HIS SERVICES TO SCIENCE. 331 



and of a character to interest a popular audience ; and his 

 success in this enterprise was such as to give an impulse 

 not yet exhausted to a means of adult instruction which, 

 though it has been abused, is well calculated tinder proper 

 regulations to effect much social and personal good. As a 

 popular lecturer he was, at the time of which I speak, one 

 of the best I have ever heard. To the advantages of a 

 commanding figure, a pleasing and expressive countenance, 

 of ready elocution and correct literary taste, he added great 

 skill in experimental manipulation and ingenuity in pre- 

 senting and illustrating the prominent truths of geology 

 and chemistry, and never failed to enchain the attention of 

 his hearers, and to awaken in their minds emotions not only 

 of intellectual pleasure, but also of moral enjoyment. I can 

 say, at least, most emphatically, that such was the impres- 

 sion produced upon myself by the lectures which I heard him 

 deliver to the Mercantile Library Association of New York. 

 In these lectures he evidently shared with his audience the 

 pleasure of the occasion ; he was not only full of his sub- 

 ject, but manifestly delighted in its exposition and illustra- 

 tion. Another trait of his character displayed, was the 

 enthusiasm with which he dwelt upon the scientific labors 

 of his own countrymen, the desire he exhibited to place, 

 in a favorable light, what they had accomplished under the 

 difficulties and discouragements incidental to a new coun- 

 try ; and to claim for them the sympathy, encouragement, 

 and the support of his audience. 



The establishment and maintenance of the " American 

 Journal of Science," under restricted pecuniary means, was 

 an enterprise which involved an amount of thought and of 

 labor for the expenditure of which he has well merited the 

 gratitude not only of his own countrymen, but of the world. 

 It has served not only to awaken a taste for science in this 

 country by keeping its readers continually informed of the 

 discoveries in science wherever it is cultivated ; but above 

 all, it has called into the field of original observation and 



