558 Dr. C. K. Akin on Ra ^Transmutation. 



giving the outlines of a discourse delivered by me at Cambridge 

 on the subject of " Calcescence." In that article only one of 

 the three experiments suggested by me was mentioned; and the 

 explanation of lime-light, also, was not explicitly referred to ; 

 but, on the other hand, it was stated that the matter had been 

 more fully treated in papers read at the Meeting of the British 

 Association at Newcastle. Surely any one, like Prof. Tyndall, 

 feeling an interest in the subject, after reading the above- 

 mentioned article (and which is actually adverted to, though 

 not distinctly, in the passage quoted before from the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions), ought to have referred, under such cir- 

 cumstances, to the c Athenseuirt ' for 1863, to see whether 

 there were to be found in it further particulars concerning this 

 subject. Perhaps, the ' Reader ; having become more extensively 

 known by that time, the abstract published in its columns on 

 Sept. 26, 1863, would have likewise fallen then into Professor 

 TyndalPs hands. In my own case, and regarding the matter 

 now in hand, 1 searched the back volumes of every sort of 

 accessible periodicals, and other works which might possibly bear 

 on it, in order to discover whether I had been anticipated, 

 perhaps by some author whose writings are now forgotten. Such 

 a proceeding (in which I have but followed the example of Sir H. 

 Davy and other philosophers too conscientious and rich in original 

 ideas of their own to wish to appropriate those of others) I 

 believe all the more necessary, as it frequently occurs that 

 persons read about things which they afterwards forget having 

 read of, and then fancy to be the original products of their 

 own minds. Thus I should not be at all astonished if Prof. Tyn- 

 dall, in September 1863, had read the abstract quoted from the 

 ' Athenaeum/ but, from shortness of memory, by January or March 

 1864 had forgotten all about it, so far at least as the mere fact 

 of reading goes*. A search for precedents, if it will not always 

 revive recollection, would at least prevent repetitions in such 

 cases. But sufficient stress, I venture to think, cannot be laid 

 on the necessity that scientific persons should not neglect any 

 means which they have at command, in order to become acquainted 

 with the current progress, not less than with the past advances, in 

 science. It may be allowable for poets to ignore their con- 

 temporaries or predecessors, in order to preserve their own origi- 

 nality of thought, whether in form or in substance. In the case 

 of discoverers, the public is interested to learn, not what they 

 would be capable of doing if nobody else were or had been in the 



* Upon the whole, I cannot help thinking that the passage quoted above 

 from the Philosophical Transactions reads more like an imperfect remi- 

 niscence, supplemented by conversation and discussion (see the ' Reader,' 

 no. 67. p- 461 j, than anything else. 



