734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCIENCE. 1 



By JOHN "W. DEAPEE, LL. D. 



MR. PRESIDENT : When I was in London a year or two ago, 

 I passed some pleasant hours with my friend Prof. Tyndall. 

 Among these, I think that, perhaps, the most pleasant were those of 

 one afternoon that we spent together in the laboratory of the Royal 

 Institution, where Davy discovered potassium and sodium, and decom- 

 posed the earths ; where Young first announced the grand and fertile 

 principle of interference, and placed on firm foundations the wave- 

 theory of light ; where Faraday made his great discoveries in elec- 

 tricity and magnetism. On that occasion Dr. Tyndall was showing 

 me some of his own splendid discoveries the action of ether-waves of 

 short period upon gaseous matter, clouds formed by actinic decomposi- 

 tion. I saw the superb sky-blue light, and verified its polarized condi- 

 tion. It was like the light of heaven. 



Well, as I laid down the Nicol prism we had been using, I could 

 not help thinking that there was an unseen " presence " in the place 

 a genius loci that inspired men to make such discoveries. Who was 

 it that brought that genius there ? 



At the time of the American Revolution, there resided in the town 

 of Rumford, N. H., one Benjamin Thompson, who occupied himself in 

 teaching a school. He embraced, as we Americans would say, the 

 wrong side of the question on that occasion he sided with the king's 

 government. He went to England, became a man of mark, and was 

 knighted. Then he went on the Continent, again distinguished him- 

 self by his scientific attainments, again was titled, and this time, in 

 memory of his American home, was called Count Rumford. 



On his return to London, Count Rumford founded the Royal Insti- 

 tution, and thus to a native American the world owes that establish- 

 ment which has been glorified by Davy, and Young, and Faraday, and 

 the lustre of which is now so conspicuously maintained by Tyndall. 

 Had it not been for Rumford, Davy might have spent his life in filling 

 gas-bags for Dr. Beddoes's patients ; Faraday might have been a book- 

 binder, and certainly Tyndall would not have been honoring us with 

 his presence here to-night. 



But if Benjamin Thompson, an American, founded the Royal Insti- 

 tution, James Smithson, an Englishman, shortly afterward founded that 

 noble institution in Washington which bears his name, and which, 

 under the enlightened care of Prof. Henry, has so greatly ministered 

 to the advancement and diffusion of science. You, sir, have called on 

 me to respond to your toast, " English and American Science," and I 

 think these facts show you how closely they have been associated. 



1 Address at the Tyndall Banquet. 



