552 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



honest worker he had unfailing sympathy and encouragement. The 

 fruits of his experience and the seeds of his speculations — and hy- 

 potheses of the right sort are valuable commodities in science — were 

 always at the service of those who consulted him. And it is certain 

 that ideas which he thus flashed forth have afterwards, without 

 acknowledgment, materialized in profitable inventions. 



Dewar identified himself with the Royal Institution and the Royal 

 Institution became identified with him. He pervaded it so that 

 many of its habitues entering it now feel as if the soul had gone out 

 of it. The scene of his labors became the object of his affections, 

 and he never spared himself in its service. Proud of its traditions, 

 and conscious of the opportunities it had afforded him, he strove 

 to enhance its reputation and extend its usefulness. He made liberal 

 benefactions to its funds, and was wont to enlarge on the magnitude 

 of its accomplishment with the very meager means at its disposal, 

 pointing out that the fundamental ideas and experiments on which 

 are based the stupendous chemical and electrical industries of to-day 

 were worked out in its laboratories by Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, and 

 himself at an average expenditure on research of £1,000 a year. 



During his period of office at the Royal Institution Dewar deliv- 

 ered 238 lectures in all — 49 Friday evening discourses, 48 Christmas 

 lectures, and 151 afternoon lectures. As his lectures were no off- 

 hand demonstrations, but carefully prepared expositions, every 

 experiment being previously rehearsed, they entailed a heavy drain 

 on his time and energy. In the 10 years — 1884 to 1893 — he delivered 

 six of those Christmas courses of lectures to juveniles, which make 

 peculiarly exacting demands on minute attention and lucid expres- 

 sion, dealing with subjects as varied as "Alchemy," " Meteorites," 

 " The air," " Clouds and cloudland," " Frost and fire," " Light and 

 photography." It was by the allurements held out by him that the 

 late Dr. Ludwig Mond was induced to make to the Royal Institu- 

 tion the munificent gift of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory, 

 which affords unique opportunities to those individual and inde- 

 pendent investigators on whom Dewar's hopes for the advancement 

 of science were mainly fixed. 



Dewar had a singularly impressive and attractive personality. 

 He had a head like Shakespeare, a countenance finely chiseled, ex- 

 pressive of vivid intellect and abounding vim blended with good 

 humor. He gave the world " assurance of a man," a strong true 

 man, open hearted and open minded, quick of temper perhaps, 

 but genial and generous withal, a staunch friend, a delightful com- 

 panion. With a proper endowment of the ingenium perfervidum 

 Scotorum, he was sturdy in spirit, intrepid in manner, fearless, 

 patriotic, and given to hospitality. No one could be more inimical 



