THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 



the Royal Society longer than it was held by Newton ; 

 of James Watts, of "steam-engine" fame; of Sabine, 

 the astronomer, also a president of the society ; and of 

 Dr. Falconer and Sir Charles Lyell, the famous geolo- 

 gists. 



There are numerous other busts in other rooms, 

 some of them stowed away in nooks and crannies, and 

 the list of those selected for the library does not, per- 

 haps, suggest that this is the room of honor, unless, in- 

 deed, the presence of Newton and Faraday gives it that 

 stamp. But in the presence of the images of these 

 two, and of Lyell, to go no farther, one feels a certain 

 sacredness in the surroundings. 



If this is true of the mere marble images, what shall 

 we say of the emblems on the centre table ? That little 

 tubular affair, mounted on a globe, the whole cased in a 

 glass frame perhaps two feet high, is the first reflecting 

 telescope ever made, and it was shaped by the hand 

 of Isaac Newton. The brass mechanism at the end of 

 the next table is the perfected air-pump of Robert 

 Boyle, Newton's contemporary, one of the founders of 

 the Royal Society and one of the most acute scientific 

 minds of any time. And here between these two 

 mementos is a higher apparatus, with crank and wheel 

 and a large glass bulb that make it conspicuous. This 

 is the electrical machine of Joseph Priestley. There 

 are other mementos of Newton a stone graven with a 

 sun-dial, which he carved as a boy, on the paternal 

 manor-house; a chair, said to have been his, guarded 

 here by a silk cord against profanation ; bits of the fa- 

 mous apple-tree which, as tradition will have it, aided 

 so tangibly in the greatest of 'discoveries ; and the man- 



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