Show y As the proud century draws toa to a close it would decem that it have good reason to be proud ot the legacy to be left by them to succeeding adesi the last century saw infancy of the steam engine saw the notation of gai and ot a few other in the field of chemistry and anat h nearly all in science to the present ago by its before giboo the cities of the corid were haill lighted by lamps and candles electricity had ith hi development in inefficient frictional electric machi nesi and steamboats were not yet a factor in transportation and even the of england Eng lind had but begun to be mide llie adage that there fes nothing new under the bun applied with full force to the few achieve i enli in science of the world one hundred years ago then the nineteenth century commenced gas lighting waa and the nocturnal crimes of great cities almost Lavoi and friesl leys discovery of ox gen began to bear fruit and modern which ii a tittle over a century old gradually took a in the wid of science the galvanic battery gave strong current sir humphry davy produced the licht and the melila of the al kalies the locomotive and telegraph came into existence ei stence and for a time it deemed as if man had all he could attend to in developing the new discoveries the of the of gasca has long been a fascinating one for the and experimenter chlorine and carbon dioxide were among the a number of year ago to succumb to arc durei and alter awhile scientists established two clas e fled and the liquefiable gabes this dibi ion no longer eit 8 all the elemental gases have been liquefied and the apparatus has been so perfected that with comparatively simple appliance ii and jn a space 0 ten minutes liquid air can be collected like water in an open catel Cb tel and the a has been made within a ew month by one of the qualified in of the world blut in the near future liquid air will probably be the gibat louice of artificial coad even more wonderful is the liquefaction of air produced by the cold due to its own expansion pan sion which has been accomplished recently on what may be termed the commercial scale we may within a few years see air supplied ana used by the liter like any common chemical acetylene will always remain one of alie milestones of the woi ids progress its production is due to the development of the dynamo it ia gift made by physics to its chemistry the analysis of air was early attempted and has aven nude w often thai it seemed as if its composition was settled forever it was always treated as of fixed composition no variation being found in it whenever collected uhlers artificially contaminated but within a few months the world of science was startled to hear that an element hitherto undiscovered was a constituent of air and that its composition had never been con eally determined the new analysis showed llie existence in air of the strange neutral element argon argon and acetylene represent triumphs of alie opposite branches of chemistry of analysis and of synthesis respectively and now the world is electrified over a new discovery dis covery exemplified by the reproduction of an of an object tin ough opaque screens by hitherto unknown rays we allude to roentgens discovery of X ray photography science had accepted the theory of light it had by referring light phenomena to wave motion of the ether accounted for all the actions of light a mathematical explanation of refraction and reflection biad been reached and the theory of seemed to include or photography binca the beginning of the present year the epoch madlne work of een has been published and it presents no greater degree of achievements than it does of mystification as it affects the theory of light the synthesis of carbon and hydrogen the liquefaction of air and hydrogen the discovery of argon and the discovery of X ray photography will add new luster to tle names connected with the work rayleigh dewar and roentgen among the pure scientists and and linde among the technologists will have their fame increased by the renown which their achievements will impart to the expiring century scientific american |