EDITOR'S TABLE. 



7Si 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



PROFESSOR TYNDALL. 



THIS distinguished scientific philos- 

 opher, it is expected, will soon ar- 

 rive in this country to give several 

 courses of lectures in the chief Atlan- 

 tic cities. Many of our people have 

 read and admired his books, and be- 

 come deeply interested in his themes, 

 and those who can will no doubt glad- 

 ly avail themselves of this opportunity 

 to witness his beautiful experiments, 

 and listen to his eloquent expositions. 

 Dealing as he does with the various 

 branches of physical science, and the 

 familiar agencies and operations of 

 Nature in their latest philosophical in- 

 terpretations, his lectures will be of a 

 high order of interest, and arrest the 

 attention of our most thoughtful and 

 intelligent citizens. 



The indebtedness of the people of 

 the United States to European thinkers 

 for works of genius and learning in all 

 departments of literature and science 

 is acknowledged, but we owe to Eu- 

 rope another debt for lending us now 

 and then the living use of her great 

 men. "We are thus enabled to know 

 not only what manner of books they 

 write, but what manner of men they 

 are, and to be brought immediately 

 under the vital magnetic influence of 

 their personalities. It was a great 

 gain to American science when Prof. 

 Agassiz left his foreign home and took 

 up his abode in this country. His 

 works would, of course, have produced 

 an important influence, but that would 

 have been as nothing to what he has 

 been able to accomplish by his actual 

 presence with us. Not only in his ex- 

 tensive original investigations by which 

 our knowledge of Nature has been en- 

 larged, and not only by the stimulus 

 which he has given to multitudes of 

 young men in the study o" natural his- 



tory, has he been of great service, but 

 also by his public lectures, in all parts 

 of the country, which have helped to 

 increase the popular appreciation of 

 these subjects. 



A generation has now passed away 

 since Dr. Lardner lectured in the prin- 

 cipal towns in the United States to 

 large and interested audiences, and the 

 impulse he gave to the public mind in 

 creating an interest upon these topics 

 will produce its salutary effects for 

 years to come. His general field of 

 science was the same as that of Prof. 

 Tyndall, but physics has made a long 

 stride in the last thirty years. New 

 departments of transcendent interest 

 have been wholly created within this 

 period. Dr. Lardner died the same 

 year that Kirchhoff and Bunsen startled 

 the world by the announcement of 

 Spectrum Analysis. This was not only 

 a new and splendid revelation which 

 has thrown a flood of light upon many 

 obscurities of Nature that science had 

 never before dreamed of penetrating, 

 but it was a new and powerful instru- 

 ment of research of permanent value 

 in the work of future discovery. 

 Moreover, since the time of Lardner, 

 new views of the energies of Nature 

 of a most fundamental character have 

 been arrived at. The doctrine of the 

 correlation and conservation of force 

 "the highest law in physical science," 

 says Dr. Faraday, "which our facul- 

 ties permit us to perceive " has been 

 announced, elucidated, and established 

 within the last generation. Dr. Lard- 

 ner was too early for this subject; he 

 belonged to the preceding epoch. As 

 Dr. Whewell wrote the history of the 

 science of heat without referring to the 

 discoveries of Eumford in the last cen- 

 tury discoveries which involved a 

 complete revolution in our views of 



