164 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



liest day possible, I attended the lectures of Dr. Gregory, 

 Dr. Hope, and Professor Dugald Stewart. I find in my 

 note-book the very leaves which were neatly and accurately 

 written out in full by the excellent Rev. Dr. Dickson. The 

 subject was Copper, and I pinned the lectures in their 

 proper place among my own notes : there they are, as leg- 

 ible as print, and afford me a touching remembrance of my 

 departed friend Dickson. The very pin which holds them 

 was put in at Edinburgh, and has never been moved. 

 These preliminary recollections have interested me, al- 

 though it is like wandering among funeral monuments, like 

 Old Mortality ; and I now turn to the lectures of Dr. Hope, 

 still following, however, the record of the dead. 



Dr. Hope's lectures formed a strong contrast to the 

 course which I attended in Leicester Square in London. 

 They were not only learned, posting up the history of dis- 

 covery, and giving the facts clearly and fully, but the ex- 

 periments were prepared on a liberal scale. They were 

 apposite and beautiful, and so neatly and skilfully per- 

 formed, that rarely was even a drop spilled upon the table. 

 No experiment failed, except that in two instances glass 

 vessels were broken by the heat evolved in the experiment: 

 in one case, by burning phosphorus, and in another, by sul- 

 phur and iron filings combining with incandescence when 

 gently heated ; but in these cases there was no fault in 

 the experimenter ; the experiment was hazardous to the 

 vessels, and in such cases, if the lecturer states the fact 

 beforehand, he will save his credit, even if the glass should 

 be shattered. Dr. Hope lectured in full dress, without any 

 protection for his clothes ; he held a white handkerchief in 

 his hand, and performed all his experiments upon a high 

 table, himself standing on an elevated platform, and sur- 

 rounded on all sides and behind by his pupils. It was an 

 indifferent room for a laboratory, and the furnace conven- 

 iences were very limited. He, however, overcame the dif- 

 ficulties by ingenious contrivances The lectures 



