5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Mr. Huxley informs rae that you are thinking of bringing out his work also. 

 I am glad to hear this, for it is an extremely able production. Indeed, there are 

 parts of it which in point of writing power have scarcely ever been excelled. . . . 



Good-by, my dear sir ; accept my best thanks for the trouble you have taken 

 in my behalf, and believe me Most sincerely yours, 



John Tyndall. 



The book appeared in the summer of 1863, two years after that 

 on the Glaciers, and, although dealing with a difficult subject, was 

 received with equal favor and appreciation. These two works 

 gave their author a high reputation in America as a popular 

 expositor of science, and created an eager demand for his later 

 writings, nearly all of which have been republished by the same 

 house, and have been widely read. Meanwhile Tyndall's success 

 as an experimenter and his gifts as a popular lecturer had come 

 to the knowledge of many Americans, and the result was a great 

 desire on the part of our more intelligent classes to see and hear 

 the man. This found expression in frequent solicitations to lec- 

 ture in the United States, among others Mr. John Amory Lowell 

 sending him an urgent invitation to come over and deliver the 

 Lowell lectures in Boston. But it was not until some years later, 

 on the receipt of a request signed by twenty-five names " distin- 

 guished in science, in literature, and in administrative position," 

 that, yielding to his democratic sympathies and his ardor in the 

 diffusion of science. Prof. Tyndall finally consented to come. 



The first letter in which I find any mention of his coming to 

 America is dated December 24, 18G9. I give it entire : 



My Dear Youmans: It is a long time since I have heard from you, and the 

 reason, no doubt, is that you wrote to me last. Well, I must not allow you to 

 fall utterly away from me, so by this day's post I send you the copy of an article 

 which is to appear in the next number of the Fortnightly Review. 



Your last letter made me smilo. I know you imagine me to be a screw in 

 money matters, and therefore you thought it would please me to know that I 

 Bhould be well paid for that short scrap from Macmillan. Well, if you feel an 

 interest in the matter you may ask my friends whether I am a screw or not. 

 Sometimes I certainly wish to put the screw upon publishers; for they sometimes 

 need it much. Let mo say now that you may do just what you please with any 

 article of mine, and feel not a thought on the money side of it, as far as I am con- 

 cerned. 



I am trying very hard on a boy's book on optics. Ostensibly for boys, but 

 equally for teachers; for boys thus far do not know how to learn and teachers do 

 not know how to teach. I am so treating the subject that boys and teachers may 

 make the experiments for themselves. My aim is to teach them both to experi- 

 ment and to reason upon experiment. I suppose a boy to be alongside, and that 

 we are working together. I try to overcome the apathy and the repugnance aris- 

 ing from awkwardness in the first stages of experiment. I speak, therefore, not 

 only to the boy's brain, but to his Hood stirring him to action. 



I had a fall with ugly consequences in the Alps this year. One morning, 

 after allowing a mountain cascade to tumble over me, I was returning across 



