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admission to examination at Marburg, it is essential to present to the 

 Faculty a memoir on some original investigation made by the candi- 

 date. Tyndall's dissertation, was entitled, " Die Schraubenflaeche mit 

 Geneigter Erzeugnngs-Linie und die Bedinguugen des Gleichgewiehts 

 fur solche Schrauben," which shows that, at that time, Tyndall's 

 knowledge of mathematics was superior to his acquirements in chem- 

 istry and physics. 



Physical Researches. About this time there came to Marburg, as 

 extraordinary professor, an enthusiastic young physicist, afterwards 

 well known as Professor Knoblauch, who exercised a profound 

 influence upon Tyndall, and who was probably the main cause of the 

 latter devoting himself, for the future, chiefly to physical science. It 

 was in conjunction with Knoblauch that Tyndall made his first 

 physical investigation, the results of which were published in the 

 year 1850 with the title " On the Deportment of Crystallised Bodies 

 between the Poles of a Magnet." 



During the next thirty-three years Tyndall published 135 papers, 

 or at the average rate of rather more than 4 per annum. From 

 Marburg he migrated to Berlin, where he worked for about a year in 

 Magnus's laboratory, continuing his researches on diamagnetism and 

 magne-crystallic action, finally returning to England about the end 

 of the year 1851 or the beginning of 1852. He took up his quarters 

 again at Qaeenwood College, not as a teacher, but as a guest, await- 

 ing the advent of some suitable appointment. At this time there 

 was no physical laboratory in England, and consequently no chair of 

 experimental physics. There was, it is true, a professor of physics at 

 Owens College, Manchester, but the chair was occupied by a Cam- 

 bridge wrangler, who, though an able mathematician, probably never 

 made an experiment in his life. Tyndall had to wait until 1853, 

 having in the meantime been an unsuccessful candidate for a pro- 

 fessorship at Toronto. 



On February llth, 1853, he delivered, at the Royal Institution, his 

 first public lecture " On the Influence of Material Aggregation upon 

 the Manifestation of Force." This lecture, although of such an 

 abstruse character, took his audience mostly popular as it was by 

 storm. It concluded with the following graceful tribute to Faraday : 

 " This evening's discourse is, in some measure, connected with this 

 locality ; and, thinking thus, am led to inquire wherein the true 

 value of a scientific discovery consists ? Not in its immediate results 

 alone, bat in the prospect which ft opens to intellectual activity, in 

 the hopes that it excites, in the vigour which it awakens. The dis- 

 covery which led to the results brought before you to-night was of 

 this character. That magnet (pointing to the large electro-magnet 

 at the Royal Institution) was the physical birthplace of these results ; 

 and if they possess any value they are to be regarded as the returning 



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