Lives of the electricians

by William T. Jeans

FOOTNOTES:

[3] This glacier theory is all the more deserving of prominence since the publication in 1886 of Lieutenant Greely’s discovery of lakes, rivers, and valleys rich in vegetation and animal life in the interior of Grinnell Land at points the farthest north ever reached by explorers.

CHAPTER IV.

“Undaunted he hies him

O’er ice-covered wild,

Where leaf never budded,

Nor spring ever smiled;

And beneath him an ocean of mist, where his eye

No longer the dwellings of man can espy.”

—Schiller.

As a traveller in search of Nature’s grandest works, Professor Tyndall occupies a foremost place for his adventures in Alpine regions previously regarded as unapproachable, as well as for his descriptions of the views presented and the sentiments inspired by those peaks of everlasting snow. The narrative of his achievements as an Alpine traveller fills a larger volume than this one. Two or three specimens must therefore suffice here. The following is the account he gave in a letter to Faraday in August, 1858, of his ascent of Monte Rosa, which was then considered much more difficult to climb than Mont Blanc:—

“I reached this mountain wild the day before yesterday. Soon after my arrival it commenced snowing, and yesterday morning the mountains were all covered by a deep layer. It heaped itself up against the windows of this room, obscuring half the light. To-day the sun shines, and I hope he will soon banish the snow, for the snow is a great traitor on the glacier, and often covers smooth chasms which it would not be at all comfortable to get into. I am here in a lonely house, the only traveller. If you cast your eye on a map of Switzerland you will find the valley of Saas not far from Visp. High up this valley, and three hours above Saas itself, is the Distil Alp, and on this Alp I now reside. Close beside the house a many-armed mountain torrent rushes, and a little way down a huge glacier, coming down one of the side valleys, throws itself across the torrent, dams it up, and forms the so-called ‘Matmark See.’ Looking out of another window I have before me an immense stone, the unshipped cargo of a glacier, and weighing at least 1,000 tons. It is the largest boulder I have ever seen; it is composed of serpentine, and measures 216,000 cubic feet. Previous to coming here I spent ten days at the Riffel Hotel, above Zermatt, and explored almost the whole of that glacier region. One morning the candle of my guide gleamed into my room at three o’clock, and he announced to me that the weather was good. I rose, and at four o’clock was on my way to the summit of Monte Rosa. My guide had never been there, but he had some general directions from a brother guide, and we hoped to be able to find our way to the top. We first reached the ridge above the Riffel, then dropped down upon the Görner glacier, crossed it, reached the base of the mountain, then up a boss of rock, over which the glacier of former days had flowed and left its mark behind. Then up a slope of ice to the base of a precipice of brown crags: round this we wormed till we found a place where we could assail it and get to the top. Then up the slopes and round the huge bosses of the mountain, avoiding the rifted portions, and going zigzag up the steeper inclinations. For some hours this was mere child’s play to a mountaineer—no more than an agreeable walk on a sunny morning round Kensington Gardens. But at length the mountain contracted her snowy shoulders to what Germans call a kamus—a comb, suggested, I should say, by the toothed edges which some mountain ridges exhibit, but now applied to any mountain edge, whether of rock or snow. Well, the mountain formed such an edge. On that side of the edge which turns toward the Lyskamm there was a very terrible precipice, leading straight down to the torn and fissured névé of the Monte Rosa glaciers. On the other side the slope was less steep, but exceedingly perilous-looking, and intersected here and there by precipices. Our way lay along the ledge, and we faced it with steady caution and deliberation. The wind had so acted upon the snow as to fold it over, forming a kind of cornice, which overhung the first precipice to which I have alluded. Our attack for some time was upon this cornice. The incessant admonition of my guide was to fix my staff securely into the snow at each step, the necessity of which I had already learned. Once, however, while doing this, my staff went right through the cornice, and I could see through the hole that I had made into the terrible gulf below. The morning was clear when we started, and we saw the first sunbeams as they lit the pinnacles of Monte Rosa, and caused the surrounding snow summits to flush up. The mountain remained clear for some hours, but I now looked upwards and saw a dense mass of cloud stuck against the summit. She dashed it gallantly away, like a mountain queen; but her triumph was short. Dusky masses again assailed her, and she could not shake them off. They stretched down towards us, and now the ice valley beneath us commenced to seethe like a boiling cauldron, and to send up vapour masses to meet those descending from the summit. We were soon in the midst of them, and the darkness thickened; sometimes, as if by magic, the clouds partially cleared away, and through the thin pale residue the sunbeams penetrated, lighting up the glacier with a supernatural glare. But these partial illuminations became rarer as we ascended. We finally reached the weathered rocks which form the crest of the mountain, and through these we now clambered up cliffs and down cliffs, walking erect along edges of granite with terrible depths at each side, squeezing ourselves through fissures, and thus jumping, swinging, squeezing, and climbing, we reached the highest peak of Monte Rosa.

“Snow had commenced to fall before we reached the top, and it now thickened darkly. I boiled water, and found the temperature 184·92° Fahr. But the snow was wonderful snow. It was all flower—the most lovely that ever eye gazed upon. There, high up in the atmosphere, this symmetry of form manifested itself and built up these exquisite blossoms of the frost. There was no deviation from the six-leaved type, but any number of variations. I should hardly have exchanged this dark snowfall for the best view the mountain could afford me. Still, our position was an anxious one. We could only see a few yards in advance of us, and we feared the loss of our track. We retreated, and found the comb more awkward to descend than to ascend. However, the fact of my being here to tell all about it proves that we did our work successfully. And now I have a secret to tell regarding Monte Rosa. I had no view during the above ascent, but precisely a week afterwards the weather was glorious beyond description. I had lent my guide to a party of gentlemen, so I strapped half a bottle of tea and a ham sandwich on my back, left my coat and neckcloth behind me, and in my shirt sleeves climbed up Monte Rosa alone.” The latter act has been described as a feat of daring never heard of before.

Between 1856 and 1862 he ascended Mont Blanc three times. One ascent, made in 1859, was for the purpose of carrying into effect a proposal he had made to the Royal Society some months previously to place suitable thermometers at different stations between the top and the foot of the mountain. On that occasion he was accompanied by his friend Dr. Franklin, the notable guide Balmat, Mr. Alfred Wills, and several porters. Professor Tyndall afterwards gave a graphic account of the ascent to the British Association at Leeds, when he spoke in the highest terms of the services rendered by Balmat. Mr. Wills says he made the Leeds Town Hall ring with well-deserved applause as he recounted to the first savants in Europe the dangers Balmat had undergone, and the courage and disinterestedness he displayed. The ascent was made late in September in fearful weather, and in order to cut a hole four feet deep in the solid glacier, Balmat used his hands for shovelling out the ice and snow, till both hands were soon found to be badly frost-bitten and quite black. When the circulation began to return, after half-an-hour’s rubbing and beating, he suffered great agony; and though he was for some time in danger of losing his hands, he said he could have endured even that calamity in the cause of science.

In August, 1861, Professor Tyndall succeeded in reaching the top of the Weisshorn, a mountain 14,800 feet high, which he regarded as the noblest peak in the Alps. People at the base described him and his two guides as appearing like flies upon the summit. “I never,” he said afterwards, “witnessed a scene that affected me like this one. I opened my note-book to make a few observations, but soon relinquished the attempt. There was something incongruous, if not profane, in allowing the scientific faculty to interfere where silent worship seemed the ‘reasonable service.’” In like manner Principal Forbes, who preceded but did not equal Professor Tyndall as an Alpine traveller, said that “the seeds of a poetic temperament usually germinate amidst mountain scenery, and we envy not the man, young or old, to whom the dead silence of sequestered nature does not bring an irresistible sense of awe—an experience which a picturesque writer has thus expressed: It seems impious to laugh so near Heaven,” Hence probably the words of Byron:—

“There stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, when we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt,

And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone,

Binding all things with beauty;—’twould disarm

The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.”

Professor Tyndall translated such sentiments into actions. At the time when he began to ascend the highest of those Alpine peaks, accidents of the most painful description were frequently reported as occurring to travellers, owing to the absence of that more intimate knowledge of the routes and methods of travelling which has since been acquired by experience or revealed by science—knowledge which he himself rendered generous and valuable aid in acquiring and diffusing. For instance, while he was at Breuil on August 18th, 1860, intelligence reached him that three Englishmen and a guide had perished on the Col-du-Géant. The more he heard of the sad occurrence, he said, the stronger became his desire to visit the scene of it. He accordingly went to Cormayeur on the 22nd, and called on the resident French pastor, M. Curie, who had visited the place and made a sketch of it. Accepting this gentleman’s offer to accompany him, Professor Tyndall reached the Pavilion early on the morning of Thursday, the 24th. “Wishing,” says the Professor, “to make myself acquainted with every inch of the ground over which, from the commencement of their glissade, the unfortunate men had passed, I walked straight up from the Pavilion to the base of the rocky couloir along which they had been precipitated. This couloir was described as being so dangerous that a chamois hunter had declined ascending it some days before; but I secured at Cormayeur the service of an intrepid man who had once made the ascent, and whom it was now my intention to follow. We commenced our climb at the very bottom of the rocks, while the pastor made a détour and joined us on the spot where the body of the guide had been found. From this point upward, M. Curie shared the dangers of the ascent—strongly, I confess, against my will—until we reached the place where the rocks ended and the fatal snow slope commenced. Here we parted company, he deeming it more prudent to resort to a stony arête to the right than to trust himself upon the snow. I was urged by M. Curie to content myself with an inspection of the place, but no inspection, however close, could have given the information I desired. I asked my guide whether he feared the slope, and his reply being negative, we entered upon the snow, and ascended it along the course of the fatal glissade, the traces of which had not been entirely obliterated. Among the rocks below we had frequent and often melancholy occasion to assure ourselves that we were on the proper track.... From the beginning to the end of this fatal track, I made myself acquainted with its true character, and as I stood upon the summit of the incline and scanned the ground over which I had passed a feeling of augmented sadness took possession of me. There was no sufficient reason for this terrible catastrophe. With ordinary precaution the glissade might in the first instance have been avoided, and with average capacity to cope with such an accident the motion might, I am persuaded, have been arrested after it commenced.”

He concluded a long letter to the Times, from which the foregoing extract is taken, by saying that the guides of Chamouni ought to regard this terrible disaster as a stain upon their order which it would require years of services faithfully and wisely rendered to wipe away. It is much easier to censure than to set a good example, and from that point of view Professor Tyndall was blamed at the time for being so severe in his strictures. Ere long, however, an opportunity occurred which put his own resources to the severest test. While staying at Pontresina in 1864, he, along with Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Lee-Warner, of Rugby, ascended the Piz Morteratch, a very noble mountain, which was thought safe and easy to ascend. The top was reached without any exceptional difficulty; but in descending they came to a broad couloir filled with snow, which, having been melted and refrozen, appeared like a sloping wall of ice. The party were tied together, with one guide named Jenni in front, and another named Walter in the rear. Jenni cut steps in the ice, and then reached snow, which he expected would give them a footing. As he led the party he said, “Keep carefully in the steps, gentlemen; a false step here might detach an avalanche.” The word was scarcely uttered, says the Professor, whose account has been corroborated by his companions, “when I heard the sound of a fall behind me, then a rush, and in a moment my two friends and their guide, all apparently entangled together, whirled past me. I suddenly planted myself to resist their shock, but in an instant I was in their wake, for their impetus was irresistible. A moment afterwards Jenni was whirled away, and thus, in the twinkling of an eye, all five of us found ourselves riding downwards with uncontrollable speed on the back of an avalanche which a single slip had originated.

“Previous to stepping on the slope, I had, according to habit, made clear to my mind what was to be done in case of mishap; and accordingly, when overthrown, I turned promptly on my face, and drove my bâton through the moving snow, and into the ice underneath. No time, however, was allowed for the break’s action; for I had held it firmly thus for a few seconds only when I came into collision with some obstacle and was rudely tossed through the air, Jenni at the same time being shot down upon me. Both of us here lost our bâtons. We had been carried over a crevasse, had hit its lower edge, and, instead of dropping into it, were pitched by our great velocity far beyond it. I was quite bewildered for a moment, but immediately righted myself, and could see the men in front of me half buried in the snow, and jolted from side to side by the ruts among which we were passing. Suddenly I saw them tumbled over by a lurch of the avalanche, and immediately afterwards found myself imitating their motion. This was caused by a second crevasse. Jenni knew of its existence and plunged, he told me, right into it—a brave act, but for the time unavailing. By jumping into the chasm he thought a strain might be put upon the rope sufficient to check the motion. But though over thirteen stone in weight, he was violently jerked out of the fissure, and almost squeezed to death by the pressure of the rope.

“A long slope was before us which led directly downwards to a brow where the glacier fell precipitously. At the base of the declivity ice was cut by a series of profound chasms, towards which we were rapidly borne. The three foremost men rode upon the forehead of the avalanche, and were at times almost wholly immersed in the snow; but the moving layer was thinner behind, and Jenni rose incessantly and with desperate energy drove his feet into the firmer substance beneath. His voice, shouting ‘Halt! Herr Jesus, halt!’ was the only one heard during the descent. A kind of condensed memory, such as that described by people who have narrowly escaped drowning, took possession of me, and my power of reasoning remained intact. I thought of Bennen on the Haut de Cry, and muttered, ‘It is now my turn.’ Then I coolly scanned the men in front of me, and reflected that, if their vis viva was the only thing to be neutralised, Jenni and myself could stop them; but to arrest both them and the mass of snow in which they were caught was hopeless. I experienced no intolerable dread. In fact the start was too sudden and the excitement of the rush too great to permit of the development of terror.

“Looking in advance, I noticed that the slope for a short distance became less steep and then fell as before. ‘Now or never we must be brought to rest.’ The speed visibly slackened, and I thought we were saved. But the momentum had been too great; the avalanche crossed the brow and in part regained its motion. Here Hutchinson threw his arm round his friend, all hope being extinguished, while I grasped my belt and struggled to free myself. Finding this difficult, from the tossing, I sullenly resumed the strain upon the rope. Destiny had so related the downward impetus to Jenni’s pull as to give the latter a slight advantage, and the whole question was whether the opposing force would have sufficient time to act. This was also arranged in our favour, for we came to rest so near the brow that two or three seconds of our average motion of descent must have carried us over. Had this occurred, we should have fallen into the chasm, and been covered up by the tail of the avalanche. Hutchinson emerged from the snow with his forehead bleeding, but the wound was superficial; Jenni had a bit of flesh removed from his hand by collision against a stone; the pressure of the rope had left black welts on my arms; and we all experienced a tingling sensation over the hands, like that produced by incipient frost-bite, which continued for several days. This was all.”

Another incident which illustrates the nature and variety of his experience as a traveller he has himself described as prompted more by the instincts of the mountaineer than by the curiosity of the man of science. In 1868 he visited Vesuvius; and if he did not collect information of much scientific value, he saw a good deal that was very interesting. He said he was most struck with the condition of the country all round Naples; it was so seething, and smoking, and hot, showing the presence of vast subterranean fires. It was the same at Vesuvius, where in one place at the entrance to a gallery in the side of the mountain, he found a little boy quite naked, who volunteered to enter the gallery and cook an egg which he held in his hand. Both the Professor and his companion (Sir John Lubbock) determined to explore the gallery. On doing so they found at the end of it a hot salt spring, where they cooked the egg. The guide told them of a hotter gallery adjoining, which they also explored; and a hotter one still being pointed out, they likewise tried it and found it very hot indeed. They also visited the grotto Del Cano, where the floor was covered with carbonic acid gas, a broad stream of which flowed out of the mouth of the cavern. There he performed what he called some of the commoner Royal Institution experiments for the benefit of the natives. He collected some of the heavy gas in his hat, carried it to a distance, and then put out lighted matches by pouring the heavy gas over them. A little dog being kept near the cave for the purpose of showing visitors how easily the gas could half choke it, he protested against the cruelty of that experiment. At Pompeii, he came to the conclusion that the ashes which burned it could not have been of very high temperature when they fell, having been much chilled by their previous passage through the air. Among the evidences of this was the fact that a fountain of pure lead, which was uncovered during the excavations, was uninjured. The analysis of a piece which he took away with him showed that the temperature of the ashes in which it was engulfed, was lower than the melting point of lead. In ascending Vesuvius they crossed a ridge which formed the ancient crater of the mountain; others had been thrown up since, the latest being 300 feet higher than the ancient one. Vesuvius, he said, was nineteen feet higher in 1868 than it had ever been before in human history. In the midst of the smoking centres of eruption, they listened to the noises in the mountain beneath, and saw three discharges of red-hot stones from the crater. The wind was so strong that one gust blew down Sir John Lubbock on his face. On another occasion when they ascended the mountain, they were favoured with a strong wind, and going further than the guide would lead them, they went to the edge of the principal crater, and looked down into the great central hole of the volcano itself, where they saw little but smoke and a lurid glare. Sometimes they were enveloped in smoke and sulphurous acid gas, but they avoided any risk from it by keeping well to windward. As to the dispute among geologists on the question whether the cones on the top of Vesuvius were made by eruption or upheaval, he came to the same conclusion as Lyell, that they were craters of eruption. It was afterwards estimated that during the eruption which was in progress at the time of Professor Tyndall’s visit, Mount Vesuvius emitted about 20,000,000 cubic feet of lava.

His travels and explorations in another part of the world where Nature displays her operations on a grand scale, and where personal achievement is the only recognised title to fame, were still more memorable. When in June, 1851, Professor Tyndall came back from Germany to England, he met on his way to the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich “a man who has since made his mark upon the intellect of his time,” and to whom he was ever afterwards attached by the strong law of mental affinity. This was Professor Huxley, and both the young scientists being then on the look out for work, they determined to apply for the vacant chairs of natural history and physics in the University of Toronto, but their applications were declined. Faraday, who was Tyndall’s philosopher and friend in the matter, wrote a letter urging him to apply for the Toronto appointment; but happily for both of them and for the glory of British science, Toronto would not have them, and England could not spare them. Twenty years after that Professor Tyndall visited the United States, whence his reputation as a scientific lecturer had preceded him. No people are so quick in their observations of men and manners as the Americans, and it may therefore be opportune here to give an American’s impressions of the man to whom that people gave an enthusiastic reception in 1872. Mr. George Ripley gave the following description of him:—

“Professor Tyndall has all the ardour of a reformer, without any tendency to vague and rash speculations. Recognising whatever is valuable in the researches of a former age, he extends a gracious hospitality to new suggestions. With a noble pride in his favourite branches of inquiry, he is not restricted to an exclusive range of research, but extends his intellectual vision over a wide field of observation. The English, as a rule, are inclined to be suspicious of a man who ventures beyond a special walk in the pursuit of knowledge. They have but little sympathy with the catholic taste which embraces a variety of objects, and is equally at home in the researches of science, the speculations of philosophy, the delights of poetry, and the graces of elegant literature. But a single exception to this trait is presented by Professor Tyndall. His mind is singularly comprehensive in its tendencies, and betrays a versatility of aptitude and a reach of cultivation, which are rarely found in unison with conspicuous eminence in purely scientific pursuits. In his own special domain his reputation is fixed. His expositions of the theory of heat and light and sound, and of some of the more interesting Alpine phenomena, are acknowledged to be masterpieces of popular statement, to which few parallels can be found in the records of modern science. But, in addition to this, he possesses a rare power of eloquence and manifold attainments in different departments of learning. I do not know that he has ever written poetry, but he is certainly a poet in the fire of his imagination and in his love for all the forms of natural beauty. Nor has he disdained to make himself familiar with the leading metaphysical theories of the past age, in spite of the disrepute and comparative obscurity into which science has been thrown by the brilliant achievements of physical research. I noticed with pleasure in his conversation his allusions to Fichte, Goethe, R. W. Emerson, Henry Heine, and other superior lights of the literary world, showing an appreciation of their writings which could only have been the fruit of familiar personal studies. Besides the impression produced on a stranger by his genius and learning, I may be permitted to say that I have met with few men of more attractive manners. His mental activity gives an air of intensity to his expression, though without a trace of vehemence, or an eager passion for utterance. In his movements he is singularly alert, gliding through the streets with the rapidity and noiselessness of an arrow, paying little attention to external objects; and, if you are his companion, requiring on your part a nimble step and a watchful eye not to lose sight of him. Though overflowing with thought, which streams from his brain as from a capacious reservoir while his words ‘trip around as airy servitors,’ he is one of the best of listeners, never assuming an undue share of the talk, and lending an attentive and patient ear to the common currency of conversation, without demanding of men the language of the gods. The singular kindness of his bearing, I am sure, must proceed from a kind and generous heart. With no pretence of sympathy, and no uncalled for demonstrations of interest, his name will certainly be set down by the recording angel as one who loves his fellow men.”

Such was the man who had now come amongst the Americans to enjoy their hospitality and to enlighten them on the subject of light. He delivered a course of lectures at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. At Boston, he said he would long gratefully remember his reception on the occasion of his first lecture there, and that if he was treated in the same manner elsewhere he would return to the old country full of gratitude. Other places tried to outdo Boston in the cordiality of their reception. The halls in which he lectured were crowded by audiences described as distinguished for their appreciation of learning and their enthusiasm in the presence of “the great teacher.” His lectures were reported verbatim with illustrations in the daily newspapers; and the New York Tribune published a cheap reprint of them of which over 300,000 were sold.

While in America he did not miss an opportunity not only of inspecting but of exploring its grandest cataract. With him the roar of the waterfall was early a subject of scientific investigation. At a meeting of the British Association in 1851 he showed by some simple experiments that water falling for a certain distance into another vessel of water would produce neither air-bubbles nor sound; but that, as soon as the distance is so increased that the end of the column becomes broken into drops, both air-bubbles and sounds, varying from the hum of the ripple to the roar of the cataract and of the breaker, were produced. About the same time he published a paper in the Philosophical Magazine for the purpose of showing that in waterfalls sound was produced by the bursting of the bubbles, and he therein stated that “were Niagara continuous and without lateral vibration, it would be as silent as a cataract of ice. It is possible, I believe, to get behind the descending water at one place; and if the attention of travellers were directed to the subject, the mass might perhaps be seen through. For in all probability it also has its ‘contracted sections;’ after passing which it is broken into detached masses, which, plunging successively upon the air-bladders formed by their precursors, suddenly liberate their contents, and thus create the thunder of the waterfall.”

On the 1st of November, 1872, he visited Niagara, and not only got behind the descending water, but “saw through” it, and afterwards graphically described it. He states that “the season” being then over, the scene was one of weird loneliness and beauty. On reaching the village he at once proceeded to the northern end of the American Fall. After dinner he, accompanied by a friend, crossed to Goat Island and went to the southern end of the American Fall. “The river is here studded with small islands. Crossing a wooden bridge to Luna Island, and clasping a tree which grows near its edge, I looked long at the cataract which here shoots down the precipice like an avalanche of foam. It grew in powder and beauty as I gazed upon it. The channel, spanned by the wooden bridge, was deep, and the river there doubled over the edge of the precipice, like the swell of a muscle, unbroken. The ledge here overhangs, the water being poured out far beyond the base of the precipice. A space, called the Cave of the Winds, is thus inclosed between the wall of rock and the cataract.

“At the southern extremity of the Horseshoe is a promontory, formed by the doubling back of the gorge, excavated by the cataract, and into which it plunges. On the promontory stands a stone building called the Terrapin Tower, the door of which had been nailed up because of the decay of the staircase within it. Through the kindness of Mr. Townsend, the superintendent of Goat Island, the door was opened to me. From this tower, at all hours of the day, and at some hours of the night, I watched and listened to the Horseshoe Fall. The river here is evidently much deeper than the American branch; and instead of bursting into foam where it quits the ledge, it bends solidly over and falls in a continuous layer of the most vivid green. The tint is not uniform but varied; long stripes of deeper hue alternating with bands of brighter colour. Close to the ledge over which the water falls, foam is generated, the light falling upon which and flashing back from it is shifted in its passage to and fro, and changed from white to emerald green. Heaps of superficial foam are also formed at intervals along the ledge, and immediately drawn down in long white striæ. Lower down, the surface, shaken by the reaction from below, incessantly rustles into whiteness. The descent finally resolves itself into a rhythm, the water reaching the bottom of the fall in periodic gushes. Nor is the spray uniformly diffused through the air, but is wafted through it in successive veils of gauze-like texture. From all this it is evident that beauty is not absent from the Horseshoe Fall, but majesty is its chief attribute. The plunge of the water is not wild, but deliberate, vast, and fascinating.”

On the first evening of his visit the guide to the Cave of the Winds, a strong-looking and pleasant man, told him that he once succeeded in getting almost under the green water of the Horseshoe Fall. Professor Tyndall asked whether the guide could lead him to that spot to-morrow. Such a cool question coming from a slender and refined-looking man seemed to non-plus the guide; but on being assured that where he would lead the Professor would endeavour to follow, the guide, with a smile, said “Very well, I shall be ready for you to-morrow.” They met according to agreement on the morrow. First the Professor had to change his clothes drawing on two pairs of woollen pantaloons, three woollen jackets, two pairs of socks, and a pair of felt shoes, which supply of woollens the guide said would preserve him from cold. Over all was put a suit of oil-cloth, and the Professor was advised to carry a pitchfork as his staff. It was decided to take the Horseshoe first as being the most difficult of access. Descending the stairs they commenced to cross the huge boulders which cover the base of the first portion of the cataract, and among which the water pours in torrents. They got along without difficulty till they came to a formidable current, and the guide on reaching the quietest part of it, told the Professor that this was their greatest difficulty; “if we can cross here,” he said, “we shall get far towards the Horseshoe.” The guide entered the torrent first, and was soon up to the waist in water. He had to wade his way among unseen boulders which increased the violence of the current. On reaching the shallower water on the other side, he stretched his arm across to the Professor and asked him to follow. “I looked,” says the undaunted traveller, “down the torrent as it rushed to the river below, which was seething with the tumult of the cataract. I entered the water. As it rose around me, I sought to split the torrent by presenting a side to it; but the insecurity of the footing enabled it to grasp the loins, twist me fairly round, and bring its impetus to bear upon the back. Further struggle was impossible, and feeling my balance hopelessly gone, I turned, flung myself towards the bank I had just quitted, and was instantly swept into the shallower water.”

The oil-cloth covering, which was too large for him, was now filled with water, and notwithstanding this incumbrance, the guide urged him to try again. After some hesitation he determined to do so. Again he entered the water, again the torrent rose, again he wavered; but instructed by the experience of his first misadventure, he so adjusted himself against the stream that he was able to remain upright. At length they were able to clasp hands, and on thus reaching the other side he was told that no traveller had ever been there before. Soon afterwards he was again taken off his feet through trusting to a piece of treacherous drift, but a protruding rock enabled him to regain his balance. As they clambered over the boulders the weight of the thick spray now and then caused them to stagger. Among such volumes of spray nothing could be seen. “We were,” he says, “in the midst of bewildering tumult, lashed by the water which sounded at times like the cracking of innumerable whips. Underneath this was the deep resonant roar of the cataract. I tried to shield my eyes with my hands and look upwards; but the defence was useless. My guide continued to move on, but at a certain place he halted, and desired me to take shelter in his lee and observe the cataract. On looking upwards over the guide’s shoulder I could see the water bending over the ledge, while the Terrapin Tower loomed fitfully through the intermittent spray gusts. We were right under the tower. A little farther on the cataract, after its first plunge, hit a protuberance some way down, and flew from it in a prodigious burst of spray; through this we staggered. We rounded the promontory on which the Terrapin Tower stands, and pushed, amidst the wildest commotion, along the arm of the Horseshoe until the boulders failed us and the cataract fell into the profound gorge of the Niagara River. Here my guide sheltered me again, and desired me to look up. I did so, and could see as before the green gleam of the mighty curve sweeping over the upper ledge, and the fitful plunge of the water as the spray between us and it alternately gathered and disappeared. My companion knew no more of me than that I enjoyed the wildness; but as I bent in the shelter of his large frame, he said: ‘I should like to see you attempting to describe all this.’ He rightly thought it indescribable.” Their egress was nearly as adventurous as their entrance. They had another struggle with the torrent which proved such a formidable barrier in entering, but they succeeded in crossing it without serious mishap.

He next endeavoured to see the fall from the river below it; but on reaching the base of the Horseshoe he found the water so violent, and the rock and boulders so formidable, that after a fierce struggle the attempt to go further had to be relinquished. He therefore returned along the base of the American Fall. “Seen from below,” says the Professor, “the American Fall is certainly exquisitely beautiful, but it is a mere fringe of adornment to its nobler neighbour, the Horseshoe. At times we took to the river, from the centre of which the Horseshoe Fall appeared especially magnificent. A streak of cloud across the neck of Mont Blanc can double its apparent height, so here the green summit of the cataract, shining above the smoke of spray, appeared lifted to an extraordinary elevation.”[4]

In his American lectures he never appeared to miss an opportunity of telling his audience that the pursuit of scientific truth should be conducted regardless of monetary considerations, and that the men who had made the great discoveries in science that had so enriched the world were not actuated by the love of money. At New York he said the presence there for six inclement nights of an audience, embodying to a great extent the mental force and refinement of the city, showed their sympathy with scientific pursuits. “That scientific discovery may put not only dollars into the pockets of individuals but millions into the exchequers of nations the history of science amply proves, but the hope of its doing so is not the motive power of the investigator. It never could be the motive power.... You have asked me to give these lectures, and I cannot turn them to better account than by asking you to remember that the lecturer is usually the distributor of intellectual wealth amassed by better men. It is not as lecturers but as discoverers that you ought to employ your highest men. Keep your sympathetic eye upon the originator of knowledge. Give him the freedom necessary for his researches; above all things avoiding that question which ignorance so often addresses to genius—What is the use of your work? Let him make truth his object, however impracticable for the time being that truth may appear. If you cast your bread thus upon the waters, then be assured it will return to you though it may be after many days.”

In 1873 his advice appeared to be like seed sown in good ground, for immediately after his visit several munificent gifts were made by private individuals for the promotion of science. His example was also as worthy as his teaching. The profits of his lectures, amounting to nearly 3,000l., he gave as a contribution towards the establishment of a fund for the advancement of theoretic science and the promotion of original research, especially in the department of physics. In the first instance the interest of the fund was to be applied to assisting and supporting two American students with a decided talent for physics; so that they might thus be able to spend at a German university at least four years, of which three should be devoted to the acquisition of knowledge and the fourth to original investigation. Some difficulty being experienced by the trustees in selecting suitable persons, they represented to Professor Tyndall, after some years of experience, that the object aimed at by him would probably be better accomplished by placing the administration of the fund in the hands of some one or more educational institutions, where numbers of young men were always on trial, and where suitable subjects for his benefaction would probably be more easily found. In 1885 Professor Tyndall, acting on this advice, divided the money, which had increased from 13,000$ to 32,000$, into three equal parts, and gave one part to Columbia College, one to Harvard University, and one to the University of Pennsylvania.

On February 4th, 1873, he was entertained at a farewell banquet at New York “in the great hall of the finest restaurant in the world.” On that occasion he stated with regard to the work done and the reception of that work during his visit to America, that nothing could be added to his cup of satisfaction; his only drawback related to the work undone; for he carried home with him the consciousness of having been unable to respond to the invitations of the great cities of the west; but the character of his lectures, the weight of instrumental appliances which they involved, and the fact that every lecture required two days’ possession of the hall—a day of preparation and a day of delivery—entailed heavy loss of time and even severe labour. He then returned to England, where he found many friends ready to welcome him.

Next year (1874) he was President of the British Association, and the address which he delivered at the annual meeting, held that year in Belfast, caused some sensation among “the orthodox.” For this he was not unprepared. He admitted that he had touched on debateable questions, and gone over dangerous ground—and this partly with the view of telling the world that as regards religious theories, schemes, and systems which embrace notions of cosmogony, science claims unrestricted right of search. The address was condemned by the unscientific as veiled materialism, and a flood of sermons and pamphlets were published to expose its “heresies.” One writer went so far as to publish “an inquiry of the Home Secretary as to whether Professor Tyndall had not subjected himself to the penalty of persons expressing blasphemous opinions.”

It seemed to be generally forgotten that Professor Tyndall had stated before the British Association in 1868 that the utmost the materialist “can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. If you ask him whence is this ‘matter,’ who or what divided it into molecules, he has no answer. Science also is mute in reply to these questions. But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who else is entitled to answer? To whom has the secret been revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance one and all.” In 1874 he desired to set forth equally “the inexorable advance of man’s understanding in the path of knowledge, and the unquenchable claims of his emotional nature, which the understanding can never satisfy. And if, still unsatisfied, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith—so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs—then, in opposition to all the restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man.”

Next year, in introducing Sir John Hawkshaw as President of the British Association, Professor Tyndall said his successor would steer the Association through calm water, which would be refreshing after the tempestuous weather which “rasher navigators had thought it their duty to encounter rather than to avoid.” Carlyle says we pardon genial weather for its changes, but the steadiest climate of all is that of Greenland.