ROYAL INSTITUTION AND SOCIETY OF ARTS. 665 



the merits of the Leonardo da Vinci hat, or the grace and style commu- 

 nicated by the Norwegian waist-belt, with all sorts of turnip watches 

 and other quaint odds and ends dangling from it ? Do they know 

 much about liquids and gases, or have they come to learn? Verily, I 

 know not. The well-known lecture-table is covered with apparatus, 

 and a huge bath-tub occupies a considerable space. Mr. Cottrell, the 

 laboratory assistant, is very busy, till, punctual to the stroke of 

 three, a tall, slender man, of undeniably Scottish aspect, steps to his 

 place behind the lecture-table, and a murmur of applause proclaims 

 the satisfaction of the audience at the arrival of the successor of 

 Faraday. The lecture, interesting in itself, is rendered doubly so by 

 numerous and beautiful experiments, which succeed with infallible 

 certainty. Perhaps the listeners to Prof. Tyndall are accustomed to 

 see his experiments "come off" in this way, but the traveler in search 

 of science often sees experiments chemical, physical, and others 

 break down with provoking perversity. No approach to any thing 

 like failure occurs to-day, and the applause is great on the light- 

 carrying power of water being demonstrated by an experiment of 

 singular beauty. The prescribed hour appears unnaturally short when 

 the clock strikes, the lecture is closed by a short sentence, and, amid 

 a mighty rustling of silks, the audience prepares to depart. For a 

 few minutes a talkative crowd blocks up the wide staircase and hall, 

 and a sort of scramble takes place for the carriages of which Albe- 

 marle Street is full. Fashion takes its departure, and, having laid in 

 science enough to last for a week, leaves the professor to enjoy him- 

 self in his admirably-appointed laboratory. 



As I weud my way homeward, I reflect on the large amount of 

 good solid work that has been done in the laboratories of the Royal 

 Institution during the last seventy years, and on the effect produced 

 by the dissemination of scientific knowledge among the upper classes. 

 As a firm believer in the doctrine that all revolutions in taste must 

 take their inception above and gradually percolate through the several 

 strata of society, I keenly sympathize with the efforts of the Royal 

 Institution toward inoculating a love for scientific investigation. 

 Following the example of the sun which first illumines the moun- 

 tain-tops, and later in the day penetrates into the deeper valleys 

 knowledge, striking first on the upper social regions, gradually de- 

 scends, until all sorts and conditions of men are irradiated by its 

 peaceful light. 



Like its younger sister in Albemarle Street, the Society of Arts is 

 a notable instance of that drifting faculty which exercises so great an 

 influence on all human institutions. Launched with widely-differing 

 objects on the stream of events, these societies have in a certain 

 measure displaced each other. The Royal Institution, now devoted 

 to literature, and in a greater degree to pure science, was originally 



