192 HENRY DEACON 



These questions serve to illustrate to what 

 an extent his mind had been imbued with the 

 spirit of Faraday. Faraday asked him, when 

 a mere lad, " How it was that snow disappears 

 when the temperatures of the ground and the 

 air are below the freezing point!" The teacher 

 left the question unanswered as a mental 

 exercise for his pupil, to cultivate the habit 

 of observation and reasoning. 



Henry Deacon was as practical as he was 

 philosophical ; he was no mere dreamer. His 

 chemist, after several days close work on an 

 analysis of ultramarine, a material on which 

 he sometime experimented, and in connection 

 with which he took out one of his patents, 

 brought it complete and exact to his employer, 

 who looked it over, and then handed it back 

 with the remark that caused no little chagrin, 

 " Such absolutely accurate analyses are no use 

 to me, they come a week after they are 

 wanted ; I want an analysis at the time, and 

 not days after a thing is done with." On 

 another occasion, leakages in the Deacon 

 chlorine apparatus were causing great trouble. 

 Dr. Hurter complained to Deacon that he 

 could not get the workmen to do their work, 

 so as to make the joints of some pipes tight ; 

 "then do it yourself, and when you have 



