Lives of the electricians

by William T. Jeans

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.