Threats Of Science

Wouderful tliings are going to be done by the developnoent of synthetic ohemistry between aow aud the year 2000 if Professor Berthelot, the Frenoh savant, is to be believed. The food aud drink producing animáis and vegetables will not then be encouraged to exist for human life, but food and drink 'will be ruauufactured direct and to order by man himself and servod in highly concentrated tablets, vest pocket size. A person may then carry a bont him two or three table d'hote dinuers complete, froni Blue Point oysters or Little Neck ölame to crackers, cheese and coffee, tobáceo and with all his wine and cognac included. This chango vi.Jl be brought about, it is said, by the re markable progress being made iu com pounding food and drink from thei constituent elements - carbon, hydro gen, oxygen and nitrogen. It has ad vaneed so far already that the prepara tion of beefsteak froni its elements i assured, and nicotine, the essential prin ciplo of tobáceo, has been produced from coal tar. Life indeed would uot be worth th living should the professor have hi way. The ready made tablots of fooi and drink would be horribly alike to the eye, the taste and the understand iug; eating and drisking would bepure ly mechanioal; good fellownhip and wi and imagination wonld depart, and ex istence would be utterly material ani