A BLIND LNVENTOR.*
EVERY one has heard of that marten) tower on the Sussex coast which, stored with five tons of the strongest gunpowder and plied with tubes from galvanic batteries, with lighted fusees, and filially with blazing straw and brushwood piled up against the powder barrels, pertinaciously refused to be blown up. Every one has heard the story, and has wondered at and admired an invention which, without robbing our most valuable explosive compound of its usefulness, has deprived it of half its terrors ; but few know anything of the inventor, beyond the bald facts that his name is Gale, and that he is blind. The little book before us tells us much more. It is uot a grateful or an easy task to write the life of a living man. The good taste of doing so is, in general, questionable, perhaps is questionable in this instance; but the character and career of Dr. James Gale are so noteworthy in themselves, and so full of encouragement for all who labour under disadvantages in the con- flict for existence less than those with which he had to contend, that we cannot but welcome Mr. Plummer's memoir with all its inevit- able incompleteness, and read it with pleasure in spite of its many failures in taste and the serious drawback of its grandiose style.
It is annoying when our interest is excited in the story of the boy's growing blindness, to be told that the "eye is a most delicate organ, and extremely susceptible to iujury," and to be treated to a. minute description of this "important part of the human frame ;" still more so when, reading of the success of Dr. Gale's efforts to neutralize and restore at pleasure the explosive force of gunpowder, we are interrupted by a whole chapter on the history of its inven- tion and probable use amongst the ancient Chinese ; but worse than all, and most to be deprecated, are the specimens given of Dr. Gale's "ready wit and humour," especially that in which he is made to give account to a lady of how he, being blind, " managed " to win a wife. Having conceived some opinion of Dr. Gale's good sense and force of character from the recorded accounts of what he did, we heartily hope that this report of what he said is a lively exercise of imagination on the part of his biographer.
James Gale was born about the year 1833—dates aro neither liberally nor accurately provided—of well-to-do parents, but of a family which had long since fallen from its old position among the gentry of Devonshire. At the time of his birth his father managed a large coal store near Plymouth ; afterwards, removing to Tavi- stock, he became the head of a flourishing manufactory. James was. remarkable chiefly for his fondness for, and excellence in, athletic- sports. At school lie was considered dull, for though passionately fond of reading, he was slow at grasping the subject in hand ; he possessed, however, that invaluable boon for one who was so soon to be cut off from many sources of knowledge, an excellent memory. In after life he could repeat by rote all the contents of the spelling- book he used when a child. Many amusing anecdotes are given of his youthful frolics, showing him to have been a lad full of courage and humour, quick of invention, and fertile in resources. lie twice rescued a companion from drowning, on the first occasion receiv- ing the liberal reward of one halfpenny from the mother of the lad..
"That coin, insignificant as it was, remained in Gale's possession during many subsequent years, being carefully treasured by him both as a memento of an eventful occasion and as a reminder of the proper generosity of the kind-hearted and liberal donor." The next time he gained even less by his prompt and effectual aid.
Seeing, one hot day, a boy bathing alone in a pool of the river Tavy, he joined in the tempting recreation. Quitting the water, he heard a cry, and saw his companion disappear ; twice he rose to the surface, and as he sank for the third time Gale, diving after him, brought him senseless to the shore. Here, while busy over the body, several heavy blows on his bare shoulders, and the
• The Slurp 0/a Mind Inventor, being some Amount of The Life and LaLours of Lo, Janus Gale, ALA., F.G.S., F.C.S. By John Plummer. London: William Twoodlo. words, "If you hadn't been here my boy hadn't been bathing," told him the sort of gratitude he was to expect. "Rushing into the water, he swam from reach of the irate parent's stick ; and then, hastily turning round, began indignantly remonstrating against the unjustifiable treatment to which he had been so unex- pectedly subjected." The half drowned lad reviving convinced his father of the error of his hasty coneltision, but we do not hear of any solace having been applied to Gale's bruised shoulders.
As a lad he was very fond of chemical experiments, and it was while making fireworks that the first hint of his future invention came across him. Thinking to reduce the force of some powder, he mixed it with fine dust from his father's works, and found, to his disgust, that he had deprived it of all its explosiveness. By the telp of a shovel and bellows he with infinite trouble separated the powder, and found it as good as ever, with but little loss in point of quantity. Years after he remembered this boyish experiment and repeated it on a larger scale. At about the age of fourteen Gale felt the first approach of blindness. A fall on his head while swinging head downwards on the churchyard rails left a dimness of sight. This (after the fashion of youth, which is inclined to see in personal defects only matter for ridicule) was sedulously con- cealed. Many were the curious devices to which the lad had recourse to hide his growing infirmity. "When indoors he would occasionally borrow a pair of spectacles and jokingly put them on his nose, his friends smiling at what they deemed the quaint humour of the lad, and never dreaming, till long afterwards, of the feverish anxiety which already was beginning to gnaw secretly at his young heart." But at length it became too serious to be kept secret ; doctors were consulted, the severest and most painful remedies tried, but the evil steadily grew till the end was plain—hopeless and total blindness. When the lad first knew his fate, the anguish of his mind was so great that he even for a few minutes thought of suicide, but the natural firmness and toughness of his will came to the help of his better nature. "If God wills it," he said, "what must be will be." "He would not be disheartened ; he would conquer fate, and show the world that his nature was formed in the true mould. He would learn to rely on himself, to become independent as far as possible of assistance, not allowing others to do for him what he could himself perform. He might be blind, but he would not, if he could possibly avoid it, be helpless ;" and he kept to his resolution, often even deceiv- ing people as to the fact of his blindness, riding, driving, and even acting as guide to unsuspecting travellers. A curious instance is given of the way in which sometimes the sharpened hearing of a blind man more than makes up for the loss of vision :— "Returning in company with several other persons, in a carrier's van from Plymouth to Tavistock one dark night, Gale suddenly told the driver that the horses had missed their way, and that they wore on the wrong road ; that, in fact, they wore proceeding in the direction of Dartmoor instead of Tavistock. The driver, however, laughed at Gale's remonstrances. How could a blind person know whether the vehicle was on the right road or not ? The idea was preposterous, and so he .chuckled the louder and waxed bolder in his rebuffs. But Gale was not to be put down in this manner. He insisted that they were not on the 'Tavistock Road, and proffered, if the others would wait for him, to get down in the dark and find the right road for them. It should here be mentioned that after reaching Roborongh Down, about six miles from Tavistock, the road divides in three, the centre road leading to Tani- stock, and that on the right leading towards Dartmoor ; so that in a dark night an experienced traveller might naturally be led to mistake the proper route, especially as there are no hedges or buildings near to act as landmarks. At first, the carrier, somewhat irate that his experience should be questioned by a blind passenger, demurred to Gale's proposal ; but the other occupants of the vehicle becoming somewhat uneasy, insisted that an attempt should be made for the purpose of ascertaining whether they were on the properroad or not. Accord ingy Gale descended, his first act al er which being to turn his face in the direction in which they had come, rtnd to utter a low, peculiar, murmuring cry. Listening attentively for a few seconds, he beard the sound faintly echoed from a rock or tor' which he knew to be situated on Roborough Down, thereby confirming the accuracy of his suspicions. He next turned partially round, and with his feet felt carefully for the junction of the down with the edge of the road. This gained, ho proceeded steadily onward until he arrived at the acute angle formed by the junction of the road with that loading to Tavistock. Convinced of his mistake, the carrier retraced his way. The difference between the sounds of the wheels on the Tavistock Road and on that they were pursuing had caught the quick ears of the blind man."
Some years after his blindness, years spent in study by the help of a reader and amanuensis, Gale married, and entered into part- nership with his father. His management of the business was so energetic that its "increased extension necessitated its removal from Tavistock to Plymouth." The demands of business did not, however, absorb the energies which seem to have been only concentrated and invigorated by what would in most cases have limited and depressed them. He was active in all town affairs, and especially devoted himself to the service of the blind. A school got up, and taught at first by himself alone, grew by his strenuous efforts into the "South Devon and Cornwall Institution for the Education and Employment of the Blind." His removal to London only widened the field of his labours in behalf of his fellow-sufferers ; but although so fully occu- pied, he did not neglect those "scientific studies, in which he took so much delight." "His attention became more and more devoted to the consideration of electricity and its use as an agent for medi- cal purposes." "His success iu this direction was so considerable, that at last he resolved upon leaving the business in which he was partner, and embracing the profession of a medical electrician. 'rhe decision proved a wise one, the increased number of patients testifying to the popular confidence reposed in Mr. Gale's profes- sional knowledge and skill."
In 1866 he was elected Fellow of the Chemical Society, of the Royal Geological Society, and began to study diligently for his degree as Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Rostock, which he gained in May, 1867. Before this, however, the working out of his boyish discovery of the dusted gunpowder was entered upon again. The great explosion in the Plumstead Marshes and the terrible loss of life from the blowing-up of the powder magazine at Inkerman, incited hint to try if he could not make that small experience available upon a large scale. How he succeeded the searching investigations made by Government have conclusively shown. Gunpowder can be rendered harmless, can be stored in the largest quantities with perfect safety, and "with the aid of the new machinery devised by Dr. Gale two men can, if properly sup- plied, in ten hours separate one hundred tons of protected powder and have it ready for immediate use," the waste being all but imperceptible. "On mixing ten pounds of gunpowder with forty pounds of protecting powder and separating them again, there was not even the turn of the scale to indicate any loss or gain of weight in the gunpowder." The difficulty of a fourfold increase of bulk is considerable, but it must be considered that powder alone can never be closely packed, since the grains adhere unless they can run freely ; with the glass powder added they are com- pletely separated, and thus the casks may be filled to the brim. The glass powder, being extremely fine, fills in the minute interstices of the gunpowder, and it does not in reality increase the bulk of the whole so much as in theory it might be supposed to do. Such objections, at any rate, cannot hold good in the large Government depots, where the space required for isolation is much more than would be wanted for storing the secured powder, and where the absence of the expensive precautions at present necessary would more than make up for any outlay on needful buildings. Such explosions as that of the Lofty Sleigh need never occur again ; but doubtless they will, and many such, before the saving of risk to human life will be thought worth a little extra trouble and expense.
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