Great Physical Forces

"Show me a man who makes no mistakes, and I will show you a man who has done nothing."-Liebig. In this little volume the author gives but his own personal opinions upon the subjects discussed, and although the sentiments are expressed with an assurance born of conviction, yet he claims not infallibility.

Large print 15 point font.

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Excerpt:

The sun's position in the great field of energy is daily becoming more exalted in the estimation of philosophic minds. His labors are being revealed to us with a distinctness never before conceived. He it is that stored the coal in the bosom of the earth, and piled up the polar ice. He it is that aids the chemist, drives the engine, ripens the harvest, dispenses life and health.

The study of the sun and solar physics, therefore, must be essential to the right understanding of whatever we observe to take place at the earth. Sun and earth are united in indissoluble bonds. In philosophic minds the conviction of a most perfect inter-dependence is rapidly gaining ground.

All this has been known and appreciated to a degree, yet this great source of universal operations is shrouded in mystery. Still, our curiosity has been kindled, and men are eagerly looking for further developments.

Natural Science, in all her branches, is fully awake, and is on her watch-tower of observation. Ignorance of the sun, of its character, and of the methods by which its functions are performed, must be confessed; notwithstanding all the more recent unfoldings and imaginings of scientists, regarding the great orb. But yet we are very hopeful of vast increase in our solar knowledge; not alone, or chiefly, by new observations, or discoveries, but quite as much by new interpretations of old, long observed phenomena. The ground of hopefulness lies in the belief that a grand unity underlies, and binds together in one, all Physical Forces, as well in earth and sun.