ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCIENCE. 735 



Now, Prof. Tyndall is on the point of leaving us. When he gets 

 back to Albemarle Street, he will remember Broadway. 1 am sure 

 that you will all join me in wishing him a pleasant voyage over the 

 Atlantic. But I wish him something better than that, I will add a 

 safe return to America. There is a great deal for him to do here yet. 

 He may tell his friends that he has been to America, but he must not 

 tell them that he has seen the Americans. We who are living: on the 

 Atlantic verge of the continent arc only modified Europeans very 

 slightly modified, indeed. One must go beyond the Alleghanies yes, 

 and over to the Pacific coast, before he can say he has seen what the 

 American really is. I suppose that Dr. Tyndall has finished his 

 glacier expeditions to Switzerland. Is there nothing here that can 

 tempt him ? He and other members of the Alpine Club need not go 

 about the streets of London weeping, like so many broken-hearted 

 Alexanders, that there are no more worlds to conquer. Let them take 

 a look at the Rocky Mountains, and tell us what they think of them. 

 Dr. Tyndall is a lover of Nature. Well ! we can show him all kinds 

 of scenery, from where the half-frozen Mackenzie is lazily flowing 

 through a waste of snows on its way toward the Arctic Ocean, to 

 where oranges are growing on the Gulf. Or, if he is tired of inanimate 

 Nature, and is in the mood of Dr. Johnson you know the story. Bos- 

 well said to Johnson one day : " See ! What a beautiful afternoon ; let 

 us take a walk in the green fields." " No, I won't," replied the grim 

 and gruff lexicographer. " I've seen green fields ; one green field is 

 like another green field. They are all alike. No, sir ! I'll walk down 

 Cheapside. I like to look at men " if Dr. Tyndall is in that mood, 

 can we not satisfy his curiosity ? Another friend of mine, Mr. Froude, 

 has set us all talking about Ireland. We can show Dr. Tyndall how 

 we take the Irish immigrant, in his corduroy knee-breeches, his 

 smashed-down hat, and his shillalah in his fist, and, in a generation or 

 so, turn him into an ornament of professional life, make him a success- 

 ful merchant, or familiarize him with all the amenities of elegant soci- 

 ety. If that's not enough, we will show him how we take the German, 

 and, wonderful to be said, make him half forget his fatherland and 

 half his mother-tongue, and become an English-speaking American citi- 

 zen. If that's not enough, we will show him how we have purged the 

 African, the woolly-headed black man, of the paganism of his fore- 

 fathers, and are now trying our hand at Darwinizing him into a re- 

 spectable voter. If that's not enough, we will show him how, in the 

 trans-Mississippi plains, we are improving the red Indian alas ! I fear 

 my friend will say, improving him off the face of the earth ! If that's 

 not enough, we will show him where we have got tens of thousands of 

 Chinese, with picks and shovels, digging Pacific railways. We are 

 mixing European and Asiatic, red Indians and black Africans, to- 

 gether, and I suppose certain English naturalists will tell us that the 

 upshot of the thing will be a survival of the fittest. In San Francisco, 



