A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



uscript of the Principia itself done by the hand of 

 an amanuensis, to be sure, but with interlinear 

 corrections in the small, clear script of the master- 

 hand itself. Here, too, is the famous death-mask, 

 so much more interesting than any sculptured por- 

 trait, and differing so strangely in its broad -based 

 nose and full, firm mouth from the over-refined 

 lineaments of the sculptured bust close at hand. In a 

 room not far away, to reach which one passes a score 

 or two of portraits and as many busts of celebrities 

 including, by-the-bye, both bust and portrait of 

 Benjamin Franklin one finds a cabinet containing 

 other mementos similar to those on the library tables. 

 Here is the first model of Davy's safety-lamp ; there 

 a chronometer which aided Cook in his famous voy- 

 age round the world. This is Wollaston's celebrated 

 " Thimble Battery." It will slip readily into the pock- 

 et, yet he jestingly showed it to a visitor as " his entire 

 laboratory." That is a model of the double-decked 

 boat made by Sir William Petty, and there beyond is a 

 specimen of almost, if not quite, the first radiometer 

 devised by Sir William Crookes. 



As one stands in the presence of all these priceless 

 relics, so vividly do the traditions of more than two 

 centuries of science come to mind that one seems al- 

 most to have lived through them. One recalls, as if it 

 were a personal recollection, the founding of the Royal 

 Society itself in 1662, and the extraordinary scenes 

 which the society witnessed during the years of its 

 adolescence. 



As one views the mementos of Boyle and Newton, 

 one seems to be living in the close of the seventeenth 



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