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TYNDALL, JOHN. 



the Relation of Magnetism and Diamagnetism 

 to Molecular Arrangement." His final studies 

 were made under Magnus. He says : 



To Berlin I went in the beginning of 1851. Prof. 

 Magnus had made his name famous by physical re- 

 searches of the highest importance. From him and 

 from Clausius, Wiedemanu, and Poggendortt I re- 

 ceived every mark of kindness, and formed with some 



essay on the " Conservation of Energy. 



house I had the honor of an interview with Hum- 



boldt. 



He returned to London in 1852, and in the 

 same year was elected a fellow of the Royal 

 Society. At the instigation of Dr. Bence Jones 

 he was invited to give a Friday evening dis- 

 course at the 'Royal Institution in 1853 (Feb. 

 14), which proved so acceptable that almost im- 



TYNDALL'S HOUSK. 



mediately, on the proposal of Faraday, he was 

 appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy there 

 in Faraday's place, thus succeeding to the chair 

 formerly held by Davy. This place, together 

 with that of Superintendent of the Royal Insti- 

 tution, he held until 1887, when he was succeeded 

 by Lord Rayleigh. Of his relation to this insti- 

 tution a contemporary has written : 



It may almost be said that during that period he 

 was the Royal Institution. It was then that the most 

 brilliant and not the least practical and useful part of 

 its scientific work was done. Tyndall was an ideal 

 director. He was a first-rate man of science. His 

 place in pure science was one of the very highest, 

 but there were, and are, many men very eminent in 

 pure science who would have been very unfit direc- 

 tors of the Royal Institution. 



The establishment in Albemarle Street is a half- 

 way house between science and society. It performs 

 a great deal of scientific work of high value quite in- 

 dependently of other than scientific influences. But 

 it appeals to the public. It gives courses of lectures 

 on a great variety of subjects. Its Friday evenings 

 were at one time a favorite resort of one of the several 

 sets of London society, the most cultivated set, and it 

 was Tyndall who made them so. 



You could not get him [Tyndall] to admit that 

 anything was wrong with his darling institution. He 



was proud of it, as. in spite of some physical drawbacks, 

 he had a right to be. He delighted in a brilliant audi- 

 ence and in a brilliant lecturer, and spared no pains 

 to bring the two together. He was facile princepg in 

 the difficult art of presenting delicate scientific experi- 

 ments to an audience. He rehearsed his effects as 

 carefully as a stage manager those of the theater ; and 

 the lecture room of the Royal Institution was a thea- 

 ter. Nothing ever went wrong, nor missed fire. He 

 took infinite pains to prevent any scientific or experi- 

 mental miscarriage. People who cared nothing for 

 science came to hear him because he spoke so well, 

 and to see the performances because the performances 

 were so good. 



Huxley, his distinguished contemporary, who 

 knew him long and well, first met him in 1851. 

 He says of him : 



"I found my new friend a difficult subject in 

 certce sedis, as the naturalists say in other 

 words, hard to get into any of my pigeonholes. 

 Before one knew him well 

 it seemed possible to give 

 an exhaustive definition 

 of him in a string of 

 epigrammatic antitheses, 

 such as those in which 

 the older historians de- 

 light to sum up the char- 

 acter of a king or leading 

 statesman. Impulsive ve- 

 hemence was associated 

 with a singular power of 

 self-control and a deep- 

 seated reserve not easily 

 penetrated. Free-handed 

 generosity lay side by side 

 with much tenacity of in- 

 sistence on any right, 

 small or great ; intense 

 self-respect and a some- 

 what stern independence 

 with a sympathetic geni- 

 ality of manner, especial- 

 ly toward children, with 

 whom Tyndall was always 

 a great favorite. Flights 

 of imaginative rhetoric, 



which amused (and sometimes amazed) more 

 phlegmatic people, proceeded from a singularly 

 clear and hard-headed reasoner, overscrupulous, 

 if that may be, about keeping within the strictest 

 limits of logical demonstration, and sincere to 

 the core. A bright and even playful companion, 

 Tyndall had little of that quick appreciation of 

 the humorous side of things in general and of 

 one's self in particular which is as oil to the 

 waves of life, and is a chief component of the 

 worthier kind of tact ; indeed, the best reward 

 of the utterer of a small witticism or play 

 upon words in his presence was the blank if be- 

 nevolent perplexity with which he received it. 

 And I suppose the character sketch would be 

 incomplete without an explanation of its pecul- 

 iarities by a reference to the mixture of two sets 

 of hereditary tendencies, the one eminently Hi- 

 bernian and the other derived from the stock of 

 the English Bible translator and reformer." The 

 researches on magnetism begun in Marburg 

 were promptly renewed, and for several years 

 after his acceptance of the post at the Royal In- 

 stitution he was occupied in studying the ques- 

 tion of diamagnetic or reversed polarity, the ex- 

 istence of which had been disputed and denied 



