Various

“ No matter whether science shall complete her demonstration that man has been on the earth six thousand years or six hundred thousand. No matter whether she reveal new ideas of the Creator or startling relations between his creatures--the result, when fully thought out, will serve and strengthen religion not less than science. The very finger of the Almighty has written on history that science must be studied by means proper to itself, and in no other way. ”

“ These interferences and the struggle against them make up the warfare of science. One statement more to clear the ground. You will not understand me at all to say that religion has done nothing for science. It has done much for it. The work of Christianity has been mighty indeed. Through these 2,000 years it has undermined servitude, mitigated tyranny, given hope to the hopeless, comfort to the afflicted, light to the blind, bread to the starving, life to the dying, and all this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often and developed it. ”

“ To infringe a patent right it is not necessary that the thing patented should be adopted in every particular; but if, as in the present case, the design and figures were substantially adopted by the defendants, they have infringed the plaintiff's right. If they adopt the same principle the defendants are guilty. The principle of a machine is that combination of mechanical powers which produce a certain result. And in a case like the present, where ornaments are used for a stove, it is an infringement to adopt the design so as to produce substantially the same appearance. ”

“ The shadows cast by the object are, by means of lenses, focussed upon something capable of reflection, such as a wall or screen. No essential changes in the principles of construction have been made since the time of Kircher; but the modern improvements in lenses, lights, and pictures, have raised the character of the instrument from that of a mere toy to an apparatus of the highest utility. By its employment the most wonderful forms of creation, invisible, perhaps, to the eye, are not only revealed but reproduced in gigantic proportions, with all the marvelous truth of nature itself. ”

“ Seeing that it cannot with any show of reason be affirmed that the boiler covering materials in present use possess the requirements necessary to recommend them; the question arises as to what is the best means of achieving the object required. This is an inquiry which it is the office of time alone to answer. As the problem is obviously one of primary importance, and well worthy of the attention of inventors, it is hazarding nothing to predict its satisfactory solution at no distant date.
The plain truth is, boilers have of late become gigantic foes to human life. ”

“ But upon the opening of a work, to which all the minor canals in the world are like the rods of the magicians to Aaron's rod which swallowed them up, it is expected that everything shall move without difficulty, and that no oversight will have been committed. Truly this would be to attribute a power of prevision to M. Lesseps beyond what is human. The world can afford to wait a little till this huge machine gets oiled. Great enterprises move slow at the outset. ”

“ You have noted already that there are generally two sorts of attacks on a new science. First, there is the attack by pitting against science some great doctrine in theology. You saw this in astronomy, when Bellarmine and others insisted that the doctrine of the earth's revolving about the sun is contrary to the doctrine of the Incarnation. So now against geology it was urged that the scientific doctrine that the fossils represented animals which died before Adam was contrary to the doctrine of Adam's fall, and that death entered the world by sin. ”

“ The steam plow suited to the genius of our people, must, to use a vulgarism, "get up and go." It must possess sufficient power of propulsion and traction to pulverize the ground better, deeper, and more rapidly than the "old way." ”

“ Ingratitude seldom enters into the composition of a true inventor, and nothing in our business career has afforded us more pleasure than the frequent letters addressed to us by those who have, during more than twenty years, employed the Scientific American Patent Agency. ”

“ We do not remember the exact date of the invention of stoves, but it was some years ago. Since then mankind have been tormented once a year, by the difficulties that beset the task of putting them up, and getting the pipes fixed. With all our Yankee ingenuity no American has ever invented any method by which the labor of putting up stoves can be lessened. The job is as severe and vexatious as humanity can possibly endure, and gets more so every year. ”

“ Some persons, who pass themselves off very satisfactorily as clever engineers, affect a contempt for the higher branches of science, and assert, in a very positive and self-sufficient manner that experiments made in a study or laboratory are on too trifling and small a scale to be practically relied upon; that a tin kettle or a saucepan is a very different thing to the boiler of a steam engine. ”

“ There seems a growing opinion among railway managers that the sole end and purpose of a railroad is to line the 6 pockets of, if not its stockholders, at least its directors. In fact we not long since saw a statement in a widely-circulated journal, that, as the sole purpose of railroads is that the companies who own them should make money, it is absurd to suppose they would be content to manage them in any way whereby such a result would not be most likely to accrue. ”

“ Most of our readers who attended the last Fair of the American Institute, will recall an article in the furniture department, which attracted much attention on account of its novelty and utility. We refer to the wire mattress, or bed, manufactured by the Woven Wire Mattress Company, of Hartford, Conn. To the ordinary mind a new invention is interesting or not, in proportion to the probability of its coming into every-day use, and many a good housewife lingers in admiration over an improved sewing machine or cooking stove, to whom a new steam engine has no attraction. ”

“ The speaker said that "In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion--no matter how conscientious such interference may have been--has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and science, and invariably. And on the other hand all untrammeled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed, temporarily, to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good of religion and science. ”

“ In the year 1516, the banana was brought to the West Indian Islands by a monk, since which time it has rapidly spread over the tropics of America, and is found to the twenty-fifth degree north and south of the equator. It is equally indispensable and is appreciated by the immigrant and by the native as a beautifier of the landscape; affording shelter from the sun and rain, and giving bread to the children; for if every other crop should fail, the hungry native looks up to the banana tree, like a merchant to his well-filled storehouse. ”

“ They are poisoned weapons. They go to the heart of loving women; they alienate dear children; they injure the man after life is ended, for they leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who loved him best--fears for his eternal happiness, dread of the Divine displeasure. The battle-fields of science are thickly strewn with these. They have been used against almost every man who has ever done anything for his fellow-men. The list of those who have been denounced as Infidel and Atheist includes almost all great men of science--general scholars, inventors, philanthropists. ”

“ It is the same which we hear in this age against scientific studies--the cry for what is called 'sound learning.' Whether standing for Aristotle against Bacon, or Aquinas against Erasmus, or Galen against Vesalius, or making mechanical Greek verses at Eton, instead of studying the handiwork of the Almighty, or reading Euripides with translations instead of Leasing and Goethe in the original, the cry always is for 'sound learning.' The idea always is that these studies are safe. ”

“ His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated French gentleman that he is. His manner is winning, his voice clear and under most excellent control, as all those who have listened to his admirable lectures on the Canal at the late Paris Exposition cannot fail to remember. What is perhaps most remarkable in a man so bred and constituted, is that with great gentleness of speech and suavity of manner he combines a strength of will and fixity of purpose worthy of Napoleon or Caesar himself. Beneath that calm exterior lay a power which needed but the stimulus of a great idea to develop. ”

“ The value of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN as an advertising medium cannot be over-estimated. Its circulation is ten times greater than that of any similar journal now published. It goes into all the States and Territories, and is read in all the principal libraries and reading-rooms of the world. We invite the attention of those who wish to make their business known to the annexed rates. A business man wants something more than to see his advertisement in a printed newspaper. He wants circulation. ”

“ THE MOST VALUABLE MACHINE FOR Planing Irregular and Straight Work in all branches of Wood-Working, is the Combination Molding and Planing Machine Co.'s "Variety Molding and Planing Machine." Our improved guards make it safe to operate; our combination collars save one hundred per cent; and for planing, molding, and cutting irregular forms, our Machine is unsurpassed. The right to make and vend these Machines is owned solely by us, and we will defend Purchasers in case litigation is forced upon them by any parties pretending to own Patent on any part of our Variety Machine. ”

“ Although Canadians may freely go to all parts of the world and take out patents for their inventions, they have always manifested a mean spirit and adopted a narrow policy, in reference to inventors of other nations. Their present patent laws are so framed as practically to debar all persons except Canadians from taking patents; and the result is that American and English inventions are pirated and patented in the Dominion, without so much as a "thank you, sir," to the bona fide originators. ”

“ The printing is effected by steam-worked presses. The ink is blue, and its composition known only to a few of the authorities. An inspector goes his rounds during the continuance of the operations, watching every press, every workman, every process. A beautiful machine, distinct from the press, is employed to print the variable numbers on the note; fed with sheets of paper, it will number a thousand of them in succession, changing the digits each time, and scarcely requiring to be touched meanwhile; even the removal of one note and the placing of another are effected by automatic agency. ”

“ The cost of the oil expended in maintaining in proper condition the axles of the machinery in a foundery, or of the rolling stock of a railroad, amounts to a large sum annually; while the want of neatness which its use makes, to a certain extent, inevitable, and the labor which must be constantly employed to prevent this want of neatness from becoming much greater than it is, are serious items to be set off against its positive usefulness. ”

“ Whether as a work of reference, a record of current scientific development, or as an organ and exponent of our inventors, it stands alone for the general ability of its conduct, the voluminousness and variety of its contents, the exactitude and extent of its knowledge, and the correctness of its information. The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is a credit at once to the press and our country, and the small price of a yearly subscription ($3) , purchases, it is quite safe to say, the largest amount of solid value to be procured for a like expenditure in the world. ”

“ The next great want of the West is a practical grain binder, that shall securely bind the grain as cut. The scarcity and high price of labor renders such a machine an absolute necessity. The efforts to supply this great want have been numerous, but with no flattering success so far as I am able to learn, except the machine invented by a citizen of this place, which has already made its mark by demonstrating that automatic machinery can and does bind the grain as fast as cut. ”

“ THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.--This paper is the oldest in its peculiar province in the United States, and was, for many years, the only one. More recently others have arisen, and are following in its footsteps; but the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN still maintains its position as the best American journal of the inventive arts. Its Patent Office department alone is invaluable to inventors, while its editorial articles, illustrations, etc., give not only information, but a constant stimulus to the productive faculty.--Mobile Register. ”

“ A truth written upon the human heart to-day in its full play of emotions or passions, cannot be at any real variance even with a truth written upon a fossil whose poor life was gone millions of years ago. ”

“ No pigment with the requisites of durability and cheapness will resist the attacks of strong acids on iron. The first we have mentioned will--all such as may float in our air from factories or chemical works. Chemically it is converted by nitric acid and chlorine into an insoluble substance--plumbic acid or the cyanide of lead. An experience of more than three years, with almost unlimited means at our command for experiment, demonstrates to us that we have indicated the means of filling the other requisites asked for. It may be that something new will be discovered, but we doubt it. ”

“ There has been much discussion as to the best means of cooling milk for market, and patent pails have been tried in which the milk passes directly from the cow through small, coiled tubes surrounded by ice. But this rapid cooling does not work well, and practical experience indicates that the old simple process is the best. Every well-appointed farm must have, therefore, a cool and unfailing stream of water. There are two such streams in one of the farms we visited. One passes through the barn, furnishing drinking troughs for the cattle, and a tank for cooling milk in winter. ”

“ It is now generally admitted that, heat being motion, anything, which, by the cohesion of particles, preserves the continuity of the molecular chain along which the motion is conveyed, must augment calorific transmission. On the other hand, when there is a division or disintegration of atoms, such as exists in sawdust, powdered charcoal, furs, and felt, the particles composing such bodies are separated from each other by spaces of air, which the instructed among us well know are good non-conductors of heat. ”