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    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They < 3 o not make la-ws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Jtemeiv . b

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    Xhebe 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 all 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 ; Sophocxes could exalt the minds of men by his ennobling pictures of human constancy under suffering ; Phidias 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 Plato 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 J 03 '; 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 llevuc des Deux Mondes there is a commencement by M . Paul » e Hemusat , 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 Kemusat 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

    theory , aluminium , which is the melal contained in clay , and which resists the most powerful battery , and the whitest heat , must have" so strong an affinity for oxygen , that not only will its separation be next to impossible , but , i f separated , that same affinity will instantly cause it to re-unite on contact with the atmosphere ; and , therefore , no sooner do you get it , than you lose it ; like water parted , it re-unites ; like lovers separated , the two bodies rush together in a kiss . ; Unluckily for theory , luckily for us , this logical prevision has been a mistake . Wohlek 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 Wohlek 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 Woulee . We must refer to M . joe 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 not fall in love , like giddy youth , but once married e ' estpour tout de ton . 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 . » e Kemusat conjectures that it forms the fifth part of the earth-crust ! What 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 top ics , 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 .

    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 , fox instance , is a metallic 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 his head somewhat dizzy . Not to confuse him , however , let us state that when Sir Hujipiiuv Davy 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— barium ; uhunina the oxide of a metal , — aluminium ; magnesia of a metal—magnesium , and so on . But many of these metals , aluminium and rriagnesium , for example were purely hypothetical existences . They hod never been obtained isolated from oxygen , as potassium had been separated from potass . Experiments not only failed , but theory ( to which alone these metals owed their existence ) , proclaimed that experiments must fail to separate them . The laws of affinity seemed to say , that in proportion aa two bodies were eager to unite , in that same proportion \ vould t from

    they be loth to separate ; just as two lovers are less anxious to par each other than from their respective aunts or guardians . Potassium in avid of oxygen , clutches it from the air even at ordinary temperatures , and , if thrown into water , wrenches the oxygen from the hydrogen , and clasps it in its eager embrace Gold , on the contrary , has for oxygen that amount of affection which Mass Jewsbuby wittily culls " love , but tepid preference . " The two can only be made to unite by complicated and careful management . Now , contrast these mctala in their separating tendency : potash can only bo decomposed by a very powerful battery , or by wliite heat , together with some easily oxidized substance ? whereas , the oxide of gold can be decomposed even by the pale moonbeams . Therefore , said

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    MINNESOTA AND THE FAR WEST . Minnesota and the Far West . By Laurence Oliphant , Author of « The Russian Shores of the Black Sea . " , Blackwood and Sons . What is the secret of American progress ? Why is the Southern half of the Continent poor , and the NorthWn half rich ? Why is there but one steamer on the Amazon , to fifteen hundred on the Mississipi ? It cannot be without a cause that prosperity springs up m the territories of theUniWN as naturally as moss in the forest , or that the exuberant lands ^ which the Mexicans and Peruvians once nourished now lie as dead as the . ^ ' Half a million immigrants annually find a shelter in the United States-a majority of them from the West , though the population of Asia begins , 5 * W trickle into the new world The » W ^^^ tfSSff does not alone lain the contrastfor m South America "'«««? £ "

    exp , ; Republics coverin g three millions and a half of square miles , containing JwTlve 'SionTof men , yet displaying lew vital force than . the : native ^ kingdoms of Africa . Imperial extent and despotic unity are here an P owerle *»—for Brazil , still ruled by the Hoiisc of Braganza , is more torpid and more servile than Hayti . Republican or Imperial-South America ia less . free than in the age of the Spanish viceroys , less happy than in the age at Columbu . Para , three hundred yeare eld , has not yet a . population of twenty thousand rouIb , and the Amazon , with eighty thousand miles of navigable water , floats , we have said , a single steamer-that steamer ^ bu It and owned at New York . There seems , in tins , a mystery , Sn in sprte of Catholicism and despotism , wae once an opulent a " /^« n ^ country . Spanish America was populous and c v . haed when North America , robably . * Wild and At wvc e » i .

    was inhabited only by wandering raees . we pe ---of the secret , it is revealed in the fact that North . " Aint : n Jl ? o y . g ^ with time , that North Americans belong to the nineteenth 1 ndS out h Aine 1 icans to the fifteenth century . The Spanish clement in the Nor is he vitiatimr principle . The Northern element in the boutli is Uic oiiiy promEf o ? redemp tion . In England there are two " ^ { - ^ S ^ , ™} medieval ; the modern , which tends to the realization oiaso cm ^ " - " ^ U mensurate with the progress of sciences and . "ts-tlic n c « i including royalty and feudalism , is unconsciously J rc-J « nj , naii , believes in King Arthur and the Hound 'Jnblo . T ] id not contain We have seen , in our days , how Nebraska ha * ffJJJJ jelmtes that shook a thousand Americans when its laws were l ™ £ * atVi ffi ™ * » -anew the Union . Mr , Oliphant relates , the short s oryoi , confirms the state , seated at the head of the Missi ^ i , « nd thw ex , ^ results of all others . In those young ™»*™ £ r £ l * w * and legialatuM thought h free ; necessity chtablwhcs t » o m "

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    ¦ . . . . . ., w « .-.,., v .,: ; ... . ~ , v * __ - . Nov . 17 , 1855 . 1 , THE LEADER . ^ 10 ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 17, 1855, page 1109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2115/page/17/