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BOOK V

The founding of the British Museum, p. 4--Purchase of Sir Hans Sloane's collection of curios by the English government, p. 4--Collection of curios and library located in Montague Mansion, p. 5--Acquisition of the collection of Sir William Hamilton, p. 5--Capture of Egyptian antiquities by the English, p. 5--Construction of the present museum building, p. 6--The Mesopotamian department, p. 8--The Museum of Natural History in South Kensington, p. 8--Novel features in the structure of the building, p. 9--Arrangement of specimens to illustrate evolution, protective coloring, etc., p.-- --Exhibits of stuffed specimens amid their natural surroundings, p. 10--Interest taken by visitors in the institution, p. 12.

The Royal Society, p. 14--Weekly meetings of the society, p. 15--The tea before the opening of the lecture, p. 15--Announcement of the beginning of the lecture by bringing in the great mace, p. 16--The lecture-room itself, p. 17--Comparison of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, p. 18--The library and reading-room, p. 19--The busts of distinguished members, p. 20--Newton's telescope and Boyle's air-pump, p. 21.

The founding of the Royal Institution, p. 29--Count Rumford, p. 30--His plans for founding the Royal Institution, p. 32--Change in the spirit of the enterprise after Rumford's death, p. 33--Attitude of the earlier workers towards the question of heat as a form of motion, p. 34--Experiments upon gases by Davy and Faraday, p. 35--Faraday's experiments with low temperatures, p. 39--Other experiments to produce lower temperature, p. 39--Professor De-war begins low-temperature research, p. 39--His liquefaction of hydrogen, p. 43--Hampson's method of producing low temperatures, p. 44--Dewar's invention of the vacuum vessel, p. 53--Its use in retaining liquefied gases, p. 54--Changes in physical properties of substances at excessively low temperatures, p. 56--Magnetic phenomena at low temperatures, p. 56--Changes in the color of substances at low temperatures, p. 57--Substances made luminous by low temperatures, p. 58--Effect of low temperatures upon the strength of materials, p. 59--Decrease of chemical activity at low temperatures, p. 60--Olzewski's experiments with burning substances in liquid oxygen, p. 61--Approach to the absolute zero made by liquefying hydrogen, p. 69--Probable form of all matter at the absolute zero, p. 70--Uncertain factors that enter into this determination, p. 71.

Sir Norman Lockyer and Spectroscopic Studies of the Sun and Stars, p. 73--Observations made at South Kensington by Sir Norman and his staff, p. 74--His theories as to the influence of sun-spots and terrestrial weather, p. 75--Spectroscopic studies of sun-spots, p. 76--Studies of the so-called reverse lines of the spectrum, p. 78--Discovery of the new star in the constellation of Perseus, p. 80--Spectroscopic studies of the new star, p. 81--Professor Ramsay and the new gases, p. 82--University College in London, p. 83--Professor Ramsay's laboratory and its equipment, p. 84--The discovery of argon, p. 86--Professor Ramsay's work on krypton, neon, and zenon, p. 87--Discoveries of new constituents of the atmosphere, p. 88--Interesting questions raised by these discoveries, p. 89--Professor J. J. Thomson and the nature of electricity, p. 92--Study of gases in relation to the conduction of electricity, p. 93--Electricity regarded as a form of matter, p. 97--Radio-activity, p. 97--The nature of emanations from radio-active bodies, p. 10a--The source of energy of radioactivity, p. 106--Radio-activity and the structure of the atom, p. 108--Effect of radio-activity upon heat-giving life of the sun and the earth, p. 111.

The "dream city" of Jena, p. 145--The old market-place, p. 147--The old lecture-halls of the university, p. 148--Ernst Haeckel, p. 151--His discoveries of numerous species of radiolarians, p. 153--The part played in evolution by radiolarians, p. 156--Haeckel's work on morphology, and its aid to Darwinian philosophy, p. 156--Freedom of thought and expression in the University of Jena, p. 157--Haeckel's laboratory, p. 160--His method of working, p. 161--His methods of teaching, p. 164--The import of the study of zoology, p. 166--Its bearing upon evolution, p. 168--The present status of Haeckel's genealogical tree regarding the ancestry of man, p. 171--Dubois's discovery of the skull of the ape-man of Java, p. 173--Its close resemblance to the skull of the ape, p. 173--Man's line of descent clearly traced by Haeckel, p. 175--The "missing link" no longer missing, p. 176.

The Boulevard Pasteur, p. 179--The Pasteur Institute, p. 180--The tomb of Pasteur within the walls, p. 181--Aims and objects of the Pasteur Institute, p. 182--Antirabic treatment given, p. 183--Methods of teaching in the institute, p. 185--The director of the institute and his associates, p. 185--The Virchow Institute of Pathology, p. 186--Studies of the causes of diseases, p. 187--Organic action and studies of cellular activities, p. 188--The discoveries of Rudolph Virchow, p. 188--His work in pathology, p. 189--Character of the man, his ways of living and working, p. 189--His methods of lecturing and teaching, p. 191--The Berlin Institute of Hygiene, p. 193--Work of Professor Koch as carried on in the institute, p. 194--Work of his successors in the institute, p. 195--Investigations in hygiene, p. 196--Investigations of the functions of the human body in their relations to everyday environment, p. 197--The Museum of Hygiene, p. 198--Studies in methods of constructing sewerage systems in large cities, p. 199--Studies in problems of ventilation, p. 200.

The ever-shifting ground of scientific progress, p. 203--Solar and telluric problems, p. 205--Mayer's explanation of the continued heat of the sun, p. 206--Helmholtz's suggestion as to the explanation, p. 207--The estimate of the heat-giving life of the sun by Lord Kelvin and Professor Tait, p. 208--Lockyer's suggestion that the chemical combination of elements might account for the sun's heat, p. 209--Computations as to the age of the earth's crust, p. 210--Lord Kelvin's computation of the rigidity of the telluric structure, p. 211--Estimates of the future life of the earth, p. 212--Physical problems, p. 213--Attempts to explain the power of gravitation, p. 214--The theory of Le Sage, p. 214--Speculations based upon the hypothesis of the vortex atom, p. 216--Lord Kelvin's estimate of the vortex theory, p. 217--Attempted explanation of the affinity of atoms, p. 217--Solubility, as explained by Ostwald and Mendeleef, p. 218--Professor Van 't Hoof's studies of the space relations of atoms, p. 219--Life problems, p. 220--Question as to living forms on other worlds besides our own, p. 21 x--The question of the "spontaneous generation" of living protoplasm, p. 222--The question of the evolution from non-vital to vital matter, p. 223--The possibility of producing organic matter from inorganic in the laboratory, p. 224--Questions as to the structure of the cell, p. 225--Van Beneden's discovery of the centrosome, p. 226--Some problems of anthropology, p. 227.

The scientific attitude of mind, p. 2 30--Natural versus supernatural, p. 233--Inductive versus deductive reasoning, p. 235--Logical induction versus hasty generalization, p. 239--The future of Darwinism, p. 241.

A LIST OF SOURCES

A HISTORY OF SCIENCE--BOOK V

ASPECTS OF RECENT SCIENCE

STUDENTS of the classics will recall that the old Roman historians were accustomed to detail the events of the remote past in what they were pleased to call annals, and to elaborate contemporary events into so-called histories. Actuated perhaps by the same motives, though with no conscious thought of imitation, I have been led to conclude this history of the development of natural science with a few chapters somewhat different in scope and in manner from the ones that have gone before.

These chapters have to do largely with recent conditions. Now and again, to be sure, they hark back into the past, as when they tell of the origin of such institutions as the British Museum, the Royal Society, and the Royal Institution; or when the visitor in modern Jena imagines himself transplanted into the Jena of the sixteenth century. But these reminiscent moods are exceptional. Our chief concern is with strictly contemporary events--with the deeds and personalities of scientific investigators who are still in the full exercise of their varied powers. I had thought that such outlines of the methods of contemporary workers, such glimpses of the personalities of living celebrities, might form a fitting conclusion to this record of progress. There is a stimulus in contact with great men at first hand that is scarcely to be gained in like degree in any other way. So I have thought that those who have not been privileged to visit the great teachers in person might like to meet some of them at second hand. I can only hope that something of the enthusiasm which I have gained from contact with these men may make itself felt in the succeeding pages.

It will be observed that these studies of contemporary workers are supplemented with a chapter in which a hurried review is taken of the field of cosmical, of physical, and of biological science, with reference to a few of the problems that are still unsolved. As we have noted the clearing up of mystery after mystery in the past, it may be worth our while in conclusion thus to consider the hordes of mysteries which the investigators of our own age are passing on to their successors. For the unsolved problems of to-day beckon to the alluring fields of to-morrow.

The idea which had this splendid result had originated with Sir Hans Sloane, baronet, a highly respected practising physician of Chelsea, who had accumulated a great store of curios, and who desired to see the collection kept intact and made useful to the public after his death. Dying in 1753, this gentleman had directed in his will that the collection should be offered to the government for the sum of twenty thousand pounds; it had cost him fifty thousand pounds. The government promptly accepted the offer--as why should it not, since it had at hand so easy a means of raising the necessary money? It was determined to supplement the collection with a library of rare books, for which ten thousand pounds was to be paid to the Right Honorable Henrietta Cavendish Holies, Countess of Oxford and Countess Mortimer, Relict of Edward, Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, and the Most Noble Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Portland, their only daughter.

The purchases were made and joined with the Cottonian library, which was already in hand. A home was found for the joint collection, along with some minor ones, in Montague Mansion, on Great Russell Street, and the British Museum came into being. Viewed retrospectively, it seems a small affair; but it was a noble collection for its day; indeed, the Sloane collection of birds and mammals had been the finest private natural history collection in existence. But, oddly enough, the weak feature of the museum at first was exactly that feature which has been its strongest element in more recent years--namely, the department of antiquities. This department was augmented from time to time, notably by the acquisition of the treasures of Sir William Hamilton in 1773; but it was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the windfall came which laid the foundation for the future incomparable greatness of the museum as a repository of archaeological treasures.

In that memorable year the British defeated the French at Alexandria, and received as a part of the conqueror's spoils a collection of Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of the British Museum.

The museum authorities were not slow to appreciate the value of the treasures that had thus fallen into their hands, yet for the moment it proved to them something of a white elephant. Montague Mansion was already crowded; moreover, its floors had never been intended to hold such heavy objects, so it became imperatively necessary to provide new quarters for the collection. This was done in 1807 by the erection of a new building on the old site. But the trustees of that day failed to gauge properly the new impulse to growth that had come to the museum with the Egyptian antiquities, for the new building was neither in itself sufficient for the needs of the immediate future nor yet so planned as to be susceptible of enlargement with reasonable architectural effect. The mistakes were soon apparent, but, despite various tentatives and "meditatings," fourteen years elapsed before the present magnificent building was planned. The construction, wing by wing, began in 1823, but it was not until 1846 that the last vestige of the old museum buildings had vanished, and in their place, spreading clear across the spacious site, stood a structure really worthy of the splendid collection for which it was designed.

But no one who sees this building to-day would suspect its relative youth. Half a century of London air can rival a cycle of Greece or Italy in weathering effect, and the fine building of the British Museum frowns out at the beholder to-day as grimy and ancient-seeming as if its massive columns dated in fact from the old Grecian days which they recall. Regardless of age, however, it is one of the finest and most massive specimens of Ionic architecture in existence. Forty-four massive columns, in double tiers, form its frontal colonnade, jutting forward in a wing at either end. The flight of steps leading to the central entrance is in itself one hundred and twenty-five feet in extent; the front as a whole covers three hundred and seventy feet. Capping the portico is a sculptured tympanum by Sir Richard Westmacott, representing the "Progress of Civilization" not unworthily. As a whole, the building is one of the few in London that are worth visiting for an inspection of their exterior alone. It seems admirably designed to be, as it is, the repository of one of the finest collections of Oriental and classical antiquities in the world.

I have already pointed out that the turning-point in the history of the British Museum came just at the beginning of the century, with the acquisition of the Egyptian antiquities. With this the institution threw off its swaddling-clothes. Hitherto it had been largely a museum of natural history; in future, without neglecting this department, it was to become equally important as a museum of archaeology. The Elgin marbles, including the wonderful Parthenon frieze, confirmed this character, and it was given the final touch by the reception, about the middle of the century, of the magnificent Assyrian collection just exhumed at the seat of old Nineveh by Mr. Layard. Since then these collections, with additions of similar character, have formed by far the most important feature of the British Museum. But in the mean time archaeology has become a science.

Interiorly, the building of the natural history museum is admirably adapted for its purpose. Its galleries are for the most part well lighted, and the main central hall is particularly well adapted for an exhibition of specimens, to which I shall refer more at length in a moment. For the rest there is no striking departure from the conventional. Perhaps it is not desired that there should be, since long experience seems to have settled fairly well the problem of greatest economy of space, combined with best lighting facilities, which always confronts the architect in founding a natural history museum.

There is, however, one striking novel feature in connection with the structure of the natural history museum at Kensington which must not be overlooked. This is the quite unprecedented use of terra-cotta ornamentation. Without there is a striking display of half-decorative and half-realistic forms; while within the walls and pillars everywhere are covered with terracotta bas-reliefs representing the various forms of life appropriate to the particular department of the museum which they ornament. This very excellent feature might well be copied elsewhere, and doubtless will be from time to time.

As to the exhibits proper within the museum, it may be stated in a word that they cover the entire range of the faunas and floras of the globe in a variety and abundance of specimens that are hardly excelled anywhere, and only duplicated by one or two other collections in Europe and two or three in America.

It would be but a reiteration of what the catalogues of all large collections exhibit were one to enumerate the various forms here shown, but there are two or three exhibits in this museum which are more novel and which deserve special mention. One of these is to be found in a set of cases in the main central hall. Here are exhibited, in a delightfully popular form, some of the lessons that the evolutionist has taught us during the last half-century. Appropriately enough, a fine marble statue of Darwin, whose work is the fountain-head of all these lessons, is placed on the stairway just beyond, as if to view with approval this beautiful exemplification of his work.

One of these cases illustrates the variations of animals under domestication, the particular specimens selected being chiefly the familiar pigeon, in its various forms, and the jungle-fowl with its multiform domesticated descendants.

Another case illustrates very strikingly the subject of protective coloration of animals. Two companion cases are shown, each occupied by specimens of the same species of birds and animals--in one case in their summer plumage and pelage and in the other clad in the garb of winter. The surroundings in the case have, of course, been carefully prepared to represent the true environments of the creatures at the appropriate seasons. The particular birds and animals exhibited are the willow-grouse, the weasel, and a large species of hare. All of these, in their summer garb, have a brown color, which harmonizes marvellously with their surroundings, while in winter they are pure white, to match the snow that for some months covers the ground in their habitat.

The other cases of this interesting exhibit show a large variety of birds and animals under conditions of somewhat abnormal variation, in the one case of albinism and the other of melanism. These cases are, for the casual visitor, perhaps the most striking of all, although, of course, they teach no such comprehensive lessons as the other exhibits just referred to.

The second of the novel exhibits of the museum to which I wish to refer is to be found in a series of alcoves close beside the central cases in the main hallway.

Each of these alcoves is devoted to a class of animals--one to mammals, one to birds, one to fishes, and so on. In each case very beautiful sets of specimens have been prepared, illustrating the anatomy and physiology of the group of animals in question. Here one may see, for example, in the alcove devoted to birds, specimens showing not only details of the skeleton and muscular system, but the more striking examples of variation of form of such members as the bill, legs, wings, and tails. Here are preparations also illustrating, very strikingly, the vocal apparatus of birds. Here, again, are finely prepared wings, in which the various sets of feathers have been outlined with different-colored pigments, so that the student can name them at a glance. In fact, every essential feature of the anatomy of the bird may be studied here as in no other collection that I know of. And the same is true of each of the other grand divisions of the animal kingdom. This exhibit alone gives an opportunity for the student of natural history that is invaluable. It is quite clear to any one who has seen it that every natural history museum must prepare a similar educational exhibit before it can claim to do full justice to its patrons.

A third feature that cannot be overlooked is shown in the numerous cases of stuffed birds, in which the specimens are exhibited, not merely by themselves on conventional perches, but amid natural surroundings, usually associated with their nests and eggs or young. These exhibits have high artistic value in addition to their striking scientific worth. They teach ornithology as it should be taught, giving such clews to the recognition of birds in the fields as are not at all to be found in ordinary collections of stuffed specimens. This feature of the museum has, to be sure, been imitated in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, but the South Kensington Museum was the first in the field and is still the leader.

All this, it will be understood, refers exclusively to the main building of the museum on Great Russell Street. But, meantime, out in Kensington, at the natural history museum, more than half a million visits each year are also made. In the aggregate, then, about a million and a quarter of visits are paid to the British Museum yearly, and though the bulk of the visitors may be mere sight-seers, yet even these must carry away many ideas of value, and it hardly requires argument to show that, as a whole, the educational influence of the British Museum must be enormous. Of its more direct stimulus to scientific work through the trained experts connected with the institution I shall perhaps speak in another connection.

A SESSION OF THE SOCIETY

But if one will withdraw to an inoffensive corner and take a critical view of the assembly, he will presently discover that many of the faces are familiar to him, although he supposed himself to be quite among strangers. The tall figure, with the beautiful, kindly face set in white hair and beard, has surely sat for the familiar portrait of Alfred Russel Wallace. This short, thick-set, robust, business-like figure is that of Sir Norman Lockyer. Yonder frail-seeming scholar, with white beard, is surely Professor Crookes. And this other scholar, with tall, rather angular frame and most kindly gleam of eye, is Sir Michael Foster; and there beyond is the large-seeming though not tall figure, and the round, rosy, youthful-seeming, beautifully benevolent face of Lord Lister. "What! a real lord there?" said a little American girl to whom I enumerated the company after my first visit to the Royal Society. "Then how did he act? Was he very proud and haughty, as if he could not speak to other people?" And I was happy to be able to reply that though Lord Lister, perhaps of all men living, would be most excusable did he carry in his manner the sense of his achievements and honors, yet in point of fact no man could conceivably be more free from any apparent self-consciousness. As one watches him now he is seen to pass from group to group with cordial hand-shake and pleasant word, clearly the most affable of men, lord though he be, and president of the Royal Society, and foremost scientist of his time.

Presently an attendant passed through the tearoom bearing a tremendous silver mace, perhaps five feet long, surmounted by a massive crown and cross, and looking like nothing so much as a "gigantic war-club." This is the mace which, when deposited on the president's desk in the lecture-room beyond, will signify that the society is in session. "It is the veritable mace," some one whispers at your elbow, "concerning which Cromwell gave his classical command to 'Remove that bauble.'" But since the mace was not made until 1663, some five years after Cromwell's death, this account may lack scientific accuracy. Be that as it may, this mace has held its own far more steadily than the fame of its alleged detractor, and its transportation through the tea-room is the only manner of announcement that the lecture is about to open in the hall beyond. Indeed, so inconspicuous is the proceeding, and so quietly do the members that choose to attend pass into the lecture-hall, leaving perhaps half the company engaged as before, that the "stranger "--as the non-member is here officially designated--might very readily fail to understand that the s?ance proper had begun. In any event, he cannot enter until permission has been formally voted by the society.

When he is allowed to enter he finds the meeting-room little different from the one he has left, except that it is provided with a sort of throne on a raised platform at one end and with cushioned benches for seats. On the throne, if one may so term it, sits Lord Lister, scarcely more than his head showing above what seems to be a great velvet cushion which surmounts his desk, at the base of which, in full view of the society, rests the mace, fixing the eye of the "stranger," as it is alleged to have fixed that of Cromwell aforetime, with a peculiar fascination. On a lower plane than the president, at his right and left, sit Sir Michael Foster and Professor Arthur William Rucker, the two permanent secretaries. At Sir Michael's right, and one stage nearer the audience, stands the lecturer, on the raised platform and behind the desk which extends clear across the front of the room. As it chances, the lecturer this afternoon is Professor Ehrlich, of Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main, who has been invited to deliver the Croonian lecture. He is speaking in German, and hence most of the fellows are assisting their ears by following the lecture in a printed translation, copies of which, in proof, were to be secured at the door.

The subject of the lecture is "Artificial Immunization from Disease." It is clear that the reader is followed with interested attention, which now and again gives rise to a subdued shuffle of applause.

The fact that the lecturer is speaking German serves perhaps to suggest even more vividly than might otherwise occur to one the contrast between this meeting and a meeting of the corresponding German society--the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Each is held in an old building of palatial cast and dimensions, of which Burlington House, here in Piccadilly, is much the older--dating from 1664--although its steam-heating and electric-lighting apparatus, when contrasted with the tile stoves and candles of the other, would not suggest this. For the rest, the rooms are not very dissimilar in general appearance, except for the platform and throne. But there the members of the society are shut off from the audience both by the physical barrier of the table and by the striking effect of their appearance in full dress, while here the fellows chiefly compose the audience, there being only a small company of "strangers" present, and these in no way to be distinguished by dress or location from the fellows themselves. It may be added that the custom of the French Academy of Sciences is intermediate between these two. There the visitors occupy seats apart, at the side of the beautiful hall, the main floor being reserved for members. But the members themselves are not otherwise distinguishable, and they come and go and converse together even during the reading of a paper almost as if this were a mere social gathering. As it is thus the least formal, the French meeting is also by far the most democratic of great scientific gatherings. Its doors are open to whoever may choose to enter. The number who avail themselves of this privilege is not large, but it includes, on occasions, men of varied social status and of diverse races and colors--none of whom, so far as I could ever discern, attracts the slightest attention.

THE LIBRARY AND READING-ROOM

But the "stranger" must not leave the building without mounting to the upper floor for an inspection of the library and reading-room. The rooms below were rather bare and inornate, contrasting unfavorably with the elegant meeting-room of the French institute. But this library makes full amends for anything that the other rooms may lack. It is one of the most charming--"enchanting" is the word that the Princess Christian is said to have used when she visited it recently--and perhaps quite the most inspiring room to be found in all London. It is not very large as library rooms go, but high, and with a balcony supported by Corinthian columns. The alcoves below are conventional enough, and the high tables down the centre, strewn with scientific periodicals in engaging disorder, are equally conventional. But the color-scheme of the decorations--sage-green and tawny--is harmonious and pleasing, and the effect of the whole is most reposeful and altogether delightful.

Chief distinction is given the room, however, by a row of busts on either side and by certain pieces of apparatus on the centre tables.

There are numerous other busts in other rooms, some of them stowed away in nooks and crannies, and the list of those selected for the library does not, perhaps, suggest that this is the room of honor, unless, indeed, the presence of Newton and Faraday gives it that stamp. But in the presence of the images of these two, and of Lyell, to go no farther, one feels a certain sacredness in the surroundings.

As one stands in the presence of all these priceless relics, so vividly do the traditions of more than two centuries of science come to mind that one seems almost to have lived through them. One recalls, as if it were a personal recollection, the founding of the Royal Society itself in 1662, and the extraordinary scenes which the society witnessed during the years of its adolescence.

But now as we turn to the souvenirs of Cooke and Wollaston and Davy the scene shifts by a hundred years. We are standing now in the closing epoch of the eighteenth century. These again are troublous times. The great new colony in the West has just broken off from the parent swarm. Now all Europe is in turmoil. The French war-cloud casts its ominous shadow everywhere. Even in England mutterings of the French Revolution are not without an echo. The spirit of war is in the air. And yet, as before, the spirit of science also is in the air. The strain of the political relations does not prevent a perpetual exchange of courtesy between scientific men and scientific bodies of various nations. Davy's dictum that "science knows no country" is perpetually exemplified in practice. And at the Royal Society, to match the great figures that were upon the scene a century before, there are such men as the eccentric Cavendish, the profound Wollaston, the marvellously versatile Priestley, and the equally versatile and even keener-visioned Rumford. Here, too, are Herschel, who is giving the world a marvellous insight into the constitution of the universe; and Hutton, who for the first time gains a clear view of the architecture of our earth's crust; and Jenner, who is rescuing his fellow-men from the clutches of the most deadly of plagues; to say nothing of such titanic striplings as Young and Davy, who are just entering the scientific lists. With such a company about us we are surely justified in feeling that the glory of England as a scientific centre has not dimmed in these first hundred and thirty years of the Royal Society's existence.

And now, as we view the radiometer, the scene shifts by yet another century, and we come out of cloud-land and into our own proper age. We are at the close of the nineteenth century--no, I forget, we are fairly entering upon the twentieth. Need I say that these again are troublous times? Man still wages warfare on his fellow-man as he has done time out of mind; as he will do--who shall say how long? But meantime, as of yore, the men of science have kept steadily on their course. But recently here at the Royal Society were seen the familiar figures of Darwin and Lyell and Huxley and Tyndall. Nor need we shun any comparison with the past while the present lists can show such names as Wallace, Kelvin, Lister, Crookes, Foster, Evans, Rayleigh, Ramsay, and Lock-yer. What revolutionary advances these names connote! How little did those great men of the closing decades of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries know of the momentous truths of organic evolution for which the names of Darwin and Wallace and Huxley stand! How little did they know a century ago, despite Hutton's clear prevision, of these marvellous slow revolutions through which, as Lyell taught us, the earth's crust had been built up! Not even Jen-ner could foresee a century ago the revolution in surgery which has been effected in our generation through the teachings of Lister.

And what did Rumford and Davy know of energy in its various manifestations as compared with the knowledge of to-day, of Crookes and Rayleigh and Ramsay and Kelvin? What would Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, and Cavendish, the discoverer of nitrogen, think could they step into the laboratory of Professor Ramsay and see test-tubes containing argon and helium and krypton and neon and zenon? Could they more than vaguely understand the papers contributed in recent years to the Royal Society, in which Professor Ramsay explains how these new constituents of the atmosphere are obtained by experiments on liquid air. "Here," says Professor Ramsay, in effect, in a late paper to the society, "is the apparatus with which we liquefy hydrogen in order to separate neon from helium by liquefying the former while the helium still remains gaseous." Neon, helium, liquid air, liquid hydrogen--these would seem strange terms to the men who on discovering oxygen and nitrogen named them "dephlogisticated air" and "phlogisti-cated air" respectively.

Again, how elementary seems the teaching of Her-schel, wonderful though it was in its day, when compared with our present knowledge of the sidereal system as outlined in the theories of Sir Norman Lock-yer. Herschel studied the sun-spots, for example, with assiduity, and even suggested a possible connection between sun-spots and terrestrial weather. So far, then, he would not be surprised on hearing the announcement of Professor Lockyer's recent paper before the Royal Society on the connection between sun-spots and the rainfall in India. But when the paper goes on to speak of the actual chemical nature of the sun-spots, as tested by a spectroscope; to tell of a "cool" stage when the vapor of iron furnishes chief spectrum lines, and of a "hot" stage when the iron has presumably been dissociated into unknown "proto-iron" constituents--then indeed does it go far beyond the comprehension of the keenest eighteenth-century intellect, though keeping within the range of understanding of the mere scientific tyro of to-day.

Or yet again, consider a recent paper contributed by Professor Lockyer to the Royal Society, entitled "The New Star in Perseus: Preliminary Note"--referring to the new star that flashed suddenly on the vision of the terrestrial observers at more than first magnitude on February 22, 1901. This "star," the paper tells us, when studied by its spectrum, is seen to be due to the impact of two swarms of meteors out in space--swarms moving in different directions "with a differential velocity of something like seven hundred miles a second." Every astronomer of to-day understands how such a record is read from the displacement of lines on the spectrum, as recorded on the photographic negative. But imagine Sir William Herschel, roused from a century's slumber, listening to this paper, which involves a subject of which he was the first great master. "Ebulae," he might say; "yes, they were a specialty of mine; but swarms of meteors--I know nothing of these. And 'spectroscopes,' 'photographs'--what, pray, are these? In my day there were no such words or things as spectroscope and photograph; to my mind these words convey no meaning."

But why go farther? These imaginings suffice to point a moral that he who runs may read. Of a truth the march of science still goes on as it has gone on with steady tread throughout the long generations of the Royal Society's existence. If the society had giants among its members in the days of its childhood and adolescence, no less are there giants still to keep up its fame in the time of its maturity. The place of England among the scientific constellations is secure through tradition, but not through tradition alone.

FOUNDATION AND FOUNDER

"GEORGE THE THIRD, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Whereas several of our loving subjects are desirous of forming a Public Institution for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of Useful Mechanical Inventions and Improvements; and for teaching, by Courses of Philosophical Lectures and Experiments, the Application of Science to the Common Purposes of Life, we do hereby give and grant"--multifarious things which need not here be quoted. Such are the opening words of the charter with which, a little more than a century ago, the Royal Institution of Great Britain came into existence and received its legal christening. If one reads on he finds that the things thus graciously "given and granted," despite all the official verbiage, amount to nothing more than royal sanction and approval, but doubtless that meant more in the way of assuring popular approval than might at first glimpse appear. So, too, of the list of earls, baronets, and the like, who appear as officers and managers of the undertaking, and who are described in the charter as "our right trusty and right well-beloved cousins," "our right trusty and well-beloved counsellors," and so on, in the skilfully graduated language of diplomacy. The institution that had the King for patron and such notables for officers seemed assured a bright career from the very beginning. In name and in personnel it had the flavor of aristocracy, a flavor that never palls on British palate. And right well the institution has fulfilled its promise, though in a far different way from what its originator and founder anticipated.

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