70 JAMES MUSPRATT 



scuffle. His features were even more notice- 

 able than his form ; he had a high broad 

 brow, eyes well set and full of fire, large 

 aquiline nose, and massive chin ; it was a 

 head indicating dogged determination, strong 

 will, and quick, powerful intellect. In the 

 classes, he made his mark, excelling his 

 companions in their studies, and winning 

 prizes in many subjects. In these days 

 scholarships and exhibitions would have 

 fallen to his lot, and probably a distinguished 

 university career; but in those days, the boy 

 of promise was early sent to engage in the 

 battle of life, and at fourteen years of age he 

 was taken from school and apprenticed to a 

 Mr. Mitcheltree, a wholesale chemist and 

 druggist, in Dublin, with whom he remained 

 between three and four years. 



A chemist's laboratory would have many 

 attractions for such a lad. Chemistry at that 

 period retained much that still appealed to the 

 imagination ; it was not wholly divested of 

 the mysterious and magical. The spirit of 

 the old alchemist continued to move amongst 

 its retorts and stills, its furnaces and phials. 

 Experiments were made with the crudest 

 apparatus, and there were no text books, that 

 enabled it to be studied as an exact science. 



