402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



SKETCH OF SIR HENEY EOSCOE. 



HENEY ENFIELD EOSCOE, F. E. S., now Sir Henry Eoscoe, 

 is a grandson of William Eoscoe, of Liverpool, the distin- 

 guished merchant-historian, and a son of Henry Eoscoe, Esq., barris- 

 ter-at-law, and was born January 7, 1833. He was educated at Liv- 

 erpool High School, University College, London, and Heidelberg. He 

 was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Owens College, Victoria 

 University, Manchester, a chair which he has held with distinguished 

 honor to himself and credit to English science, in 1858, and was elected 

 a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1863. His life has been marked by a 

 bright line of investigations in chemistry from which have been de- 

 rived material additions to the scope and exactness of the science ; by 

 numerous addresses before both scientific and popular audiences, and 

 publications in which the breadth and accuracy of his thought are well 

 matched by the clearness and frequent pungency of its expression, and 

 the style is always adapted to the audience the effort is intended to 

 reach ; by labors to encourage original scientific research and the pres- 

 entation of the most exalted aims as its object ; and by his activity 

 in the promotion of well-considered practical efforts for the diffusion 

 of scientific knowledge among the people. 



The nature of the scientific labors by which he is chiefly distin- 

 guished is set forth in the award of the Eoyal medal made to him by the 

 Eoyal Society in 1873, which was " for his various chemical researches, 

 more especially for his investigations of the chemical action of light, 

 and of the combinations of vanadium." 



The researches on the chemical action of light here spoken of were 

 carried on by him and Bunsen together ; and he most modestly refers 

 to them in a biography of Bunsen, published by him in " Nature " of 

 April 28, 1881, as investigations " with the carrying on of which the 

 writer of this article had the great good fortune and pleasure to be 

 concerned, and in which he had full opportunity of admiring Bunsen's 

 untiring activity and wonderful manipulative power." 



In the winter of 1866-67 he started in Manchester a course of thir- 

 teen penny scientific lectures for the people, in which he was assisted 

 by Professor Jevons, Dr. Alcock, and Dr. Morgan. The attempt thus 

 made to solve the problem whether the working-men would really ap- 

 preciate the value of science-instruction when given in a plain but sci- 

 entific manner, illustrated with diagrams and experiments made on 

 a scale to be seen by a large audience, was highly successful. The 

 lectures were attended, by more than four thousand persons of exactly 

 the class for whom they were designed, and they showed themselves in- 

 terested and appreciative. A syllabus of the chief points of Professor 

 Eoscoe's four lectures was printed and given to each person entering 



