74 EARLY LIFE. 



naturally, as if by common consent, described the 

 whole delivery. The accidental circumstance of the 

 great teacher's aspect, I hope I may be pardoned for 

 stopping to note, while endeavouring to convey the 

 idea of a philosophic discoverer. His features were 

 singularly graceful, full of intelligence, but calm, as 

 suited his manner and his speech. His high forehead 

 and sharp temples were slightly covered, when I 

 knew him, with hair of a snow-white hue, and his 

 mouth gave a kindly as well as a most intelligent 

 expression to his whole features. In one department 

 of his lectures he exceeded any I have ever known 

 the neatness and unvarying success with which all 

 the manipulations of his experiments were performed. 

 His correct eye and steady hand contributed to the 

 one : his admirable precautions, foreseeing and pro- 

 viding for every emergency, secured the other. I 

 have seen him pour boiling water or boiling acid 

 from a vessel that had no spout, into a tube, holding 

 it at such a distance as made the stream's diameter 

 small, and so vertical that not a drop was spilt. While 

 he poured he would mention this adaptation of the 

 height to the diameter as a necessary condition of 

 success. I have seen him mix two substances in a 

 receiver into which a gas, as chlorine, had been in- 

 troduced, the effect of the combination being perhaps 

 to produce a compound inflammable in its nascent state, 

 and the mixture being effected by drawing some string 

 or wire working through the receiver's sides in an air- 

 tight socket. The long table on which the different 



