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Nov. 17, 1855-]_ THE LEADER. 1109
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PritfcB are not the legislators, but the...
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Thebe was something paradoxical and star...
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MINNESOTA AND THE FAE WEST. Minnesota an...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Nov. 17, 1855-]_ The Leader. 1109
Nov . 17 , 1855- ]_ THE LEADER . 1109
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Pritfcb Are Not The Legislators, But The...
PritfcB are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Meineio .
Thebe Was Something Paradoxical And Star...
Thebe was something paradoxical and startling in Liebig ' s assertion that the surest tes t of a nation's civilization was the amount of sulphuric acid it produced and consumed . Think of Memphis and of Tyre , think of Athens illustrious in aU directions , of Rome the great colonist , of Spain and Italy during the middle ages , recal their splendours and the glories of their art , their literature , their philosophy , their military achievements and their administrative organizations , and then imagine the chemist guaging all these with statistics of sulphuric acid . Nevertheless the paradox is a truth . The test is absolute . Civilization , in its widest sense , means the conquest of man over nature , the predominance of the civil over the savage state ; and the means of this conquest , as well as its most striking results , are the
appliances of Science . Plato could discourse grandly on the Good , the Beautiful , and the True ; Sophocles could exalt the minds of men by his ennobling pictures of human constancy under suffering ; Phii > ias could witch the world with noble sculpture , and by thus proving the sovereignty of man and the illimitable reach of his faculties , impel him to broader conquests ; but Pjlato could not shut his door with a lock , Sophocles could not print a copy of his Antigone , Phidias could only work by torch-light when the daylight failed him . The most ordinary and indispensable of our " common things " would have been astonishments to them . A farthing rushlight would have made Semiramis herself dance for joy ; and the dreadful Ramses would have built a pyramid to the inventor of Windsor
soap . This sort of comparison might be extended through vast spaces of columnar rhetoric , with ease to the writer if not with profit to the reader . We touch the point , and pass on to the conclusion , that the " moral" to be drawn from Industrial Exhibitions , such as our Crystal Palace and the Grande Exposition at Paris , lies perhaps less in the triumphs of Art and the magnificences of Industry , than in the triumphs of Science applied to the Arts , and above all in the triumph of cheapness— which means wider distribution of the results of conquest . The Exposition has been much written about . The topic of " Science at the Exposition " has been scarcely touched . In the Revue des Deux Mondes there is a commencement by M .
Paul de Remusat , who writes of aluminium , the newly discovered metal , an ingot of which lies on one of the tables beside an ingot of silver . The history of the discovery of this metal is given with great clearness and precision , from its hypothetical existence , assumed on purely analogical grounds , to that of its actual production last year . The story told by M . de Remusat is too long for us to narrate here , after him , but it may be acceptable to our readers to have the principal points reproduced in a briefer compass . All bodies are classed as metals , or as metalloids ( the latter absurd name indicating precisely the reverse of what etymology suggests , namely , nonmetallic bodies ) . Every one knows what a metal is , at least roughly ;
although when told that lime , for instance , is a nletallic compound—the oxide of a metal— " every one" may begin to feel a little puzzled . And perhaps if told that hydrogen gas has also considerable claims to be ranked as a metal , when viewed in its chemical relations , " every one' may feel hie head somewhat dizzy . Not to confuse him , however , let us state that when Sir Humphry Davt discovered that lime had a metallic base , it became theoretically evident that all alkalis , and all earths , were oxides of metals , although the metals could not in many cases be produced isolated . Lime , for example , is the oxide of a metal—calcium ; baryta , the oxide of a metal— hurinm ; alumina the oxide of a metal , —aluminium ; magnesia of a metal—magnesium , and so on . But many of these metals , aluminium and
magnesium , for example were purely hypothetical existences . Ihcy had never been obtained isolated from oxygen , as potassium had been separated from potass . Experiments not only failed , but theory ( to which nlone these metals owed their existence ) , proclaimed that experiments must fail to separate them . The laws of affinity seemed to say , that in proportion as two bodies were eager to unite , in that same proportion would they be loth to separate ; juist as two lovers are less anxious to part from each other than from their respective aunts or guardians . Potassium ia
avid of oxygen , clutches it from the air even at ordinary temperatures , and , if thrown into water , wrenches the oxygen from the hydrogen , nnd clasps it infos eager embrace . Gold , on the contrary , has for oxvgen that amount of affection which Miss Jewsbuby wittily calls " not love , but tepid preference . " The two can only be made to unite by comp licated and careful management . Now , contrast these metals in their separating tendency : potash can only be decomposed by a very powerful battery , or by white heW , together with some easily oxidized substance ; whereas , the oxide of gold can be decomposed even by the pale moonbeams . Therefore , eaid
ikepry , aluminium , which is tite ^ me ^ resists the most powerful battery , and the whitest heat , must have so strong an affinity for oxygen , that hot only will its separation be next to impossible , but , if separated , that same affinity will instantly cause it to re-unite Jon : contact with the atmosphere ; and , therefore , no sooner do you get it , than ' ybtt lose it ; like water parted , it re-unites ; like lovers separated , the two bodies rush together in . a kiss . (¦ Unluckily for theory , luckil y for us , this logical prevision has been a mistake . Wohleb by placing alumina ( which is the oxide of aluminium , as potass is the oxide of potassium ) in contact with potassium at a great heat , reduced the alumine to its metal—aluminium ; and transformed the potassium to an oxide—potass ; the oxygen , fickle fairy , deserted the alumina for the more ardent metal ! M . Sainte Claire Deville , however , in 1854 ,
showed that "Wohleb had not produced a pure metal . By a more careful experiment he . succeeded in producing it pure , and such as it was recently lying on the table of the Paris Exposition , very different in its properties from the grey powder produced by Wohxer . We must refer to M . i > b Remusat ' s paper for details , our remaining space can be given but to two points . Aluminium contradicts theory : it has no powerful tendency to unite with oxygen , and yet , like some natures more tenacious than excitable , once united it has a very powerful tendency to remain so . It does hot fall in love , like
giddy youth , but once married e'estpour tout de bon . As a metal , aluminium is indeed a precious metal , for it is as light as glass , unattackable by the atmosphere , nay , also by sulphurretted hydrogen which destroys silver ; and even nitric acid , the most energetic of sol vents , acts with great difficulty on it even at high temperatures . Finally , it makes no amalgam . And this metal so precious is excessively abundant . M . de Remusat conjectures that it forms the fifth part of the earth-crust ! AVhat then keeps us from familiar use of this precious metal ? Alas ! the vulgar condition to which all must bow cost of production ! The problem now is , how to lessen that cost , so as to make the qualities of the metal generally available .
The reader superbly indifferent to all metals , save those which bear the impress of Her Majesty , and as curious about literature as he is careless about chemistry , may pertinently ask , what has this long story about a bit of clay to do in such a place as this ? We would willingly have had it otherwise . To retail the gossip of the day , and gossip on that gossipto notice what seems noticeable in current publications—to relax from the dignity of great subjects , and chat on passing topics , is our function ; but when our story is not longer than that of Canning ' s Knife Grinder—when there are no passing topics , no publications , no gossip , why then—we are forced to do what men destitute of conversation very often do , fall back on our dignity .
Minnesota And The Fae West. Minnesota An...
MINNESOTA AND THE FAE WEST . Minnesota and the Far West . By Laurence Oliphant , Author of " The Russian Shores of the Black Sea . " Blackwoodand Sons . What is the secret of American progress ? Why is the Southern half of the Continent poor , and the Northern half rich ? Why is there buVone steamer on the Amazon , to fifteen hundred on the Mississipi P It cannot be without a cause that prosperity springs up in the territories of the Union , as naturally as moss in the forest , or that the exuberant lands m . which the Mexicans and Peruvians once flourished now lie as dead as the Sahara . Half a million immigrants annually find a shelter u the United States-a majority of them from the West , though the population of Asia begins , aT 3 trickle into the new world . The Republican form ° f government does not alone explain the contrast , for in South America there are ten Reputes , covering three millions and a half of square miles , containing tweC millions of men , yet displaying less vital force than the native
kingdoms of Africa . Imperial extent and despotic uni y are nere u « puv *^^™ --for Brazil , still ruled by the House of Braganza , is more torpid and more eervile than Hayti . Republican or Imperial-South America is less free than in the age of the Spanish viceroys , less happy than in the age ot Columbus . Para , three hundred years old , has not yet a population ot twenty thousand souls , and the Amazon , with eighty thousand miles-of navigable water , floats , we have said , a single stcamer-that steamer built and owned at New York . There seems , in this , a mystery . Spain , in spite of Catholicism and despotism , was once an opulent and splendid country . Spanish America was populous and civilised wlien North America , probably , ™ E « T . ; LwtMl » nl v bv wild and wanderinjr races . If we persevere in aearch
of the secret , it is revealed in the fact tliat North America has Ken .. pace with time , that North Americans belong to the nineteenth and South Americans to tile fifteenth century . The Spanish element in the North m ^ ho vitiating principle . The Northern clement in the South is the only 3 ? of redemption . In England there are . two " ations-inodcrnMwd medieval ; the modern , which tends to the realization of a hoch ^ Jt o « c » « m mensurate with the progress of sciences and . **> - *}« " i ^ Xto , »«<* including royalty and feudalism , is unconsciously 1 i c-lUipiuLinc , believes in King Arthur and the Round ™ , ? ' nrown It did not contain We have seen , in our days , how Nebraska 1 meg ^" j ^^^ tIlftt 8 hook a thousand Americans when its laws were * ' «»** J ? . Minnesota " - a new the Union . Mr . Oliphantrelates the short . toj ^» con firms the state , eeated at the head of the Miwiwij ' . « d thw c £ n ^ results of all others . In t » ofleyo «| nff countries not « y j iBlaturo thought ia free ; necessity establishes tnc i «™
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 17, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17111855/page/17/
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