Fragments of science Part 23

Again, take the question regarding the rising or falling of the dew--a question long agitated, and finally set at rest by the beautiful researches of Wells. I do not think that any boy of average intelligence will be satisfied with the simple answer that the dew falls. He will wish to learn how you know that it falls, and, if acquainted with the notions of the middle ages, he may refer to the opinion of Father Laurus, that a goose egg filled in the morning with dew and exposed to the sun, will rise like a balloon--a swan's egg being better for the experiment than a goose egg. It is impossible to give the boy a clear notion of the beautiful phenomenon to which his question refers, without first making him acquainted with the radiation and conduction of heat. Take, for example, a blade of gra.s.s, from which one of these orient pearls is depending.

During the day the gra.s.s, and the earth beneath it, possess a certain amount of warmth imparted by the sun; during a serene night, heat is radiated from the surface of the gra.s.s into s.p.a.ce, and to supply the loss, there is a flow of heat from the earth to the blade. Thus the blade loses heat by radiation, and gains heat by conduction. Now, in the case before us, the power of radiation is great, whereas the power of conduction is small; the consequence is that the blade loses more than it gains, and hence becomes more and more refrigerated. The light vapour floating around the surface so cooled is condensed upon it, and there acc.u.mulates to form the little pearly globe which we call a dew-drop.

Thus the boy finds the simple and homely fact which addressed his senses to be the outcome and flower of the deepest laws. The fact becomes, in a measure, sanctified as an object of thought, and invested for him with a beauty for evermore. He thus learns that things which, at first sight, seem to stand isolated and without apparent brotherhood in Nature are organically united, and finds the detection of such a.n.a.logies a source of perpetual delight. To enlist pleasure on the side of intellectual performance is a point of the utmost importance; for the exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished. Every physician knows that something more than mere mechanical motion is comprehended under the idea of healthful exercise--that, indeed, being most healthful which makes us forget all ulterior ends in the mere enjoyment of it. What, for example, could be subst.i.tuted for the action of the playground, where the boy plays for the mere love of playing, and without reference to physiological laws; while kindly Nature accomplishes her ends unconsciously, and makes his very indifference beneficial to him. You may have more systematic motions, you may devise means for the more perfect traction of each particular muscle, but you cannot create the joy and gladness of the game, and where these are absent, the charm and the health of the exercise are gone. The case is similar with the education of the mind.

The study of Physics, as already intimated, consists of two processes, which are complementary to each other--the tracing of facts to their causes, and the logical advance from the cause to the fact. In the former process, called _induction_, certain moral qualities come into play. The first condition of success is patient industry, an honest receptivity, and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth. Believe me, a self-renunciation which has something lofty in it, and of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private experience of the true votary of science. And if a man be not capable of this self-renunciation--this loyal surrender of himself to Nature and to fact, he lacks, in my opinion, the first mark of a true philosopher.

Thus the earnest prosecutor of science, who does not work with the idea of producing a sensation in the world, who loves the truth better than the transitory blaze of to-day's fame, who comes to his task with a single eye, finds in that task an indirect means of the highest moral culture. And although the virtue of the act depends upon its privacy, this sacrifice of self, this upright determination to accept the truth, no matter how it may present itself--even at the hands of a scientific foe, if necessary--carries with it its own reward. When prejudice is put under foot and the stains of personal bias have been washed away--when a man consents to lay aside his vanity and to become Nature's organ--his elevation is the instant consequence of his humility.

I should not wonder if my remarks provoked a smile, for they seem to indicate that I regard the man of science as a heroic, if not indeed an angelic, character; and cases may occur to you which indicate the reverse. You may point to the quarrels of scientific men, to their struggles for priority, to that unpleasant egotism which screams around its little property of discovery like a scared plover about its young. I will not deny all this; but let it be set down to its proper account, to the weakness--or, if you will--to the selfishness of Man, but not to the charge of Physical Science.

The second process in physical investigation is _deduction_, or the advance of the mind from fixed principles to the conclusions which flow from them. The rules of logic are the formal statement of this process, which, however, was practised by every healthy mind before ever such rules were written. In the study of Physics, induction and deduction are perpetually wedded to each other. The man observes, strips facts of their peculiarities of form, and tries to unite them by their essences; having effected this, he at once deduces, and thus checks his induction.

Here the grand difference between the methods at present followed, and those of the ancients, becomes manifest. They were one-sided in these matters: they omitted the process of induction, and subst.i.tuted conjecture for observation. They could never, therefore, fulfil the mission of Man to 'replenish the earth, and subdue it.' The subjugation of Nature is only to be accomplished by the penetration of her secrets and the patient mastery of her laws. This not only enables us to protect ourselves from the hostile action of natural forces, but makes them our slaves. By the study of Physics we have indeed opened to us treasuries of power of which antiquity never dreamed. But while we lord it over Matter, we have thereby become better acquainted with the laws of Mind; for to the mental philosopher the study of Physics furnishes a screen against which the human spirit projects its own image, and thus becomes capable of self-inspection.

Thus, then, as a means of intellectual culture, the study of Physics exercises and sharpens observation: it brings the most exhaustive logic into play: it compares, abstracts, and generalizes, and provides a mental scenery appropriate to these processes. The strictest precision of thought is everywhere enforced, and prudence, foresight, and sagacity are demanded. By its appeals to experiment, it continually checks itself, and thus walks on a foundation of facts.

Hence the exercise it invokes does not end in a mere game of intellectual gymnastics, such as the ancients delighted in, but tends to the mastery of Nature. This gradual conquest of the external world, and the consciousness of augmented strength which accompanies it, render the study of Physics as delightful as it is important.

With regard to the effect on the imagination, certain it is that the cool results of physical induction furnish conceptions which transcend the most daring flights of that faculty. Take for example the idea of an all-pervading aether which transmits a tingle, so to speak, to the finger ends of the universe every time a street lamp is lighted. The invisible billows of this aether can be measured with the same ease and certainty as that with which an engineer measures a base and two angles, and from these finds the distance across the Thames. Now it is to be confessed that there may be just as little poetry in the measurement of an aethereal undulation as in that of the river; for the intellect, during the acts of measurement and calculation, destroys those notions of size which appeal to the poetic sense. It is a mistake to suppose, with Dr. Young, that

An undevout astronomer is mad;

there being no necessary connexion between a devout state of mind and the observations and calculations of a practical astronomer. It is not until the man withdraws from his calculation, as a painter from his work, and thus realizes the great idea on which he has been engaged, that imagination and wonder are excited. There is, I admit, a possible danger here. If the arithmetical processes of science be too exclusively pursued, they may impair the imagination, and thus the study of Physics is open to the same objection as philological, theological, or political studies, when carried to excess. But even in this case, the injury done is to the investigator himself: it does not reach the ma.s.s of mankind. Indeed, the conceptions furnished by his cold unimaginative reckonings may furnish themes for the poet, and excite in the highest degree that sentiment of wonder which, notwithstanding all its foolish vagaries, table-turning included, I, for my part, should be sorry to see banished from the world.

I have thus far dwelt upon the study of Physics as an agent of intellectual culture; but like other things in Nature, this study subserves more than a single end. The colours of the clouds delight the eye, and, no doubt, accomplish moral purposes also, but the selfsame clouds hold within their fleeces the moisture by which our fields are rendered fruitful. The sunbeams excite our interest and invite our investigation; but they also extend their beneficent influences to our fruits and corn, and thus accomplish, not only intellectual ends, but minister, at the same time, to our material necessities. And so it is with scientific research.

While the love of science is a sufficient incentive to the pursuit of science, and the investigator, in the prosecution of his enquiries, is raised above all material considerations, the results of his labours may exercise a potent influence upon the physical condition of the community. This is the arrangement of Nature, and not that of the scientific investigator himself; for he usually pursues his object without regard to its practical applications.

And let him who is dazzled by such applications--who sees in the steam-engine and the electric telegraph the highest embodiment of human genius and the only legitimate object of scientific research, beware of prescribing conditions to the investigator. Let him beware of attempting to subst.i.tute for that simple love with which the votary of science pursues his task, the calculations of what he is pleased to call utility. The professed utilitarian is unfortunately, in most cases, the very last man to see the occult sources from which useful results are derived. He admires the flower, but is ignorant of the conditions of its growth. The scientific man must approach Nature in his own way; for if you invade his freedom by your so-called practical considerations, it may be at the expense of those qualities on which his success as a discoverer depends. Let the self-styled practical man look to those from the fecundity of whose thought be, and thousands like him, have sprung into existence. Were they inspired in their first enquiries by the calculations of utility? Not one of them. They were often forced to live low and lie hard, and to seek compensation for their penury in the delight which their favourite pursuits afforded them.

In the words of one well qualified to speak upon this subject, 'I say not merely look at the pittance of men like John Dalton, or the voluntary starvation of the late Graff; but compare what is considered as competency or affluence by your Faradays, Liebigs, and Herschels, with the expected results of a life of successful commercial enterprise: then compare the amount of mind put forth, the work done for society in either case, and you will be constrained to allow that the former belong to a cla.s.s of workers who, properly speaking, are not paid, and cannot be paid for their work, as indeed it is of a sort to which no payment could stimulate.'

But while the scientific investigator, standing upon the frontiers of human knowledge, and aiming at the conquest of fresh soil from the surrounding region of the unknown, makes the discovery of truth his exclusive object for the time, he cannot but feel the deepest interest in the practical application of the truth discovered. There is something enn.o.bling in the triumph of Mind over Matter. Apart even from its uses to society, there is something elevating in the idea of Man having tamed that wild force which flashes through the telegraphic wire, and made it the minister of his will. Our attainments in these directions appear to be commensurate with our needs. We had already subdued horse and mule, and obtained from them all the service which it was in their power to render: we must either stand still, or find more potent agents to execute our purposes. At this point the steam-engine appears. These are still new things; it is not long since we struck into the scientific methods which have produced these results. We cannot for an instant regard them as the final achievements of Science, but rather as an earnest of what she is yet to do. They mark our first great advances upon the dominion of Nature. Animal strength fails, but here are the forces which hold the world together, and the instincts and successes of Man a.s.sure him that these forces are his when he is wise enough to command them.

As an instrument of intellectual culture, the study of Physics is profitable to all: as bearing upon special functions, its value, though not so great, is still more tangible. Why, for example, should Members of Parliament be ignorant of the subjects concerning which they are called upon to legislate? In this land of practical physics, why should they be unable to form an independent opinion upon a physical question? Why should the member of a parliamentary committee be left at the mercy of interested disputants when a scientific question is discussed, until he deems the nap a blessing which rescues him from the bewilderments of the committee-room? The education which does not supply the want here referred to, fails in its duty to England. With regard to our working people, in the ordinary sense of the term working, the study of Physics would, I imagine, be profitable, not only as a means of intellectual culture, but also as a moral influence to woo them from pursuits which now degrade them. A man's reformation oftener depends upon the indirect, than upon the direct action of the will. The will must be exerted in the choice of employment which shall break the force of temptation by erecting a barrier against it. The drunkard, for example, is in a perilous condition if he content himself merely with saying, or swearing, that he will avoid strong drink. His thoughts, if not attracted by another force, will revert to the public-house, and to rescue him permanently from this, you must give him an equivalent.

By investing the objects of hourly intercourse with an interest which prompts reflection, new enjoyments would be opened to the working man, and every one of these would be a point of force to protect him against temptation. Besides this, our factories and our foundries present an extensive field of observation, and were those who work in them rendered capable, by previous culture, of _observing_ what they see, the results might be incalculable. Who can say what intellectual Samsons are at the present moment toiling with closed eyes in the mills and forges of Manchester and Birmingham? Grant these Samsons sight, and you multiply the chances of discovery, and with them the prospects of national advancement. In our mult.i.tudinous technical operations we are constantly playing with forces our ignorance of which is often the cause of our destruction. There are agencies at work in a locomotive of which the maker of it probably never dreamed, but which nevertheless may be sufficient to convert it into an engine of death. When we reflect on the intellectual condition of the people who work in our coal mines, those terrific explosions which occur from time to time need not astonish us. If these men possessed sufficient physical knowledge, from the operatives themselves would probably emanate a system by which these shocking accidents might be avoided.

Possessed of the knowledge, their personal interests would furnish the necessary stimulus to its practical application, and thus two ends would be served at the same time the elevation of the men and the diminution of the calamity.

Before the present Course of Lectures was publicly announced, I had many misgivings as to the propriety of my taking a part in them, thinking that my place might be better filled by an older and more experienced man. To my experience, however, such as it was, I resolved to adhere, and I have therefore described things as they revealed themselves to my own eyes, and have been enacted in my own limited practice. There is one mind common to us all; and the true expression of this mind, even in small particulars, will attest itself by the response which it calls forth in the convictions of my hearers.

I ask your permission to proceed a little further in this fashion, and to refer to a fact or two in addition to those already cited, which presented themselves to my notice during my brief career as a teacher in the college already alluded to. The facts, though extremely humble, and deviating in some slight degree from the strict subject of the present discourse, may yet serve to ill.u.s.trate an educational principle.

One of the duties which fell to my share was the instruction of a cla.s.s in mathematics, and I usually found that Euclid and the ancient geometry generally, when properly and sympathetically addressed to the understanding, formed a most attractive study for youth. But it was my habitual practice to withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to their self-power in the treatment of questions not comprehended in that routine. At first, the change from the beaten track usually excited aversion: the youth felt like a child amid strangers; but in no single instance did this feeling continue.

When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by the anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and other men, mainly to his own patience; or of Mirabeau, when he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impossible, never again to use that blockhead of a word. Thus cheered, the boy has returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolution to try again. I have seen his eye brighten, and, at length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archimedes was but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, 'I have it, sir.' The consciousness of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense value; and, animated by it, the progress of the cla.s.s was astonishing. It was often my custom to give the boys the choice of pursuing their propositions in the book, or of trying their strength at others not to be found there. Never in a single instance was the book chosen. I was ever ready to a.s.sist when help was needful, but my offers of a.s.sistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of their own. Their diagrams were scratched on the walls, cut into the beams upon the playground, and numberless other ill.u.s.trations were afforded of the living interest they took in the subject. For my own part, as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a mere fledgling--knowing nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the Germans name it; but adhering to the spirit indicated at the commencement of this discourse, and endeavouring to make geometry a means rather than a branch of education. The experiment was successful, and some of the most delightful hours of my existence have been spent in marking the vigorous and cheerful expansion of mental power, when appealed to in the manner here described.

Our pleasure was enhanced when we applied our mathematical knowledge to the solution of physical problems. Many objects of hourly contact had thus a new interest and significance imparted to them. The swing, the see-saw, the tension of the giant-stride ropes, the fall and rebound of the football, the advantage of a small boy over a large one when turning short, particularly in slippy weather; all became subjects of investigation. A lady stands before a looking-gla.s.s, of her own height; it was required to know how much of the gla.s.s was really useful to her? We learned with pleasure the economic fact that she might dispense with the lower half and see her whole figure notwithstanding. It was also pleasant to prove by mathematics, and verify by experiment, that the angular velocity of a reflected beam is twice that of the mirror which reflects it. From the hum of a bee we were able to determine the number of times the insect flaps its wings in a second. Following up our researches upon the pendulum, we learned how Colonel Sabine had made it the means of determining the figure of the earth; and we were also startled by the inference which the pendulum enabled us to draw, that if the diurnal velocity of the earth were seventeen times its present amount, the centrifugal force at the equator would be precisely equal to the force of gravitation, so that an inhabitant of those regions would then have the same tendency to fall upwards as downwards. All these things were sources of wonder and delight to us: and when we remembered that we were gifted with the powers which had reached such results, and that the same great field was ours to work in, our hopes arose that at some future day we might possibly push the subject a little further, and add our own victories to the conquests already won.

I ought to apologise to you for dwelling so long upon this subject; but the days spent among these young philosophers made a deep impression on me. I learned among them something of myself and of human nature, and obtained some notion of a teacher's vocation. If there be one profession in England of paramount importance, I believe it to be that of the schoolmaster; and if there be a position where selfishness and incompetence do most serious mischief, by lowering the moral tone and exciting irreverence and cunning where reverence and n.o.ble truthfulness ought to be the feelings evoked, it is that of the princ.i.p.al of a school. When a man of enlarged heart and mind comes among boys, when he allows his spirit to stream through them, and observes the operation of his own character evidenced in the elevation of theirs,--it would be idle to talk of the position of such a man being honourable. It is a blessed position. The man is a blessing to himself and to all around him. Such men, I believe, are to be found in England, and it behoves those who busy themselves with the mechanics of education at the present day, to seek them out. For no matter what means of culture may be chosen, whether physical or philological, success must ever mainly depend upon the amount of life, love, and earnestness, which the teacher himself brings with him to his vocation.

Let me again, and finally, remind you that the claims of that science which finds in me to-day its unripened advocate, are those of the logic of Nature upon the reason of her child--that its disciplines, as an agent of culture, are based upon the natural relations subsisting between Man and the universe of which he forms a part. On the one side, we have the apparently lawless shifting of phenomena; on the other side, mind, which requires law for its equilibrium, and through its own indestructible instincts, as well as through the teachings of experience, knows that these phenomena are reducible to law. To chasten this apparent chaos is a problem which man has set before him.

The world was built in order: and to us are trusted the will and power to discern its harmonies, and to make them the lessons of our lives.

From the cradle to the grave we are surrounded with objects which provoke inquiry. Descending for a moment from this high plea to considerations which lie closer to us as a nation--as a land of gas and furnaces, of steam and electricity: as a land which science, practically applied, has made great in peace and mighty in war: I ask you whether this 'land of old and just renown' has not a right to expect from her inst.i.tutions a culture more in accordance with her present needs than that supplied by declension and conjugation? And if the tendency should be to lower the estimate of science, by regarding it exclusively as the instrument of material prosperity, let it be the high mission of our universities to furnish the proper counterpoise by pointing out its n.o.bler uses--lifting the national mind to the contemplation of it as the last development of that 'increasing purpose' which runs through the ages and widens the thoughts of men.

XII. ON CRYSTALLINE AND SLATY CLEAVAGE.

[Footnote: From a discourse delivered in the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain, June 6, 1856.]

WHEN the student of physical science has to investigate the character of any natural force, his first care must be to purify it from the mixture of other forces, and thus study its simple action. If, for example, he wishes to know how a ma.s.s of liquid would shape itself if at liberty to follow the bent of its own molecular forces, he must see that these forces have free and undisturbed exercise. We might perhaps refer him to the dewdrop for a solution of the question; but here we have to do, not only with the action of the molecules of the liquid upon each other, but also with the action of gravity upon the ma.s.s, which pulls the drop downwards and elongates it. If he would examine the problem in its purity, he must do as Plateau has done, detach the liquid ma.s.s from the action of gravity; he would then find the shape to be a perfect sphere. Natural processes come to us in a mixed manner, and to the uninstructed mind are a ma.s.s of unintelligible confusion. Suppose half-a-dozen of the best musical performers to be placed in the same room, each playing his own instrument to perfection, but no two playing the same tune; though each individual instrument might be a source of perfect music, still the mixture of all would produce mere noise.

Thus it is with the processes of nature, where mechanical and molecular laws intermingle and create apparent confusion. Their mixture const.i.tutes what may be called the _noise_ of natural laws, and it is the vocation of the man of science to resolve this noise into its components, and thus to detect the underlying music.

The necessity of this detachment of one force from all other forces is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the phenomena of crystallisation. Here, for example, is a solution of common sulphate of soda or Glauber salt. Looking into it mentally, we see the molecules of that liquid, like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round distinct centres, and forming themselves into solid ma.s.ses, which after a time a.s.sume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. I may, like an ignorant meddler wishing to hasten matters, introduce confusion into this order. This may be done by plunging a gla.s.s rod into the vessel; the consequent action is not the pure expression of the crystalline forces; the molecules rush together with the confusion of an unorganised mob, and not with the steady accuracy of a disciplined host. In this ma.s.s of bis.m.u.th also we have an example of confused crystallisation; but in the crucible behind me a slower process is going on: here there is an architect at work 'who makes no chips, no din,' and who is now building the particles into crystals, similar in shape and structure to those beautiful ma.s.ses which we see upon the table. By permitting alum to crystallise in this slow way, we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallise, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallises, we have formed these hexagonal prisms capped at the ends by pyramids; by allowing saltpetre to crystallise we have these prismatic ma.s.ses, and when carbon crystallises, we have the diamond.

If we wish to obtain a perfect crystal we must allow the molecular forces free play; if the crystallising ma.s.s be permitted to rest upon a surface it will be flattened, and to prevent this a small crystal must be so suspended as to be surrounded on all sides by the liquid, or, if it rest upon the surface, it must be turned daily so as to present all its faces in succession to the working builder.

In building up crystals these little atomic bricks often arrange themselves into layers which are perfectly parallel to each other, and which can be separated by mechanical means; this is called the cleavage of the crystal. The crystal of sugar I hold in my hand has thus far escaped the solvent and abrading forces which sooner or later determine the fate of sugar-candy. I readily discover that it cleaves with peculiar facility in one direction. Again I lay my knife upon this piece of rocksalt, and with a blow cleave it in one direction.

Laying the knife at right angles to its former position, the crystal cleaves again; and finally placing the knife at right angles to the two former positions, we find a third cleavage. Rocksalt cleaves in three directions, and the resulting solid is this perfect cube, which may be broken up into any number of smaller cubes. Iceland spar also cleaves in three directions, not at right angles, but oblique to each other, the resulting solid being a rhomboid. In each of these cases the ma.s.s cleaves with equal facility in all three directions. For the sake of completeness I may say that many crystals cleave with unequal facility in different directions: heavy spar presents an example of this kind of cleavage.

Turn we now to the consideration of some other phenomena to which the term cleavage may be applied. Beech, deal, and other woods cleave with facility along the fibre, and this cleavage is most perfect when the edge of the axe is laid across the rings which mark the growth of the tree. If you look at this bundle of hay severed from a rick, you will see a sort of cleavage in it also; the stalks lie in horizontal planes, and only a small force is required to separate them laterally.

But we cannot regard the cleavage of the tree as the same in character as that of the hayrick. In the one case it is the molecules arranging themselves according to organic laws which produce a cleavable structure, in the other case the easy separation in one direction is due to the mechanical arrangement of the coa.r.s.e sensible stalks of hay.

This sandstone rock was once a powder held in mechanical suspension by water. The powder was composed of two distinct parts, fine grains of sand and small plates of mica. Imagine a wide strand covered by a tide, or an estuary with water which holds such powder in suspension: how will it sink? The rounded grains of sand will reach the bottom first, because they encounter least resistance, the mica afterwards, and when the tide recedes we have the little plates shining like spangles upon the surface of the sand. Each successive tide brings its charge of mixed powder, deposits its duplex layer day after day, and finally ma.s.ses of immense thickness are piled up, which by preserving the alternations of sand and mica tell the tale of their formation. Take the sand and mica, mix them together in water, and allow them to subside; they will arrange themselves in the manner indicated, and by repeating the process you can actually build up a ma.s.s which shall be the exact counterpart of that presented by nature.

Now this structure cleaves with readiness along the planes in which the particles of mica are strewn. Specimens of such a rock sent to me from Halifax, and other ma.s.ses from the quarries of Over Darwen in Lancashire, are here before you. With a hammer and chisel I can cleave them into flags; indeed these flags are employed for roofing purposes in the districts from which the specimens have come, and receive the name of 'slatestone.' But you will discern without a word from me, that this cleavage is not a crystalline cleavage any more than that of a hayrick is. It is molar, not molecular.

This, so far as I am aware of, has never been imagined, and it has been agreed among geologists not to call such splitting as this cleavage at all, but to restrict the term to a phenomenon of a totally different character.

Those who have visited the slate quarries of c.u.mberland and North Wales will have witnessed the phenomenon to which I refer. We have long drawn our supply of roofing-slates from such quarries; school-boys ciphered on these slates, they were used for tombstones in churchyards, and for billiard-tables in the metropolis; but not until a comparatively late period did men begin to enquire how their wonderful structure was produced. What is the agency which enables us to split Honister Crag, or the cliffs of Snowdon, into laminae from crown to base? This question is at the present moment one of the great difficulties of geologists, and occupies their attention perhaps more than any other. You may wonder at this. Looking into the quarry of Penrhyn, you may be disposed to offer the explanation I heard given two years ago. 'These planes of cleavage,' said a friend who stood beside me on the quarry's edge, 'are the planes of stratification which have been lifted by some convulsion into an almost vertical position.' But this was a mistake, and indeed here lies the grand difficulty of the problem. The planes of cleavage stand in most cases at a high angle to the bedding. Thanks to Sir Roderick Murchison, I am able to place the proof of this before you. Here is a specimen of slate in which both the planes of cleavage and of bedding are distinctly marked, one of them making a large angle with the other.

This is common. The cleavage of slates then is not a question of stratification; what then is its cause?

In an able and elaborate essay published in 1835, Prof. Sedgwick proposed the theory that cleavage is due to the action of crystalline or polar forces subsequent to the consolidation of the rock. 'We may affirm,' he says, 'that no retreat of the parts, no contraction of dimensions in pa.s.sing to a solid state, can explain such phenomena.

They appear to me only resolvable on the supposition that crystalline or polar forces acted upon the whole ma.s.s simultaneously in one direction and with adequate force.' And again, in another place: 'Crystalline forces have re-arranged whole mountain ma.s.ses, producing a beautiful crystalline cleavage, pa.s.sing alike through all the strata.' [Footnote: Transactions of the Geological Society, ser. ii, vol. iii. p. 477.]

The utterance of such a man struck deep, as it ought to do, into the minds of geologists, and at the present day there are few who do not entertain this view either in whole or in part. [Footnote: In a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, dated from the Cape of Good Hope February 20, 1836, Sir John Herschel writes as follows: 'If rocks have been so heated as to allow of a commencement of crystallisation, that is to say, if they have been heated to a point at which the particles can begin to move amongst themselves, or at least on their own axes, some general law must then determine the position in which these particles will rest on cooling. Probably that position will have some relation to the direction in which the heat escapes. Now when all or a majority of particles of the same nature have a general tendency to one position, that must of course determine a cleavage plane.'] The boldness of the theory, indeed, has, in some cases, caused speculation to run riot, and we have books published on the action of polar forces and geologic magnetism, which rather astonish those who know something about the subject. According to this theory whole districts of North Wales and c.u.mberland, mountains included, are neither more nor less than the parts of a gigantic crystal. These ma.s.ses of slate were originally fine mud, composed of the broken and abraded particles of older rocks. They contain silica, alumina, potash, soda, and mica mixed mechanically together. In the course of ages the mixture became consolidated, and the theory before us a.s.sumes that a process of crystallisation afterwards rearranged the particles and developed in it a single plane of cleavage. Though a bold, and I think inadmissible, stretch of a.n.a.logies, this hypothesis has done good service. Right or wrong, a thoughtfully uttered theory has a dynamic power which operates against intellectual stagnation; and even by provoking opposition is eventually of service to the cause of truth.

It would, however, have been remarkable if, among the ranks of geologists themselves, men were not found to seek an explanation of slate-cleavage involving a less hardy a.s.sumption.

The first step in an enquiry of this kind is to seek facts. This has been done, and the labours of Daniel Sharpe (the late President of the Geological Society, who, to the loss of science and the sorrow of all who knew him, has so suddenly been taken away from us), Mr. Henry Clifton Sorby, and others, have furnished us with a body of facts a.s.sociated with slaty cleavage, and having a most important bearing upon the question.

Fossil sh.e.l.ls are found in these slate-rocks. I have here several specimens of such sh.e.l.ls in the actual rock, and occupying various positions in regard to the cleavage planes. They are squeezed, distorted, and crushed; in all cases the distortion leads to the inference that the rock which contains these sh.e.l.ls has been subjected to enormous pressure in a direction at right angles to the planes of cleavage. The sh.e.l.ls are all flattened and spread out in these planes. Compare this fossil trilobite of normal proportions with these others which have suffered distortion. Some have lain across, some along, and some oblique to the cleavage of the slate in which they are found; but in all cases the distortion is such, as required for its production a compressing force acting, at right angles to the planes of cleavage. As the trilobites lay in the mud, the jaws of a gigantic vice appear to have closed upon them and squeezed them into the shapes you see.

We sometimes find a thin layer of coa.r.s.e gritty material, between two layers of finer rock, through which and across the gritty layer pa.s.s the planes of lamination. The coa.r.s.e layer is found bent by the pressure into sinuosities like a contorted ribbon. Mr. Sorby has described a striking case of this kind. This crumpling can be experimentally imitated; the amount of compression might, moreover, be roughly estimated by supposing the contorted bed to be stretched out, its length measured and compared with the shorter distance into which it has been squeezed. We find in this way that the yielding of the ma.s.s has been considerable.

Let me now direct your attention to another proof of pressure; you see the varying colours which indicate the bedding on this ma.s.s of slate.

The dark portion is gritty, being composed of comparatively coa.r.s.e particles, which, owing to their size, shape and gravity, sink first and const.i.tute the bottom of each layer. Gradually, from bottom to top the coa.r.s.eness diminishes, and near the upper surface we have a layer of exceedingly fine grain. It is the fine mud thus consolidated from which are derived the German razor-stones, so much prized for the sharpening of surgical instruments.

When a bed is thin, the fine-grain slate is permitted to rest upon a slab of the coa.r.s.e slate in contact with it; when the fine bed is thick, it is cut into slices which are cemented to pieces of ordinary slate, and thus rendered stronger. The mud thus deposited is, as might be expected, often rolled up into nodular ma.s.ses, carried forward, and deposited among coa.r.s.er material by the rivers from which the slate-mud has subsided. Here are such nodules enclosed in sandstone. Everybody, moreover, who has ciphered upon a school-slate must remember the whitish-green spots which sometimes dotted the surface of the slate, and over which the pencil usually slid as if the spots were greasy. Now these spots are composed of the finer mud, and they could not, on account of their fineness, bite the pencil like the surrounding gritty portions of the slate. Here is a beautiful example of these spots: you observe them, on the cleavage surface, in broad round patches. But turn the slate edgeways and the section of each nodule is seen to be a sharp oval with its longer axis parallel to the cleavage. This instructive fact has been adduced by Mr. Sorby. I have made excursions to the quarries of Wales and c.u.mberland, and to many of the slate yards of London, and found the fact general. Thus we elevate a common experience of our boyhood into evidence of the highest significance as regards a most important geological problem.

From the magnetic deportment of these slates, I was led to infer that these spots contain a less amount of iron than the surrounding dark slate. An a.n.a.lysis was made for me by Mr. Hambly in the laboratory of Dr. Percy at the School of Mines with the following result: