extent of the services he rendered. 
 
 " But to return to Oliver Evans, of whom the Mechanic's Maga- 
 zine, published in London in 1850, speaks as the 'first projector 
 of steam travelling. ' It appears from the preface to the American 
 edition of Wood on Railroads, that before the termination of the 
 18th century, Mr. Evans ' urged the adoption of railways and 
 locomotives in lieu of canals.' The same authority declares, that 
 4 Mr. Evans urged in repeated addresses to the public, the con- 
 struction of a railroad from Philadelphia to New York, and in 
 1809 attempted to form a company for the purpose of effecting it, 
 purposing the investment of his whole fortune in the enterprise. ' 
 
 " In orderto accomplish his purpose, Oliver Evans ruthlessly, 
 as it were stripped from the steam-engine- the condenser and air 
 pumps, inventions of the celebrated James Watt, which by him 
 and the world w r ere thought to be absolutely essential thereto. 
 Mr. Evans retained the valve movement due Mr. Watt, with the 
 exception that he introduced the cut-off, and ' thus (to use his 
 own words) the piston is driven by strong puffs of steam, the 
 same that the air-gun drives its bullets.' 
 
 " He declared his improvement to be so great ' as to be without 
 a parallel,' but the opponents of innovation were a formidable 
 obstacle to its introduction. Mr. Evans writes that ' those learned 
 in error on this subject oppose their theories, corollaries and 
 demonstrations ; those who are well versed in the principles of 
 Watt and Bolton's engine, oppose their darling vacuums. The 
 English steam engineers bring forward their cocks, induction 
 pipes, air pumps, hot wells, sniffling valves, etc. etc.' At length 
 Mr. John Harrison, Messrs. Richards & Simmons, and Messrs. 
 Burtis, Moore & Keen, all of Philadelphia, purchased his engines, 
 and they worked so satisfactorily, that each of the parties indi- 
 cated concurred in publicly declaring over their respective signa- 
 tures, 'that they would rather pay Oliver Evans the price of one 
 of his engines, than accept as a present one of English construc- 
 tion.' Edward Mason, Jr., Daniel Bates, Hercules Whitney, 
 
70 
 
 Henry C. Coffin, and Isaac Stanford, all of Providence, Rhode 
 Island, who were mutually concerned in works which they stated 
 required 'great power,' did also over their signatures declare 
 that they had two of Oliver Evans's engines at work, that they 
 had compared it with Bolton and Watt's, ' and after satisfactory 
 investigation we gave Mr. Evans's the preference, and have had 
 it a sufficient time at work to prove its real worth, durability, and 
 cheapness compared with others.' They added that 'his method 
 of warming apartments by the heat of the steam of the engine 
 we consider a new and valuable discovery, consequently the ex- 
 pense of fuel chargeable to the engine is proportionably reduced.' 
 
 "From that time forward the use of Mr. Evans's engine be- 
 came general, and to-day it has so completely superseded that of 
 Mr. Watt, that with the exception of some engine for a steam- 
 boat on the rivers running into the Atlantic, the low-pressure 
 engine is almost unknown in the United States. 
 
 "In the absence of railways in the United States, Mr. Evans 
 proposed to introduce the steam carriage on turnpike roads, and 
 to that end made a proposition to the President and Directors of 
 the Lancaster Turnpike Company. The original draft of the 
 proposition is on my table as I write. It is dated September 26th, 
 1804. With his proposition, he directed attention to his inven- 
 tions and improvements for the manufacture of flour, also to his 
 inventions for making wire cards by machinery, etc. etc. He 
 said, 'This statement I make to you, to show, that I have 
 always hitherto been successful in my mechanical improvements, 
 and have never once failed in any attempt.' But he did fail to 
 induce the company to cooperate. The elevator, that to-day is so 
 much used for the handling of grain, was one of his inventioDS. 
 Some years before his death, Oliver Evans offered to build a 
 steam carriage that, on a level railway, should run fifteen miles 
 an hour, for double price, if it attained that speed, and nothing 
 if it did not. At the date of this offer (and for many years after- 
 wards) the highest speed of the best English engines was but 
 seven miles per hour. But to his family, and to his intimates, 
 he spoke of a much higher rate of speed. A gentleman has in- 
 formed the writer, that when he was a youth, Mr. Evans de- 
 clared to Judge Peters, and other gentlemen present, ' this boy, 
 (putting his hand on the boy's head) ' will live to ride behind one 
 of my engines as fast as a bird can fly,' 'which prediction,' my 
 informant said, ' I have lived to see verified.' It is due to 
 British writers to state, that some of them have gone beyond the 
 
71 
 
 patent of Trevithick and Vivian, and have frankly conceded the 
 high pressure engine to Oliver Evans. 
 
 "I have thrown the foregoing facts together ; perhaps at some 
 future day a more detailed narrative will show the enormous ma- 
 terial benefits that this country and indeed the entire civilized 
 world owes to the inventive genius, and unrequited labors of 
 Oliver Evans." 
 
 But Mr. Evans never lived to see his darling project of steam 
 travelling by rail fulfilled in the United States. 
 
 He died in 1819. 
 
 (3) Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia, of the firm of 
 Eastwick & Harrison, in 1839, at the instance of Moncure 
 Robinson, Esq., Civil Engineer of the Reading R. R. Company, 
 designed a new locomotive, intended to have great power for 
 the heavy freighting purposes of that company. This engine 
 was called the "Gowan and Marx." It weighed eleven tons, 
 which was heavy for that day, but light as compared with those 
 of the present. 
 
 By the method of disposing of the weight upon the " drivers," 
 it drew one hundred and one loaded cars. This was a most valu- 
 able step towards the settlement of the problem of cheap trans- 
 portation of heavy freights on railroads. 
 
 (4) M. Moncure Robinson a fait construire pour le chemin de 
 fer de Philadelphie a Pottsville par Reading, qui est destine a 
 transporter beaucoup de charbon, des locomotives non-seulement 
 a six roues, mais a huit partagees de meme en deux trains, et 
 d'une force tres-grande. On estime que leur puissance de trac- 
 tion ira a 400 tonnes avec tine faible vitesse. 
 
 Une de ces machines, le Gowan et Marx, a pour diametre des 
 cylindres O m .322 ; la course du piston est de O m .406. C'est la plus 
 lourde des machines de la compagnie, et celle dont les cylindres 
 ont le plus grand diametre. Cependant, a vide, elle ne pese que 
 9812 kilog., et en marche que 11,100 kilog. Elle es bien loin, 
 comme on voit, de celles qu'on emploie aujourd'hui sur les che- 
 miiis de fer de T Europe. Ainsi la compagnie de Saint -Germain 
 a Paris a des machines a detente dont le poids a tide es de 16,500 
 kilog., et ou les cylindres ont un diametre de O m .38. Avec de 
 fortes machines comme celles-ci, on obtiendrait sur le chemin de 
 fer de Philadelphie a Mount Carbon des result ats plus satisfais- 
 ants encore que ceux qui vont etre indiques. 
 
72 
 
 (5) "On one of its trips (February 20th, 1840), it drew a train 
 of one hundred and one four-wheel loaded cars from Reading to 
 Philadelphia, at an average speed of 9.82-f miles per hour, nine 
 miles of the road being a continuous level. The gross load on 
 this occasion was 423 tons, not including the engine and tender, 
 which, if the weight of the tender is counted, equalled forty times 
 the weight of the engine." 
 
 See "Journal of Franklin Institute," 1840, vol. 25, page 99, 
 Report of G. N. Nichols, Supt. Philadelphia and Reading Rail- 
 road, which closes as follows: "The above performance of an 
 eleven ton engine is believed to excel any on record in this or any 
 other country. It may be doubted whether it has been excelled 
 since. 
 
 "How strangely this feat of the Gowan and Marx compares with 
 the trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad in October, 
 1829, but ten years before, when all that was required of the com- 
 peting locomotives was, that they should draw about three times 
 their own weight t tender included, on a level track, five miles 
 long, especially prepared for the trial. The great success of the 
 Gowan and Marx, induced the Philadelphia and Reading Rail- 
 road Company to duplicate the plan of this engine in ten engines 
 subsequently built at Lowell, Mass. 
 
 " In 1840, the Gowan and Marx attracted the particular atten- 
 tion of the Russian engineers, Colonels Melnikoff and KrafFt, who 
 had been commissioned by the Emperor Nicholas to examine into 
 and report upon the various systems of railroads and railroad 
 machinery then in operation in this country and in Europe. 
 
 " The result of their examination was favorable to the American 
 system, and when the engineers above named made their report 
 on the construction of a railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 
 an engine upon the plan of the Gowan and Marx was recom- 
 mended as best adapted to the purposes of this first great line of 
 railroad in the Empire of Russia, and Eastwick and Harrison 
 were requested to visit St. Petersbu^ with the view of making a 
 contract for building the locomotives and other machinery for the 
 road. 
 
 " Mr. Harrison went to St. Petersburg in the spring of 1843, and 
 in connection with Mr. Thomas Winans, of Baltimore, a contract 
 was concluded with the government of Russia, at the close of the 
 same year, for building 162 locomotives, and iron trucks for 2500 
 freight cars. Mr. Eastwick joined Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winans 
 at St. Petersburg in 1844." 
 
73 
 
 (6) Although the propeller in its cruder forms had been at- 
 tempted many years before, no practically successful application 
 of the screw seems to have been made until 1836 and 1837. At 
 which time the result was accomplished by Sir Francis Pettit 
 Smith and Captain John Ericsson respectively, between whose 
 claims of priority there has been a difference of opinion. 
 
 " Within the past ten years the screw has entirely replaced the 
 paddle in transatlantic navigation, the weight of marine engines 
 has decreased one-half, the steam pressure has quadrupled, and 
 the consumption of coal has diminished two-thirds." (North 
 American and United States Gazette.) 
 
 For further information on this subject the reader is referred to 
 the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Article "Steam Navigation," 
 and Bourne's "History of Screw Propulsion." 
 
 (7) The Sinus left London for New York April 4th, 1838, and 
 arrived at New York April 22d, making the clear voyage in 
 seventeen days. 
 
 The Great Western left Bristol on April 7th, 1838 three days 
 later and reached New York on the 23d, making the voyage in 
 fifteen days. 
 
 (8) Of these presses the Walter seems to take precedence in 
 rapidity of work and simplicity of construction. 
 
 The inventors of the Walter Printing Press claim for it the 
 following points : 
 
 "1st. It is a perfecting machine printing on both sides at the 
 rate of 12,000 copies per hour, or from 10,000 to 11,000, including 
 stoppages. Ample provision has been made for overcoming the 
 difficulties of set-off; and, as there are only four composition 
 rollers used, and great care has been taken to make the cutting 
 and delivering processes certain, the liability to interruption is 
 reduced to a minimum. When changing from one reel to another, 
 the arrangements are such that the delay scarcely exceeds a 
 minute, and the reels are kept as large as possible for convenient 
 handling. 
 
 "2d. The labor employed when the Walter Press is in opera- 
 tion consists of two lads taking off, who suffice to expect and 
 count each sheet, and a striker to start the machine and look 
 after the reels as they are unwound. One overseer can easily 
 superintend two presses ; capable of turning out, with six un- 
 skilled hands, perfected sheets at the rate of from 20,000 to 22,000 
 6 
 
74 
 
 per hour, stoppages included. With four of these presses twelve 
 lads and two overseers ' The Times' is now printed at the rate 
 of more than 40,000 copies per hour ; (. <?.) in less than half the 
 time and with one-fifth the number of hands required by the 
 fastest and best printing machines previously in use. Moreover, 
 layers-on, who are highly-trained workmen, and must be paid 
 accordingly, are entirely dispensed with. 
 
 "3d. Attention is directed to the extreme simplicity of the 
 Walter Press in all its details. There is nothing about it liable, 
 with the usual ordinary care, to get out of order ; while a practi- 
 cally unlimited rate of production is secured by the repetition of 
 stereotype plates on additional machines to any extent that may 
 be required. Thus, newspapers of large circulation can be printed 
 with maximum economy of time and labor, and with a freedom 
 from risk in the process of production never before attainable. 
 The waste of paper may be stated at 5- per cent., but in connection 
 with the change of system newspaper proprietors and printers 
 will at once find that they obtain a knowledge of the kind of 
 article which is supplied by their papermakers how it counts 
 and weighs per ream, and what degree of uniformity it is pro- 
 duced never before realized. There is a considerable saving of 
 ink also, and in blankets and rollers. The exclusive use of 
 stereotype plates releases the ordinary type from all wear and 
 tear ; so that a fount lasts at least ten times as long as it could 
 under the former system. It is hardly necessary to add that with 
 the Walter Press the register must be practically perfect." 
 
 The Walter Press is used by the London Times, London Daily 
 News, Edinburgh Scotsman, also by a paper in Manchester, New 
 York Times, and St. Louis Republican. 
 
 (9) "Mr. Wm. Sturgeon, a native of London, about the year 
 1825, discovered that when wires of soft iron were placed within 
 the coil of a conducting wire, they were rendered intensely mag- 
 netic." Annals of PMlos., vol. xii. p. 359. 
 
 "Our knowledge of this subject was afterwards greatly ex- 
 tended during the period from 1828 to 1831, by the researches of 
 Professor Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, at 
 Washington." 
 
 "The instrument first used by Professor Henry, in 1828, to illus- 
 trate electro-magnetic action, consisted of an iron bar, two inches 
 square, twenty inches long, bent in a horse-shoe form, and weigh- 
 ing 21 pounds. The keeper weighed 7 pounds, and 540 feet of 
 insulated copper wire were wound in nine coils of 60 feet each 
 
75 
 
 around the horse -shoe shaped bar of soft iron. From the experi- 
 ments which he made with it, he proved that a small battery is ca- 
 pable of producing great magnetic effects, if the spirals of the coil 
 are numerous, and the resistance to the passage of electricity is 
 not very great. He also showed the effect of varying the lengths 
 of the conducting wires and the intensity of the current, and found 
 that six short wires were more powerful than three of double the 
 length. When the current was made to pass through all of the 
 nine coils, the magnet raised seven hundred and fifty pounds. 
 
 " Subsequently, Professor Henry constructed two of the largest 
 and most powerful instruments of this kind at present known. 
 One now in the cabinet of Yale College, weighing 59 pounds, 
 which sustained a weight of 2063 pounds ; another, belonging to 
 the cabinet of Princeton College, N. J., of 100 pounds weight, 
 which could support 3500 pounds, or one and a half tons." 
 
 (10) Prof. Henry says that, "in 1833, nothing remained to be 
 discovered in order to reduce the proposition of the electro-mag- 
 netic telegraph to practice. I had shown that the attraction of 
 an armature could be produced at any distance, and had designed 
 the kind of a battery and coil around the magnet to be used for 
 this purpose. I had also pointed out the fact of the applicabiliiy 
 of my experiments to the electro-magnetic telegraph. I make a 
 distinction between the terms discovery and invention. The 
 first relates to the development of new facts ; the second to the 
 application of these or other facts to practical purposes." House 
 Case, p. 93. (See Lectures on Magnetic Telegraph, by Laurence 
 Turnbull, M.D., p. 39.) 
 
 (11) The most improved forms of the magneto-electric machines 
 are those of Holmes, of Siemens, of Wild, of Ladd, and of 
 Gramme. 
 
 (12) While speaking of the Battery, let us not forget nor ignore 
 the inventions of one of the benefactors of science of our own 
 country, who, a little more than fifty years ago, feeling deeply 
 the want of more convenient forms, devised arrangements, which 
 were, at that time, by far the most perfect which had been con- 
 structed. 
 
 I refer to the Calorimotor, Deflagrator, and Tilting Batteries 
 of Dr. Robert Hare, late Professor of Chemistry in the Medical 
 Department of the University of Pennsylvania, described in 
 1819. 
 
76 
 
 The various forms of the modern non-constant Battery, in 
 which either the plates are lowered into the liquid, or the liquid 
 is lifted to the plates, are in mechanical principle but a reproduc- 
 tion of his Calorimotor and Deflagrator, affording but another 
 illustration where science, like history, often repeats itself. 
 
 (13) This statement is true at least of Mr. Alvan Clark's great 
 refractor lately erected in the National Observatory, Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 RECLAIMER OP DR. DRAPER. 
 
 (14) In my memoir "On the production of light by heat" (Phil. 
 Mag., May, 1847), I established experimentally the following 
 facts : 
 
 1. All solid substances and probably liquids become incandes- 
 cent at the same temperature. 
 
 2. The thermometric point at which some substances become 
 red hot is about 977 Fahrenheit degrees. 
 
 3. The spectrum of an incandescent solid is continuous ; it 
 contains neither bright nor dark fixed lines. 
 
 4. From common temperatures nearly up to 977 F., the rays 
 emitted by a solid are invisible. At that temperature they are 
 red, and the heat of the incandescing body being made conti- 
 nuously to increase, other rays are added, increasing in refrangi- 
 bility as the temperature rises. 
 
 5. Whilst the addition of rays so much the more refrangible as 
 the temperature is higher is taking place, there is an augmenta- 
 tion in the intensity of those already existing. 
 
 This memoir was published in both American and European 
 journals. An analysis of it was read in Italian before the Royal 
 Academy of Sciences at Naples, July, 1847, by M. Melloni, 
 which was also translated into French and English. 
 
 Thirteen years subsequently M. Kirchhoff published his cele- 
 brated memoir "On the relations between the coefficients of 
 emission and absorption of bodies for light and heat." A trans- 
 lation of this memoir may be found in the Philosophical 
 Magazine, July, 1860. 
 
 In this memoir, under the guise of mathematical deductions, 
 M. Kirchhoff, taking as his starting-point the condition discovered 
 by Angstrom in 1854, respecting the relations between the 
 emitting and absorbing powers of different bodies for light and 
 heat, among other things deduces the following facts. I give 
 them as they are succinctly stated by M. Jamin in his " Cours 
 de Physique de 1'ecole Polytechnique" (1869). 
 
77 
 
 1. Ail bodies begin to be red-hot at the same moment in the 
 same space, and become white-hot at the same time. 
 
 2. Black bodies begin to emit red rays near 525 C. (977 F.) 
 
 3. The spectrum of solids and liquids is devoid of fixed lines. 
 
 4. The rays first emitted by black bodies are red ; to these 
 are added successively and continually other rays, increasing in 
 refrangibility as the temperature rises. 
 
 In his celebrated memoir, and in subsequent publications on 
 the history of spectrum analysis, M. Kirchhoff abstains from 
 drawing attention to the coincidences I am here pointing out, 
 except that in a foot-note to his memoir he makes in a single 
 word allusion to mine. But from this no one would infer what 
 were really the facts of the case, and accordingly in the biblio- 
 graphical lists subsequently published, in works on spectrum 
 analysis, such as those of Prof. Roscoe and Dr. Schellen, my 
 memoir is not noticed. 
 
 I earnestly solicit those who take an interest in the history 
 of spectrum analysis to compare my memoir in the Philosophical 
 Magazine, May, 1847, with those published by M. Kirchhoff 
 thirteen years subsequently, on the radiating and absorbing 
 powers of bodies (Phil. Mag., July, 1860), and on the history 
 of spectrum analysis (Phil. Mag., April, 1863). 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. 
 
 UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, July 8. 
 
 (15) Among the more recent additions to our knowledge in 
 this branch of science, we may mention, the explanation of the 
 cause of dissonance, and the analysis of quality of tones and a 
 physiological theory of music by Helmholtz ; the discovery in 
 the ear of the cords of Corti, by the investigator of that name, 
 the duration of acoustic impressions, and the mapping of sound 
 waves, by Mayer, of the Stevens Institute, Hoboken; the influence 
 of the transverse movement of air upon sound, by Tyndall ; and 
 the multitude of instruments for illustrations, constructed, and 
 many of them devised, by Kcenig. 
 
 (16) A number of our institutions of learning have within re- 
 cent years enlarged their scope of instruction, by associating with 
 their classical and literary department, a "Department of 
 Science," in which certain practical branches are taught, and 
 made elective by the student. The more prominent of these are, 
 the "Lawrence Scientific School," of Harvard ; the " Sheflaeld 
 Scientific School," of Yale College ; the "School of Mines," of 
 
78 
 
 Columbia College; and the " Scientific Department," of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Among the institutions which have been active in advancing 
 the study of applied science in this country, the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology would seem to claim especial notice on 
 account of the peculiarities of its organization, and its influence 
 on other scientific schools. Founded in 1861, according to the 
 plans, and under the direction, of Prof. William B. Rogers, it set 
 the example of making laboratory- work a chief means of scien- 
 tific training even in the early stages of study ; and was the first 
 to take the important step, since so generally followed in this 
 country, of organizing a '''Physical Laboratory^ where the stu- 
 dent, after being instructed in the simple manipulations, is gradu- 
 ally trained to the more difficult researches in experimental 
 physics. See " Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology," 
 1860, and " Scope and Plan of the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology, "'1864. 
 
 IN introducing the third speaker, the President 
 said, that about nine years ago there was an attempt 
 made to remodel the working machinery, as it were, 
 of the Institute, to fit it for a greater usefulness, and 
 certain changes were deemed necessary in the by- 
 laws. It was decided to abolish the offices of Re- 
 cording and Corresponding Secretaries, and in place 
 thereof to appoint a Resident Secretary, who should 
 be a salaried officer. It was required that he should 
 be a gentleman of literary and scientific attainments. 
 Now there was in our midst a young man, a graduate 
 of our university, who tried to study law, but drifted 
 into science, and who was rapidly making for him- 
 self a name as a scientist. He was selected to fill 
 this new office, and right well did he do so; but 
 others saw and recognized his worth. In our neigh- 
 boring State across the Delaware, there lived for 
 many years a man noted as an engineer ; at his death 
 he gave from his great estate abundant means to* 
 
79 
 
 found a school for the teaching of mechanics. The 
 trustees, having prepared a suitable building, looked 
 about then for some fitting person to act as President, 
 and our very useful secretary soon received a call to 
 take this position of greater usefulness. We cannot 
 but feel proud that under his care this school for 
 mechanics has prospered, and to-day we welcome its 
 President to our midst. Ladies and gentlemen, I 
 introduce as the next speaker, Prof. HENRY MORTON, 
 President of the Stevens Institute of Technology, of 
 Hoboken, N. J. 
 
 ADDRESS OF PEOF. HEKRY MORTOK 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 In discussing my theme this evening I propose to 
 begin at the beginning, and set out from the very 
 origin of the subject, and yet, so rapid are our modern 
 modes of thought as to travel that, if we do not run 
 off the track, ten minutes will easily see us safely 
 arrived at the end of the matter. 
 
 My first proposition is a brief though comprehen- 
 sive one. It is simply this. Ladies and gentlemen, 
 The earth moves! And though as I perceive you 
 are not electrified by this important statement, I yet 
 hope within a few minutes to show you that, taken 
 in its i'ull and true significance, this assertion may 
 be as wonder-exciting now, as in its simpler meaning 
 it was two hundred and fifty years ago, when a 
 Galileo only dared to say it in a whisper. 
 
 At the present time we have gone far beyond 
 being surprised to hear that the fixed and solid earth 
 is not the stationary centre of the universe, and are 
 not even made giddy when we think that it is 
 spinning at a rate of about 1000 miles an hour (for 
 
80 
 
 the equator), and flying around the sun with a velocity 
 of 1000 miles a minute, or about 1000 times faste^ 
 than an express train behind time. We are not even 
 shocked to learn that, beside these two motions, our 
 earth, as part of the solar system, is oh its travels 
 through space in an unknown path at an unknown 
 rate; or as it may be otherwise expressed, is one of 
 the planetary lambs which the sun-shepherd is lead- 
 ing through the celestial fields, browsing as they go 
 on such shooting stars, meteors, or comets as may 
 come within their reach. Familiarity has enabled 
 us to accept as perfectly commonplace and natural, 
 all these ideas of instability arid motion, and we now 
 would only be astonished if some one were to say to 
 us that the world did not move. 
 
 Aggressive science, however, which is itself never 
 willing to rest, but makes each advance only a new 
 base for further progress, will not leave us even here, 
 but points us to an entirely different class of motions 
 and says: Not only does the world and every object 
 in the universe move, but it is the motion of all matter 
 which gives it those properties by which we recognize it. 
 
 In other words, if the matter of the universe were 
 to be brought to a state of rest, it would no longer 
 be the universe, it would no longer be matter as we 
 can comprehend that idea ; or in yet other words, 
 matter is matter, the universe is the universe as 
 much by reason of the motion of its individual 
 atoms as by reason of their actual existence. 
 
 Example is better than precept, and I will there- 
 fore take a case and give you two views the exter- 
 nal or artistic, and the interior, or scientific of the 
 same scene. 
 
 We are in a valley among snow-capped mountains, 
 and before us a lake spreads its mirror to the sky. 
 
81 
 
 "No breath of air ripples its surface, no wavelet 
 breaks upon its beach, nothing is there but absolute 
 repose. So says the artist, and painting such a scene 
 he calls his picture " Silence," " Repose," " The Lake 
 of Dreams," or some such appropriate title. 
 
 Now, however, let us look at that same scene with 
 eyes touched by the wand of science, and opened to 
 see beneath the surface of things. What do we then 
 behold? Is there any longer an impression of re- 
 pose ? Of rest ? Of sleep ? 
 
 Look at that mass of water with its mirror-like 
 surface. We see there a perfect Sebastopol of flying 
 missiles, water atoms hurled in clouds from the sur- 
 face into the air, water atoms hurled back from the 
 air into the water surface. It is by such action as 
 this, science shows us, that evaporation takes place, or 
 the invisible though rapid passage of the liquid water 
 into the viewless air. 
 
 The whole mass of the water is likewise thrilling 
 through with those heat motions, of which if de- 
 prived partially, it would freeze into ice, and if 
 robbed utterly, would shrink into some formless 
 horror, of which even the imagination of science can 
 form no picture. 
 
 We turn now to the breezeless air, and here again 
 we see that it {5 air, and not some densest solid, or 
 nameless nonentity, only because of the ceaseless 
 flight of its countless molecules, which, rebounding, 
 jostling, ricocheting, glancing, but ever on the wing 
 of motion, make it the light, elastic fluid which we 
 know as air. 
 
 And if we next turn to the towering rocks and 
 snow-capped peaks, we will find the same conditions 
 in a modified form. All undoubtedly thrill with 
 the quick heat-pulse which is the very soul of matter, 
 
82 
 
 and in probability owe their distinctive character- 
 istics to peculiar modes of motion among their atoms. 
 
 But it is needless to go further in this direction. 
 It is evident that in the view of science the " universe 
 of matter" is as truly the " universe of motion." 
 
 ^Realizing this fact, is there any evident deduction 
 to be drawn that bears upon the object which has 
 brought us together this evening ? 
 
 Placed as rulers and as student of this universe of 
 matter in motion, and becoming rulers and masters 
 of its resources just in proportion as we are apt and 
 faithful students, what is the branch of study to 
 which we should most devote our attention ? Evi- 
 dently that which treats of matter in its relations 
 to motion, and this subject I need hardly say is 
 known by the name of Mechanics, and is that to the 
 development of which the Franklin Institute has 
 directly and indirectly contributed for the last fifty 
 years. 
 
 That you may not suppose I have laid undue stress 
 upon this point, allow me to quote a few words from 
 a late enunciation of one of the greatest students of 
 science, Helmholtz. " If, however (and the previous 
 context gives these words the force of, As therefore), 
 motion is the primordial change which lies at the 
 root of all other changes occurring in the world, 
 every elementary force is a force of motion, and the 
 ultimate aim of physical science must be to deter- 
 mine the movements which are the real causes of all 
 other phenomena, and discover the motive power on 
 which they depend ; in other words, to merge itself 
 into mechanics." 
 
 We may then fairly say that, in its relations to the 
 universe at large, and to man's knowledge of those 
 material surroundings on which his prosperity so 
 
83 
 
 largely depends the work of the Franklin Insti- 
 tute, founded " for the promotion of science and the 
 mechanic arts," has been a noble one judiciously di- 
 rected ! 
 
 We may, however, well ask if there is any reason 
 why at this particular time, at this special epoch in 
 the world's history, such a subject should be more 
 than ever appropriate and desirable ? 
 
 The comparison of national growth or human pro- 
 gress with the development of a child, is of course 
 familiar, and has been frequently suggested, but is 
 none the less apt and fruitful in valuable indications. 
 
 Thus we see in the infant, or in the infancy of the 
 human race, at first only physical growth and de- 
 velopment, the strength and muscular powers of the 
 savage and of the barbarous nation. 
 
 Then comes in the child the period of growing 
 intelligence, first developed through the perceptions 
 of sense and the workings of the imagination, that 
 period when the literature of the fairy-tale flourishes, 
 and Cinderellas and Bluebeards people the world. 
 
 To this we find, as a parallel in the history of the 
 race, the period of mythology, and the " golden age" 
 of the poets. 
 
 Next to this in the well-ordered training of the 
 child comes the first idea of moral relations, of 
 duty, of piety, of a divine superior ; and to this we 
 find in the world's history the corresponding period 
 of revelation, and the introduction and spread of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Then in the child comes the education in methods 
 of expression. The child learns to read, to write, to 
 express himself, and to grasp the thoughts of others 
 in various languages. 
 
 To this we find a parallel in the age of reviving 
 
84 
 
 learning, when the great schools of Europe were 
 founded and flourished, and taught the classics, 
 rhetoric, logic, and other cognate subjects, all having 
 a direct bearing upon modes of expression. 
 
 ISTow when the child has mastered these prelimi- 
 naries, what is his next step, if he does the best for 
 the development of his own powers, and for his use- 
 fulness, to the world at large? You will at once 
 answer me, he goes out from the shelter of the scho- 
 lastic walls into the world of nature, he comes in 
 contact with its facts, the laws of the material uni- 
 verse, and aided by the physical strength, stimulated 
 by the imagination, restrained by the moral sense, 
 guided by the intellectual training which he has 
 received, he begins the real battle of life, and wrests 
 from nature, by his own exertions, that which shall 
 sustain and benefit himself and his species. 
 
 What then may we look for from the race which, 
 at this present point in its career, has gone through 
 the same preparation, but that it should address it- 
 self to the same work, and with frame, heart, soul, 
 and intellect sufficiently trained for the task, turn to 
 the great labor of developing from the inexhaustible 
 stores of the universe, the vast material benefits 
 which there await its research, to awake into benefi- 
 cent energy ? 
 
 For ourselves, and with reference to our own 
 action in the future, this comparison, which we have 
 just made, is also suggestive. 
 
 This great boy (the human race) we see is in his 
 workshop, and if we want to give what will be of 
 most use and pleasure to the sturdy youth, we must 
 not select new toys, new fairy-tales, new tracts, or 
 new grammars, but new tools. 
 
 He needs no new games for his amusement, no 
 
85 
 
 new romances to develop his imagination, surely no 
 new religions to guide his soul, and no new lan- 
 guages to express his thoughts ; but he can make 
 the best use of any quantity of new tools, and of the 
 opportunity and instruction for their employment. 
 
 AT the subsidence of the emphatic applause 
 offered to Prof. Morton, the President of the Insti- 
 tute, Mr. COLEMAX SELLERS, arose and addressed the 
 assembly. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. OOLEMAN SELLERS, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE FRANKLIN* INSTITUTE. 
 
 IT is well nigh forty years ago, I think, that 
 Professor James P. Espy, the storm king, as he was 
 called, taught school in the Franklin Institute build- 
 ing. The present model room was his school-room. 
 Somehow, ever since the time when that enthusiastic 
 old gentleman tried to pound learning into me as 
 was the wont in those days of birch rod and ratan 
 rule the Franklin Institute has been connected in 
 my mind with instruction, with learning. No more 
 fitting time perhaps than now, at the close of its 
 fifty years of usefulness, to tell how it has taught, 
 how it can teach, and what need there is, in these 
 days of progress, for certain kinds of instruction not 
 yet obtainable in our common schools. 
 
 It was in the first years of this century that Dr. 
 Birkbeck, of Glasgow, conceived the idea of lecturing 
 to artisans on subjects that would aid them in their 
 callings. His scheme took well ; his lecture-room 
 was crowded, and able men volunteered to aid him 
 
86 
 
 in his laudable enterprise. During the years 1823 
 and 1824 the first Mechanics' Institute took shape 
 as the outgrowth of what Dr. Birkbeck had done, 
 and he very properly was called to preside over the 
 first one founded in London. Mr. Brougham, after- 
 wards Lord Brougham, was prominent in its organ- 
 ization. This was being done in England at the 
 very time our Franklin Institute of the State of 
 Pennsylvania for the promotion of the Mechanic 
 Arts was coming into existence. "With the founda- 
 tion of the London Society all England and Scotland 
 seemed to waken to the need of scientific instruction 
 for the mechanics and artisans and in all the great 
 towns, even in some villages, Mechanics' Institutes 
 sprang up, to lead a short life of active usefulness, 
 then to languish and to die. These Mechanics' 
 Institutes were not organized by mechanics they 
 were originated by philanthropic persons, who, see- 
 ing the need of a higher education of the working 
 classes, spent their time and their money in this 
 direction. They failed, simply because those for 
 whom they were created would not avail themselves 
 of their advantages. 
 
 Our Franklin Institute was from the beginning a 
 Mechanics' Institute, in one sense of the word. It 
 taught by lectures, and sometimes by classes, but it 
 was always more than was contemplated by the 
 societies abroad. If I may so express myself, it was, 
 and still is a democratic learned society ; it is not 
 exclusive. !N"o well-behaved person is excluded from 
 its membership. All who desire to reap its benefits, 
 or to aid it in its great work of promoting the 
 mechanic arts, can join it. This is not so with the 
 so-called learned societies of this and other lands. 
 They select their members from among those who 
 
87 
 
 
 have already distinguished themselves in the arts 
 
 or sciences, or are likely so to distinguish them- 
 selves ; hence, their membership is confined solely 
 to the learned of the land. Now, mark the differ- 
 ence in our case. Learned men join our society, and 
 in its hall come in contact with those who may be 
 unlearned, so far as books are concerned, but better 
 informed in some special art or trade. Theory and 
 practice are brought together, and each helps the 
 other. Distinguished scientists admit that they are 
 indebted to this association for information of a 
 practical character, probably not readily obtainable 
 otherwise. While on the other hand we, each one 
 of us, know how we have been benefited by their 
 learning, and with what attentive earnestness we 
 listen to their words. 
 
 In the youth of our Institution, when this now 
 vast city was comprised within narrow limits, when 
 those who frequented our halls were less scattered 
 than now, each day and each evening there came 
 together a little band of congenial spirits mechanics, 
 artisans, and professors, who labored earnestly to 
 carry out the great aim of the society, and who were 
 at all times willing to sink their personality in the 
 good of the society. Their work was the work of 
 the Franklin Institute, not of its individual mem- 
 bers. Among those men who gave their best time 
 and energy to this labor were many men neither 
 mechanics, artisans, nor professsonal scientists, but 
 lovers of the arts and sciences. Looking over the 
 pages of the members' roll many such names occur 
 few, indeed, of the early ones are here to listen to 
 my words to-night. With one, however, I have 
 talked much of late, and from him learned very 
 many interesting facts relating to the Institute. It 
 
88 
 
 was in his office that some of the first meetings were 
 
 held that led to its organization, and his knowledge 
 of its workings extends through its entire career. 
 We had earnestly hoped that he would have ad- 
 dressed you this evening, but his strength was not 
 equal to the task. So I promised him to say to you 
 it is his firm conviction that the* vitality of the In- 
 stitute is in the union, the close union and mutual 
 reaction of theory and practice. He recounted many 
 incidents to show how meritorious inventors had 
 been aided by disinterested theorists ; how timely 
 warning from the better informed in what had been 
 done has saved many a fruitless ramble over already 
 well-trodden ground in the search for novelties. My 
 first recollections of the workings of our society are 
 inseparably connected with his name. He was a 
 member of the first committee upon which I served, 
 and his wonderful memory was my astonishment 
 then as it is now. His mind was an open encyclo- 
 paedia to us all, and it was from the kind interest 
 taken by him and by others like him in our scientific 
 labors that we received the greatest encouragement 
 in our work. I have ventured to take this kind 
 gentleman, Mr. GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH as an 
 example of disinterested labor because he was 
 neither a mechanic nor a professional scientist, but 
 nominally a lawyer (I know not if he practised law), 
 a scholar by preference, and a lover of all that tends 
 to advance the material welfare of his countrymen. 
 It was the work done by him and many others like 
 him in the active, thankless duties of the scientific 
 committees, that made many of our most valuable 
 reports of so great use to the world at large. Among 
 these hard workers were young men who subscribed 
 their names to the constitution with no calling as 
 
89 
 
 yet selected to mark their position in life many of 
 them since known to fame. In that long roll, too, 
 may be found names of men now noted and honored 
 in the arts, who in the beginning inscribed after 
 their signatures callings and trades little indicative 
 of their after greatness. These men were educated 
 practically in the "Franklin Institute; it was there 
 their minds received direction. Thus the Franklin 
 Institute has prospered in its teaching in its teach- 
 ing of men by men. Out of the town that saw the 
 beginning of our society fifty years ago, Philadelphia 
 has now spread over an entire county, and in area 
 is, perhaps, the largest city in the world under one 
 municipal government, and to-day it stands in the 
 front ranks of industry. To say it is the Manchester 
 of America is saying but part of the truth. The 
 world in congress at Paris and Vienna recognized 
 this, and gave first honors to our workmen. Phi- 
 lanthropists from abroad visit us and ask to be shown 
 the place where the working people not crowded 
 in filthy tenement-houses and hovels live each in 
 his own home his neat, comfortable home; and 
 they seek to know how far education has progressed 
 among the makers of the wealth of the world. They 
 know full well that the rudiments of science, at least, 
 are needed by all mechanics in all trades ; they know 
 full well that the great universal language of man- 
 kind, the language of the pencil, the picture language, 
 is the very foundation of all the arts ; everything 
 that is to be made, at least well made, must be first 
 drawn, must find its shape' on paper. They visit 
 our common schools, and they note that the pupils 
 have plenty of grammar, plenty of geography, and 
 spelling, and reading, and so on, but barely rudiments 
 7 
 
90 
 
 of science, and scarcely any drawing whatever ; this, 
 too, when the world is crying aloud for technical 
 education. How strange it must seem to those who 
 come to us from the old countries, where the schools 
 of art are side by side with the museums and the 
 great art galleries, and where all these great collec- 
 tions are open to their advantage, each and every 
 day of the week, where the use of the pencil, the 
 only universal language of the world, is taught with 
 the a, b, c's of their native tongue. We can indeed 
 say, that for well nigh fifty years, the Franklin In- 
 stitute has tried to remedy this defect. There almost 
 only can the young mechanic obtain the principles 
 of the art. It is true, our noble Academy of Fine 
 Arts throws open wide its doors to those who can 
 take the time to avail themselvesof its classes, and 
 the School of Design for Women, an outgrowth of 
 our Institution, does its part; the High School, with 
 its night classes for artisans, helps in the work ; but 
 of the thousands of children who pass each year 
 through our common schools, how few can avail 
 themselves of the chances, how few know the need 
 of the art that underlies all other arts? 
 
 Our common school education gives us traders, 
 gives us shopkeepers, but it gives us no artisans. I 
 know not if this can be remedied, but I do know 
 we require some other training for our sons and our 
 daughters. 
 
 But two years hence all the nations of the earth 
 will be represented in our park they will bring 
 with them the work of their hands and their brains. 
 Then will our people be able to see and judge for 
 themselves how early education reacts on art, and 
 how much need we have for cultivation and refine- 
 ment to exalt the faculties of our artisans. Go into 
 
91 
 
 our great industrial establishments, and seek out the 
 modellers and the designers, the draughtsmen, speak 
 to them, and many times you will be greeted with 
 the accents of a foreign tongue. True we pay high 
 wages, and the educated designers of Europe will 
 make their home on our shores. But why not train 
 our children to fill these places ? Most unquestion- 
 ably there is a freshness of thought and an origin- 
 ality of conception in the products of American 
 ingenuity, but they lack, sadly lack in some respects, 
 a cultivated and refined appreciation of the beautiful. 
 There was a time not fifty years ago when the 
 workshops of Philadelphia competed only one with 
 another. Trade was confined to narrow limits; with 
 little competition there was little need of economy 
 and careful calculation in the conduct of our facto- 
 ries. Now the railroad, the steamship, and thought 
 borne on the wings of lightning, have broken down 
 all geographical barriers, and the workshops of 
 Philadelphia find competitors in the workshops and 
 cheap labor of the oldest lands. How are we to hold 
 the van in this strife but by more excellent produc- 
 tions more cheaply produced ? How are we to achieve 
 this result but by putting more brains in our work? 
 Say not to me that learning unfits our men for work. 
 I tell you proper instruction is what our working 
 people most need what the Franklin Institute has 
 ever tried to give them. There is in the world 
 drudgery to be done, drudgery that needs no brain 
 work, but there will be through all times enough 
 stupidity to satisfy all the wants in this direction, 
 and intelligent laborers will make their heads save 
 their hands to their own profit and the benefit of the 
 whole human family. That a means of educating 
 our young men and young women in the direction 
 
92 
 
 of practical industries is greatly needed is evinced by 
 the change now progressing in our higher schools. 
 Over our broad land technical colleges are springing 
 up, and students are crowding their halls. In our 
 midst the University of Pennsylvania, coupled with 
 whose history is the name of Franklin, whose pro- 
 fessors and teachers are our own active fellow-mem- 
 bers, but a little while ago reared for itself vast halls 
 for learning, yonder on the west bank of the Schuyl- 
 kill this, to make room for science, to enable our 
 young men to fit themselves to be engineers, to be 
 architects, to be what they will. The learning there 
 acquired is with an aim. The student has a profes- 
 sion before him, and he prepares himself for his life's 
 work. These schools and colleges do but a part of 
 the work ; it is with men as men, they must continue 
 their training. 
 
 Fathers and mothers of my dearly loved country, 
 believe me no want is so deeply felt in this land as 
 the want of practical, technical education, (live to 
 your sons and to your daughters a sound foundation 
 of useful learning; teach them the pleasures, the 
 dignity of skilful manual labor ; make their minds 
 leaders of their hands, and teach their hands to be 
 willing servants to their minds. It was but the 
 other day that a chemist in a rolling mill would 
 have been laughed at by the practical iron masters 
 of the land. Now, a leading engineer says on the 
 public rostrum, that the future of our iron interests 
 is in the hands of our chemists, in the laboratory, 
 and in learning. Would you have your children 
 take part in this great work ? Remember that in 
 all our workshops there are places for but few of 
 them as learners, as apprentices. Give to them, 
 therefore, that instruction that will make them of 
 
93 
 
 value in the land, that will cause them to be selected 
 for places of trust ; for the contest in tile world's in- 
 dustries in the future is to be fought with brains, 
 not with hands alone. 
 
 The Franklin Institute has for fifty years been 
 laboring in the direction of the scientific education 
 
 O 
 
 of mechanics, and proud are its members of the work 
 it has done. Yet how true the words seem, that 
 came to us last Tuesday in our Public Ledger, when 
 it told the story of this Society's usefulness, and said, 
 " its achievements, we believe, have been more 
 thoroughly recognized and appreciated everywhere 
 than here in its own home. This is said to be cha- 
 racteristic of Philadelphia, that it does not ' exploit' 
 its own good works. It would be well if our people 
 were of a different habit in this respect, and it 
 would be better if, at the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 Institute on Tuesday next, at Musical Fund Hall, 
 there should be inaugurated a new era of the recog- 
 nition and appreciation of its merits, its services, its 
 great usefulness, and its honorable record. If Boston 
 possessed such an institute, with such a history, its 
 renown would not be allowed to become dim at home 
 by any lack of public proclamation of what it is and 
 what it has done." 
 
 Citizens of Philadelphia, your Institute's useful- 
 ness is limited only by its pecuniary means. Its 
 fifty years' work has been done with but little money 
 to do it with. 2s"o liberal endowment has placed it 
 beyond want, and rigid economy has barely eked out 
 the yearly contributions to meet the most pressing 
 wants. Shall it be so in the future ? It is not asked 
 that you give to it, hoping for no return. What we 
 want is your good names added to our list of mem- 
 bers. In a population of well nigh a million, scarcely 
 
94 
 
 900 names are on our roll of members. All the 
 world' abroad knows and honors our Institute. 
 Talented men in distant cities ask to be, and are 
 proud to be, considered members of it. Will not 
 you join us in our task, and when the Centennial of 
 our nation's freedom is being celebrated in our midst, 
 say to your guests that you are members of the 
 Franklin Institute ? 
 
 Working men of Philadelphia, let me rather say 
 fellow-workmen of America, my most earnest sym- 
 pathies are with you in all your efforts towards self- 
 improvement. My own path in life started from the 
 school-house through as lowly walks in life as any 
 of yours. If fortune has led me to higher usefulness, 
 believe me it has been not without diligent applica- 
 tion and hard study. To you the Franklin Institute 
 opens its doors and affords you a sure way of in- 
 creasing your store of knowledge. Attend .its lec- 
 tures, be present at its meetings, give from your 
 store of practical experience freely, take in return 
 what others can give to you. It will be to you as it 
 has been to me and to others a school of great 
 value. Trust me, the teaching of man by man in 
 frequent intercourse is the most potent means of ac- 
 quiring knowledge, and knowledge well applied is 
 indeed a power. 
 
 At the close of Mr. Sellers's address the meeting 
 adjourned. 
 
LINES 
 
 OX THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 
 
 BY AN OLD MEMBER. 
 
 OUR golden Pentecostal year has passed, 
 And. the new Fifty whitens in the east. 
 How few and far between the Fathers stand 
 Though sought with keenest eye amid the throng ! 
 As memory summons the old roll anew 
 The chilling silence falls upon our hearts ; 
 At length with strange deliberate haste they speak 
 And point us to the bright propitious sky 
 That glows above and well predicts the triumph. 
 
 Those fifty years ! shall we not spare a glance 
 To mark their mission and the sheaves they bring, 
 Ere stern Oblivion swings his shadowy door 
 Which ever hides our best and loved too soon ? 
 Those seven-times-seven-and-one may well atone 
 For the slow slumbering thousands which precede them. 
 
 Surely the era is our FRANKLIN'S own ; 
 And let no other name with his intrude, 
 As harness' d on the iron gossamer 
 The silent thunder under his strong spell 
 Yoked with the carrier dove, submissive bears 
 Our griefs or greetings through the ambient sky, 
 Or (strange alternative) with equal speed 
 Invades the horrid depths of ocean's caves, 
 Stirring their monsters with unwonted thrill 
 While hurrying by charged with the fate of nations ! 
 The Twins of Fire and Water, whose joint might 
 Archimedes dare not anticipate, 
 Attained their manhood's stature in this term, 
 So emulous to urge the towering barque 
 Through angriest seas, or drive the rampant car 
 That on its thousand miles of prairie plain 
 But gathers breath to climb the mountain side ! 
 
96 
 
 We range these startling marvels in the van, 
 Yet nobler victories are on our scroll, 
 "Which ask no heralding by sound of trumpet, 
 But, like the morning light, the evening dew, 
 Fall indiscriminate and silently : 
 The myriad Loom that surfeits Fashion's call ; 
 The tireless Needle even in the race ; 
 The subtle Essence of the cumbrous Lamp 
 Spread through dark iron arteries by miles 
 Yet answering to our beck in every loft, 
 In cellar, hall, or chamber, day and night ; 
 The Planting Plough and rolling Reaping Car 
 Which seem to hail each other in the field 
 And mix their tasks in wondrous harmony ; 
 The Anvil shaped and burnished like a shrine ; 
 The Hammer quiv'ring like the humming-bird ; 
 Light's mild mysterious picture which presents 
 Face of Apelles from Apollo's hand ; 
 Again, the seeming ravage of the Rainbow, 
 That plucks its tints apart as in the fable 
 Penelope undid her patient web, 
 Yet while we gaze begins the retribution 
 From the dread depths of space comes laden back 
 With hidden truths extorted from the stars ; 
 And last, the Sovereign Press, ordained to hurl 
 The bolt that surely smites or sanctifies 
 Art's endless Work through the wide realm of mind ! 
 
 Such are our peaceful triumphs that look down 
 From the blue arch of half a century, 
 As constellations o'er the heads of all ; 
 Whose smile surrounds pervades our model dwellings, 
 Where labor shares refinement without pride, 
 As Philadelphia's peculiar fare ! 
 
 The iridescent rays of scattered power 
 Our INSTITUTE collects and concentrates, 
 Then sends them forth in scientific phalanx 
 To conquer nature and to bless mankind. 
 This was the high ambition of its founders 
 Who (like the steward in the parable) 
 O'er the few things allowed them have been faithful. 
 May those who follow have the full "ten talents," 
 And well improve the new and larger trust! 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to "which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 LIBRARY USE 
 
 JUL 1 2 1956 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 MAY 1 3 1959 
 
 jr i 
 
 MAY 1 1983 
 
 LD 21-100m-2,'55 
 (B139s22)476 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley