82 A Century of Science 



out some trepidation, and Youmans had not the 

 mainstay and refuge afforded by a manuscript, for 

 his sight was never good enough to make such an 

 aid available for his lectures. At first the right 

 words were slow in finding their way to those ready 

 lips, and his friends were beginning to grow anx- 

 ious, when all at once a happy accident broke the 

 spell. He was remarking upon the characteristic 

 inertness of nitrogen, and pointing to a jar of that 

 gas on the table before him, when some fidgety 

 movement of his knocked the jar off the table. 

 He improved the occasion with one of his quaint 

 bons mots, and, as there is nothing that greases 

 the wheels of life like a laugh, the lecture went on 

 to a successful close. 



This was the beginning of a busy career of 

 seventeen years of lecturing, ending in 1868 ; and 

 I believe it is safe to say that few things were done 

 in all those years of more vital and lasting benefit 

 to the American people than this broadcast sowing 

 of the seeds of scientific thought in the lectures of 

 Edward Youmans. They came just at the time 

 when the world was ripe for the doctrine of evo- 

 lution, when all the wondrous significance of the 

 trend of scientific discovery since Newton's time 

 was beginning to burst upon men's minds. The 

 work of Lyell in geology, followed at length in 



