An Inspiring Romance by F.

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 21, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 25.

An Inspiring Romance

By F.

IN these days when new inventions are crowded upon us thick and fast, we have but little time to enquire into what we might term the romance of invention. Yet in the causes that lie behind the discovery of a new process or a new machine there is many an inspiring story. One such story has just come to our notice in the March 27 issue of the Scientific American. To quote:

There have been few more picturesque stories published in this or any other publication than that one which is concerned with the establishment of a giant industry, the making of an epochal discovery, and the very probable conservation of millions of horse-power, untold tons of coal and barrels of oil, through the interpretation of a verse in the Bible which had had only a parable-like translation in the mouths of [some of] those whose work it is to interpret the Word.

This discovery-producing verse is a familiar one and reads thus:—

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. Ex. 5:12.

After reading this verse, Dr. Acheson, the “father of the lubrication of the future,” reasoned this way: Neither straw nor stubble could act as binders of the clay, for neither has any strength of its own; yet one or the other was essential for the manufacture of those Egyptian bricks. Therefore, argued the scientist, it was something in the straw and stubble that produced the good bricks. Thereafter followed many experiments and much thinking, with the result that a new natural process, called deflocculation, was discovered and a new method of lubrication, by means of deflocculated graphite, given to the world of machinery. Fully to explain this wonder would make too long a story for these columns; Our object is to show that once again the Bible has proved itself a mighty asset to the scientific world. And he who will accept it as a spiritual guide will also find it of incalculable value in the walk—or battle—of life. F.