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on being asked if he would know what he wanted if he saw it, replied in the negative, the transaction came to an end. We are like the captain's customer. We go forth in hundreds every year, as pilgrims over the earth, to seek, as we say, our fortune, as if all the seeking were on our side, and we should certainly know our fortune if we saw it. And all the while, it may be, our fortune, like a lost bride, is seeking us, and too often, like Gabriel and Evangeline, in Longfellow's sad story, we pass each other in the dark, and, all unconscious of the fact, bid farewell forever.
How many of the young men who visit foreign countries or the colonies, bent on commercial enterprise, could tell gold from mica or pyrites, or diamonds from rock crystal, or platina ore from iron sand? How many of them, if shown a white shining stone, would be able to say whether it was quartz, limestone, alabaster, cryolite, felspar, or apatite? The first they might afterwards discover was of no pecuniary value; the second might be wrought as marble; the third might carve into sculptures, and would at least burn into stucco; the fourth is the choicest ore of the strange metal aluminium; the fifth is to the potter, enamel-maker, and other industrialists, of the greatest value; the sixth, mineral phosphate of lime, is at present the object of universal search among agriculturists. How many of the youths in question could tell whether the exudation from a tree was a gum, a sugar, a manna, a resin, a gum-resin, a camphor, a caoutchouc, or a gutta percha? How many could tell whether the white crust or hoar-frost-like efflorescence on the soil was carbonate of soda, nitrate of soda, nitrate of potash, borax, or common salt, substances of immensely different money-values? How many could say whether the coloured juice or infusion of a particular plant or tree was a fugitive or permanent dye? Whether a particular seed would yield oil or would not? Whether the fibres of a plant were suitable or not for textile fabrics, for ropes, and for paper-making? Whether a particular wood was soft or hard, lasting or destructible? Whether a particular rock would yield a good building stone or not? Whether the district they had travelled over was a limestone, granite, or sandstone formation? Whether coal was likely to be found in it? Whether it possessed any metals, or metallic ores, or other precious minerals? Whether water was likely to be plentiful all the year round and so on.
Now, were it proposed to teach any single youth to distinguish with certainty, wherever he found them on the earth's surface, the various objects which have
AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.
512
27
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THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
on being asked if he would know what he wanted if he saw it, replied in the negative, the transaction came to an end. We are like the captain's customer. We go forth in hundreds every year, as pilgrims over the earth, to seck, as we say, our fortune, as if all the seeking were on our side, and we should certainly know our fortune if we saw it. And all the while, it may be, our fortune, like a lost bride, is seeking us, and too often, like Gabriel and Evangeline, in Longfellow's sad story, we pass each other in the dark, and, all unconscious of the fact, bid farewell for ever.
How many of the young men who visit foreign countries or the colonies, bent on commercial enter- prise, could tell gold from mica or pyrites, or dia- monds from rock crystal, or platina ore from iron sand? How many of them, if shown a white shining stone, would be able to say whether it was quartz, limestone, alabaster, cryolite, felspar, or apatite? The first they might afterwards discover was of no pecuni- ary value; the second might be wrought as marble; the third might carve into sculptures, and would at least burn into stucco; the fourth is the choicest ore of the strange metal aluminium; the fifth is to the potter, enamel-maker, and other industrialists, of the greatest value
; the sixth, mineral phosphate of lime, is at
AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.
present the object of universal search ainong agricul- turists. How many of the youths in question could tell whether the exudation from a tree was a gum, a sugar, a inanina, a resin, a gum-resin, a camphor, a caoutchouc, or a gutta percha? How many could
tell whether the white crust or hour-frost-like efflo- rescence on the soil was carbonate of soda, nitrate of soda, nitrate of potash, borax, or common salt, sub- stances of immensely different money-values? How many could say whether the coloured juice or infusion of a particular plant or tree was a fugitive or perma- nent dye? Whether a particular seed would yield oil or would not? Whether the fibres of a plant were suitable or not for textile fabrics, for ropes, and for paper-making? Whether a particular wood was soft or hard, lasting or destructible? Whether a particular rock would yield a good building stone or not 1 Whether the district they had travelled over was a limestone, granite, or sandstone formation? Whether coal was likely to be found in it? Whether it possessed any metals, or metallic ores, or other precious minerals? Whether water was likely to be plentiful all the year round and so on.
Now, were it proposed to teach any single youth
to distinguish with certainty, wherever he found them on the earth's surface, the various objects which have
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