Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers Volume 38 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...may we not question the right to buy men's thoughts; and when through their thoughts we have unraveled some of nature's secrets, and learnt something to our profit, use our power and another's necessities to impose secrecy? Are we not enslaving a human mind, and can any slavery be worse? A natural phenomenon of force, once so understood that it can be controlled, --is it not as much a gift of God as rain and sunlight, and therefore part of the heritage of all mankind? Corporate wealth and corporate energy are doing much for mankind, despite the fact that of corporate shortcomings we hear just now more than we do of corporate benefactions. But corporate influence will have reached its most beneficent development when the wealth and activity and masterful management of the able men who wield it are united to the knowledge and skill of their technical staff in not only discovering but publishing the truths of nature, which they may be agents in revealing. Nor are we oversanguine in believing that this high aspiration, if carried into practice, would not interfere with the lower motive of their existence, money-making. Sir Michael Faraday is not the only worker in the field of practical science who has given the results of his labor unreservedly to the world. It is almost invidious to single out instances when so many distinguished and such a multitude of obscure toilers are working at the intricate problems of technology from sheer attachment to truth and without any thought of gain. But three notable names may be mentioned as representative of this noble army of the unselfish--our own Prof. Henry, Dr. Roentgen, and that devoted couple, whom we rank as one--for, as husband and wife, they were as united in love one of another as they were one in love of science-...