me, very seldom had at
any time.

Once it befell, though a few years later, that one winter there was a
broad fair field of ice just above Fairmount dam, which is about ten feet
high, that about a hundred and fifty men and maidens were merrily skating
by moonlight. I know not whether Colonel James Page, our great champion
skater, was there cutting High Dutch; but this I know, that all at once,
by some strange rising of the stream, the whole flake of ice and its
occupants went over the dam. Strangely enough, no one was killed, but
very few escaped without injury, and for some time the surgeons were
busy. It would make a strange wild picture that of the people struggling
in the broken floes of ice among the roaring waters.

And again, during a week on the same spot, some practical joker amused
himself with a magic-lantern by making a spirit form flit over the fall,
against its face, or in the misty air. The whole city turned out to see
it, and great was their marvelling, and greater the fear among the
negroes at the apparition.

Sears C. Walker, who was an intimate friend, kept a school in Sansom
Street, to which I was transferred. I was only seven years old at the
time, and being the youngest, he made, when I was introduced, a speech of
apology to his pupils. He was a good kind man, who also, like Jacob,
gave us lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry. There I studied
French, and began to learn to draw, but made little progress, though I
worked hard. I have literally never met in all my life any person with
so little natural gift or aptitude for learning languages or drawing as I
have; and if I have since made an advance in both, it has been at the
cost of such extreme labour as would seem almost incredible. I was
greatly interested in chemistry, as a child would be, and, having heard
Mr. Walker say something about the colouring matter in quartz, resolved
on a great invention which should immortalise my name. My teacher used
to make his own ink by pounding nut-galls in an iron mortar. I got a
piece of coarse rock-crystal, pounded it up in the same mortar, pouring
water on it. Sure enough the result was a pale ink, which the two elder
pupils, who had maliciously aided and encouraged me, declared was of a
very superior quality. I never shall forget the pride I felt. I had,
first of all scientists, extracted the colouring matter from quartz! The
recipe was at once written out, with a certificate at the