A History of Science — Volume 5Williams, Henry Smith
History
A History of Science — Volume 5
Williams, Henry Smith
Science -- History
The busts, as will readily be surmised, are portraits of distinguished
fellows of the Royal Society. There is, however, one exception to this,
for one bust is that of a woman--Mary Somerville, translator of the
_Mécanique Céleste_, and perhaps the most popular of the scientific
writers of her time. It is almost superfluous to state that the row of
busts begins with that of Newton. The place of honor opposite is held by
that of Faraday. Encircling the room to join these two one sees, among
others, the familiar visages of Dr. Gilbert; of Sir Joseph Banks, the
famous surgeon of the early nineteenth century, who had the honor of
being the only man that ever held the presidential chair of 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
geologists.
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, perhaps, suggest that this is the room of honor, unless,
indeed, 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 famous
apple-tree which, as tradition will have it, aided so tangibly in
the greatest of discoveries; and the manuscript 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 portrait, 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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