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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE - VOLUME 3
A HISTORY OF SCIENCE - VOLUME 3 HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME III.
MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF THE
PHYSICAL SCIENCES
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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