A History of Science - v.3 (Williams)

A HISTORY OF SCIENCE

BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, M.D., LL.D.

ASSISTED BY EDWARD H. WILLIAMS, M.D.

IN FIVE VOLUMES

VOLUME III.

MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF THE

PHYSICAL SCIENCES

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History of Science

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CONTENTS

BOOK III

CHAPTER I. THE SUCCESSORS OF NEWTON IN ASTRONOMY

The work of Johannes Hevelius--Halley and Hevelius--Halley's observation of the transit of Mercury, and his method

of determining the parallax of the planets--Halley's observation of meteors--His inability to explain these bodies--The important work of James Bradley--Lacaille's measurement of the arc of the meridian--The determination of the question as to the exact shape of the earth--D'Alembert and his influence upon science- -Delambre's History of Astronomy--The astronomical work of Euler.

CHAPTER II. THE PROGRESS OF MODERN ASTRONOMY

The work of William Herschel--His discovery of Uranus--His discovery that the stars are suns--His conception

of the universe--His deduction that gravitation has caused the grouping of the heavenly bodies--The nebula, hypothesis, --Immanuel Kant's conception of the formation of the

world--Defects in Kant's conception--Laplace's final solution of the problem--His explanation in detail--Change in the mental attitude of the world since Bruno--Asteroids and satellites--Discoveries of Olbers1--The mathematical calculations of Adams and Leverrier--The discovery of the inner ring of Saturn--Clerk Maxwell's paper on the stability of Saturn's rings--Helmholtz's conception of the action of tidal friction--Professor G. H. Darwin's estimate of the consequences

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of tidal action--Comets and meteors--Bredichin's cometary theory--The final solution of the structure of comets--Newcomb's estimate of the amount of cometary dust swept up daily by

the earth--The fixed stars--John Herschel's studies

of double stars--Fraunhofer's perfection of the refracting telescope--Bessel's measurement of the parallax of a star,--Henderson's measurements--Kirchhoff and Bunsen's perfection of the spectroscope--Wonderful revelations

of the spectroscope--Lord Kelvin's estimate of the time that will be required for the earth to become completely cooled-- Alvan Clark's discovery of the companion star of Sirius-- The advent of the photographic film in astronomy--Dr.

Huggins's studies of nebulae--Sir Norman Lockyer's "cosmogonic guess,"--Croll's pre-nebular theory.

CHAPTER III. THE NEW SCIENCE OF PALEONTOLOGY

William Smith and fossil shells--His discovery that fossil rocks are arranged in regular systems--Smith's inquiries taken up by Cuvier--His Ossements Fossiles containing the

first description of hairy elephant--His contention that fossils represent extinct species only--Dr. Buckland's studies

of English fossil-beds--Charles Lyell combats catastrophism, --Elaboration of his ideas with reference to the rotation of species--The establishment of the doctrine of uniformitarianism, --Darwin's Origin of Species--Fossil man--Dr. Falconer's visit to the fossil-beds in the valley of the Somme--Investigations of Prestwich and Sir John Evans--Discovery of the Neanderthal skull, --Cuvier's rejection of human fossils--The finding of prehistoric

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carving on ivory--The fossil-beds of America--Professor Marsh's paper on the fossil horses in America--The Warren mastodon, --The Java fossil, Pithecanthropus Erectus.

CHAPTER IV. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN GEOLOGY

James Hutton and the study of the rocks--His theory of the earth--His belief in volcanic cataclysms in raising and forming the continents--His famous paper before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1781---His conclusions that all strata of

the earth have their origin at the bottom of the sea---His deduction that heated and expanded matter caused the elevation of land above the sea-level--Indifference at first shown this remarkable paper--Neptunists versus Plutonists--

Scrope's classical work on volcanoes--Final acceptance of Hutton's explanation of the origin of granites--Lyell and uniformitarianism--Observations on the gradual elevation of the coast-lines of Sweden and Patagonia--Observations

on the enormous amount of land erosion constantly taking place, --Agassiz and the glacial theory--Perraudin the chamois-

hunter, and his explanation of perched bowlders--De Charpentier's acceptance of Perraudin's explanation--Agassiz's

paper on his Alpine studies--His conclusion that the Alps were once covered with an ice-sheet--Final acceptance of the glacial theory--The geological ages--The work

of Murchison and Sedgwick--Formation of the American continents--Past, present, and future.

CHAPTER V. THE NEW SCIENCE OF METEOROLOGY

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Biot's investigations of meteors--The observations of

Brandes and Benzenberg on the velocity of falling stars--

Professor Olmstead's observations on the meteoric shower of 1833- -Confirmation of Chladni's hypothesis of 1794--The

aurora borealis--Franklin's suggestion that it is of electrical origin--Its close association with terrestrial magnetism--Evaporation, cloud-formation, and dew--Dalton's demonstration that water exists in the air as an independent gas--Hutton's theory of rain--Luke Howard's paper

on clouds--Observations on dew, by Professor Wilson and Mr. Six--Dr. Wells's essay on dew--His observations

on several appearances connected with dew--Isotherms

and ocean currents--Humboldt and the-science of comparative climatology--His studies of ocean currents--

Maury's theory that gravity is the cause of ocean currents-- Dr. Croll on Climate and Time--Cyclones and anti-cyclones, --Dove's studies in climatology--Professor Ferrel's mathematical law of the deflection of winds--Tyndall's estimate of the amount of heat given off by the liberation of a pound

of vapor--Meteorological observations and weather predictions.

CHAPTER VI. MODERN THEORIES OF HEAT AND LIGHT

Josiah Wedgwood and the			clay		pyrometer--Count Rumford
and the vibratory theory of heat--His						experiments with
boring cannon	to	determine		the nature		of heat--Causing
water to boil	by	the friction of the				borer--His final
determination	that heat		is	a	form of	motion--Thomas Young

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and the wave theory of light--His paper on the theory of

light and colors--His exposition of the colors of thin plates--Of the colors of thick plates, and of striated surfaces, --Arago and Fresnel champion the wave theory--opposition

to the theory by Biot--The French Academy's tacit

acceptance of the correctness of the theory by its admission of Fresnel as a member.

CHAPTER VII. THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

Galvani and the beginning of modern electricity--The construction of the voltaic pile--Nicholson's and Carlisle's discovery

that the galvanic current decomposes water--Decomposition

of various substances by Sir Humphry Davy--His construction of an arc-light--The deflection of the magnetic needle by electricity demonstrated by Oersted--Effect of this important discovery--Ampere creates the science of electro-dynamics--Joseph Henry's studies of electromagnets--Michael Faraday begins his studies of electromagnetic induction--His famous paper before the Royal Society, in 1831, in which he demonstrates electro-magnetic induction--His explanation of Arago's rotating disk--The

search for a satisfactory method of storing electricity-- Roentgen rays, or X-rays.

CHAPTER VIII. THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

Faraday narrowly misses the discovery of the doctrine of conservation--Carnot's belief that a definite quantity of work can be transformed into a definite quantity of heat--The work of James Prescott Joule--Investigations begun by Dr.

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Mayer--Mayer's	paper of 1842--His	statement of the law of the
conservation of energy--Mayer and		Helmholtz--Joule's paper of
1843--Joule or	Mayer--Lord Kelvin	and the dissipation of
energy-The final unification.

CHAPTER IX. THE ETHER AND PONDERABLE MATTER

James Clerk-Maxwell's conception of ether--Thomas Young

and "Luminiferous ether,"--Young's and Fresnel's conception of transverse luminiferous undulations--Faraday's experiments pointing to the existence of ether--Professor

Lodge's suggestion of two ethers--Lord Kelvin's calculation of the probable density of ether--The vortex theory of atoms--Helmholtz's calculations in vortex motions

--Professor Tait's apparatus for creating vortex rings in the air---The ultimate constitution of matter as conceived by Boscovich--Davy's speculations as to the changes that occur in the substance of matter at different temperatures--Clausius's

and Maxwell's investigations of the kinetic theory of gases--Lord Kelvin's estimate of the size of the molecule--

Studies of the potential energy of molecules--Action of gases at low temperatures.

APPENDIX

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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE

BOOK III

MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHYSICAL

SCIENCES

With the present book we enter the field of the distinctively modern. There is no precise date

at which we take up each of the successive stories, but the main sweep of development has to do in each case with the nineteenth century. We shall see at

once that this is a time both of rapid progress and of great differentiation. We have heard almost nothing hitherto of such sciences as paleontology, geology, and meteorology, each of which now demands full attention. Meantime, astronomy and what the workers of the

elder day called natural philosophy become wonderfully diversified and present numerous phases that

would have been startling enough to the star-gazers and philosophers of the earlier epoch.

Thus, for example, in the field of astronomy, Herschel is able, thanks to his perfected telescope, to discover a new planet and then to reach out into the

depths of space and gain such knowledge of stars and nebulae as hitherto no one had more than dreamed of. Then, in rapid sequence, a whole coterie of hitherto

unsuspected minor planets is discovered, stellar distances

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are measured,			some members of the		starry
galaxy	are timed in			their flight,	the direction of movement
of the	solar system			itself is investigated, the
spectroscope reveals the chemical					composition even of
suns that		are	unthinkably distant, and a			tangible
theory	is	grasped of the universal cycle				which includes
the birth		and	death	of worlds.

Similarly the new studies of the earth's surface reveal secrets of planetary formation hitherto quite inscrutable. It becomes known that the strata of the

earth's surface have been forming throughout untold ages, and that successive populations differing utterly from one another have peopled the earth in different

geological epochs. The entire point of view of thoughtful men becomes changed in contemplating the history

of the world in which we live--albeit the newest thought harks back to some extent to those days when the inspired thinkers of early Greece dreamed out the wonderful theories with which our earlier chapters have made our readers familiar.

In the region of natural philosophy progress is no

less pronounced and no less striking. It suffices here, however, by way of anticipation, simply to name the greatest generalization of the century in physical science--the doctrine of the conservation of energy.

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I

THE SUCCESSORS OF NEWTON IN ASTRONOMY

HEVELIUS AND HALLEY

STRANGELY enough, the decade immediately following

Newton was one of comparative barrenness

in scientific progress, the early years of the eighteenth century not being as productive of great astronomers

as the later years of the seventeenth, or, for

that matter, as the later years of the eighteenth century itself. Several of the prominent astronomers of

the later seventeenth century lived on into the opening years of the following century, however, and the younger generation soon developed a coterie of astronomers, among whom Euler, Lagrange, Laplace,

and Herschel, as we shall see, were to accomplish great things in this field before the century closed.

One of the great seventeenth-century astronomers, who died just before the close of the century, was

Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687), of Dantzig, who advanced astronomy by his accurate description of the

face and the spots of the moon. But he is remembered also for having retarded progress by his influence

in refusing to use telescopic sights in his observations,

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