SKETCH OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, 813 



mound was a moraine. Let us remember, then, that a tarn may lie in 

 a complete rock basin, ice-formed ; in a glaciated hollow dammed on 

 the lower side by a moraine or other accumulation of rocky debris y or 

 it may owe part of its depth to a rock-inclosed hollow, and part to a 

 morainic dam. Therefore, on a summer's day, as we lie dreamily 

 gazing upon the rippling waters of these mountain tarns, we may 

 sometimes think of an age which is past, when the ice-sheet moved 

 majestically over the now heather-clad fells, and all the country lay 

 "clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful." — Popular Science Review. 



-♦•♦- 



SKETCH OF Sm HUMPHRY DAVY. 



HUMPHRY DAVY, one of the world's greatest chemists, and the 

 discoverer of the electric light, was born December 17, 1778, at 

 Penzance, in Cornwall. His father, a wood-carver and gilder by trade, 

 died in 1794, leaving his widow and five children, the oldest of whom 

 was Humphry, in destitute circumstances. 



Humphry was a strong, active, healthy child, and gifted with a sin- 

 gularly retentive memory. Sent to an elementary school at the age 

 of six, he made such rapid progress that soon the master had him 

 transferred to the town grammar-school. In his boyhood he manifest- 

 ed a strong liking for open-air sports — riding, fishing, shooting, and 

 the like — also for making collections of natural-history specimens. This 

 bias was anything but pleasing to his teachers and guardians, who 

 feared that, unless he gave more time and attention to his book-lessons, 

 he would grow up to be a ne'er-do-well. Fishing was his favorite 

 amusement. When a little child he was to be seen after every rain — 

 and rains are exceptionally frequent at Penzance — fishing in the street- 

 gutters. At nine years of age he went to live in the household of a 

 Mr. Tonkin, a friend of his mother's family, resident at Varfell, a little 

 village in Mount's Bay. The site of Varfell is a charming one, and the 

 surrounding country is rich in minerals. Young Davy, who was of a 

 poetic temperament, was at home in this delightful nook, and what 

 with his shooting, fishing, and collecting, his days were full of enjoy- 

 ment. Evidently he loved nature rather than books, and though his 

 guardian feared that his studies — if study that may be called which was 

 all play — were taking a wrong direction, he was in reality acquiring the 

 rudiments of a very solid education — acquaintance with nature's ways. 

 The little child who fished in the gutters of Penzance later wrote that 

 charming work, " Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fishing," wherein, mingled 

 with notes of his piscatorial exploits in the trout-streams of the Aus- 

 trian Alps, are philosophical reflections on the deepest problems of the 

 universe. As a boy he loved to roam among the hills of his native 



