lecture at Marburg and
complimented Tyndall by saying, "When I take up sleight-of-hand work,
consider yourself engaged as my first helper." Tyndall's way of standing
with his back to the audience, shutting off the view of Bunsen's hands
while he was getting ready to make an artificial peal of thunder, made
Humboldt laugh heartily.

Humboldt thought so well of the young man who spoke German with an Irish
accent, that he presented him with an inscribed copy of one of his
books. The volume was a most valuable one, for Humboldt published only
in deluxe, limited editions, and Tyndall was so overcome that all he
could say was, "I'll do as much for you some day." Not long after this,
through loaning money to a fellow student, Tyndall found himself sadly
in need of funds, and borrowed two pounds on the book from an 'Ebrew
Jew.

That night, he dreamed that Humboldt found the volume in a secondhand
store. In the morning, Tyndall was waiting for the pawnbroker to open
his shop to get the book back ere the offense was discovered.

Heinrich Heine once inscribed a volume of his poems to a friend, and
afterward discovered the volume on the counter of a secondhand dealer.
He thereupon haggled with the bookman, bought the book and beneath his
first inscription wrote, "With the renewed regards of H. Heine." He then
sent the volume for the second time to his friend. 'T is possible that
Tyndall had heard of this.

In Eighteen Hundred Fifty, when Tyndall was thirty years of age, he
visited London, and of course went to the British Institution. There he
met Faraday for the first time and was welcomed by him.

The British Institution consists of a laboratory, a museum and a
lecture-hall, and its object is scientific research. It began in a very
simple way in one room and now occupies several buildings.

It was founded by Benjamin Thompson, an American, and so it was but
proper that its sister concern, the Smithsonian Institution, should have
been founded by an Englishman.

Sir Humphry Davy on being asked, "What is your greatest discovery?"
replied, "Michael Faraday." But this was a mere pleasantry, the truth
being that it was Michael Faraday who discovered Sir Humphry Davy.
Faraday was a bookbinder's apprentice, a fact that should interest all
good Roycrofters.

Evenings, when Sir Humphry Davy lectured at the British Institution,
the young bookbinder was there. After the lecture he would go home and
write out what he had heard, wit