Famous Men of Science

During an extended trip in Europe, he was presented at the Court of Alexander III. in Russia, and met Baron Humboldt at Potsdam, from whom he received a large photograph of himself, on which he wrote in French: "To Mr. S. F. B. Morse, whose philosophic and useful labors have rendered his name illustrious in two worlds. The homage of the high and affectionate esteem of Alexander Humboldt." After also visiting his daughter in the West Indies, his return to Poughkeepsie in 1859 was made by the people a time of rejoicing. Crowds flocked to the station to welcome him. The children of the public schools joined in the procession, while bells rung, flags waved, and bands played, as they followed the carriage of Professor Morse to the gateway of his residence, which had been festooned with flowers and evergreens. Was ever a man more honored? The world loves heroes, though it takes very little pains to help men or women to achieve greatness.

In 1866, Morse crossed the ocean again to give his children the opportunity of study abroad. He was now seventy-five years old, yet seemingly as vigorous as ever. At the Paris Exposition he was one of the committee upon telegraphic instruments. At Düsseldorf, he was received with great enthusiasm by the artists of the city. He purchased there five valuable pictures, as he was now in circumstances to be a patron of art. He also purchased Allston's celebrated painting of "Jeremiah," for seven thousand dollars, and gave it to Yale College; a portrait of Allston, at five hundred dollars, he presented to the Academy of Design. Thus did he remember the man who had been his friend in his young manhood.

Morse also gave to the Union Theological Seminary, in the city of New York, ten thousand dollars, endowing a lectureship on the "Relation of the Bible to the Sciences," named in honor of his father.

In 1868, a public dinner was given Professor Morse in New York, by the distinguished men of the day. Chief Justice Chase presided, and made an able address. After recounting the discoveries of others in electricity, "not least illustrious among these illustrious men, our countryman Henry," he said: "And it is the providential distinction and splendid honor of the eminent American who is our guest to-night that, happily prepared by previous acquirements and pursuits, he was quick to seize the opportunity, and give to the world the first recording telegraph. Fortunate man! thus to link his name forever with the greatest wonder and the greatest benefit of the age!" Other addresses were made by Bryant, Evarts, and many prominent men.

In 1871, June 10, a bronze statue of Professor Morse was unveiled in Central Park, the money for it being raised, in small amounts, from telegraphic operatives all over the country. In the evening, a brilliant reception was tendered him in the Academy of Music, the following despatch being sent on his ORIGINAL register: "Greeting and thanks to the telegraphic fraternity throughout the land. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men."

And then the white-haired Morse, now eighty years old, took his seat at the instrument, and signed his name to his message – "S. F. B. Morse." The entire audience rose and cheered, and many eyes filled with tears, as he gave his farewell address.

The last time Mr. Morse appeared in public was when he unveiled the statue of Benjamin Franklin in Printing-House Square, in front of the City Hall, January 17, 1872.

Death came in a few weeks. To his pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams, he said in response to a remark concerning the goodness of God to him in the past, "The best is yet to come."

Near the last, when the physicians were inspecting his lungs, and tapping upon his breast, one said, "This is the way we doctors telegraph."

"Very good," said the dying man, and passed away, April 2, 1872.

He was buried with distinguished honors from Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York. Scientific, philanthropic, and religious institutions everywhere adopted resolutions of respect for his memory. A solemn service was held in the hall of the House of the Representatives at Washington, April 16, with appropriate addresses from Garfield and others. An oil painting of Professor Morse hung in front of the main gallery, surrounded by the historic words, "What hath God wrought!" Telegraphic messages were sent from Europe, Asia, and Africa, to this memorial meeting. Did any of those present remember how Congress allowed him nearly to die of despair and want, only a few years before? Truly a life that reads like a romance, in its misfortunes and its fortunes! Through all the days of poverty, as well as prosperity, Morse preserved his earnest Christian character, and his childlike, tender, loving nature. Trials did not embitter him, as they sometimes do, and honors did not exalt him above his fellows. American history does not furnish a more sublime illustration of faith in God and indomitable perseverance.

SIR CHARLES LYELL

Galileo studied and found out the truth that the earth moves around the sun, and died recanting it.

Buffon, the great French naturalist, studied, and ascertained that the earth has been subject to changes which must have required millions of years. He wrote: "The waters of the sea have produced the mountains and valleys of the land – the waters of the heavens, reducing all to a level, will at last deliver the whole land over to the sea, and the sea, successively prevailing over the land, will leave dry new continents like those which we inhabit."

He was at once summoned before the Faculty of Theology in Paris to recant his opinions, saying, "I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact; I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and, generally, all which may be contrary to the narration of Moses."

A little more than a century later, at Kinnordy, Forfarshire, Scotland, a boy was born, Charles Lyell, who was destined not only to make geology as fascinating to the world as a novel, but to prove more fully and conclusively than any one had previously done that the world is not only six thousand years old, but perhaps six thousand million years old; and that man has lived here not for a few centuries only, but for thousands of centuries. Lyell knew and felt what the Christian world has come to feel, that truth must and will stand, and that there is no real conflict between science and religion.

Charles Lyell, the eldest of ten children, having two brothers and seven sisters, was born November 14, 1797. He had the early training of an educated and refined father, a man who had devoted himself to the study of botany, and written several works on Dante. The mother was a woman of practical common-sense, and from her, doubtless, Charles inherited that good judgment which characterized all his work and life.

At seven the child was sent to Ringwood, to a school kept by Rev. R. S. Davies. Here, being the youngest, and one of the gentlest, he was spared the roughness too often found in boys' schools. At ten he and his brother Tom were sent to a school in Salisbury, sixteen miles from Bartley Lodge, whither the family had moved from Kinnordy.

Though they missed their favorite sport of hay-making, they enjoyed walks to Old Sarum, a famous camp of Roman times. Here the boys amused themselves by heaping up piles of chalk flints on the opposite ridges, and letting them roll down, and dash against each other like two armies.

The teacher, Dr. Radcliffe, was called "Bluebeard," from having his fourth wife. The boys, however, liked him, because he had the rare merit of being impartial, while they were never tired of annoying another teacher, who had his favorites. Says Lyell of these early days, "Monsieur Borelle's room was within one in which I and eight others slept. One night, when we were very angry with him for having spatted us all round with a ruler, for a noise in the schoolroom which only one had made, and no one would confess, we determined to be revenged. We balanced a great weight of heavy volumes on the top of the door, so that no one could open it without their falling on his head. He was caught like a mouse in a trap, and threw a book in a rage at each boy's head, as they lay shamming sound asleep.

"Another stratagem of mine and young Prescott (son of Sir G. P.) was to tie a string across the room from the legs of two beds, so as to trip him up; from this string others branched off, the ends of which were fixed to the great toes of two sound sleepers, so that when Monsieur drew the lines, they woke, making a great outcry. At last we wearied him out, and he went and slept elsewhere.

"I conclude that there were far too many hours allotted to sleep at this school, for at all others we were glad to sleep after the labors of the day, and got punished for late rising in the morning, and being too late for roll-call. Here, on the contrary, a great many of our best sports were at night, particularly one, which, as very unique and one which lasted all the time I was there, I must describe. It consisted of fighting, either in single combat, or whole rooms against others, with bolsters. These were shaken until all the contents were at one end, and then they were kept there by a girth of string or stockings. This made a formidable weapon, the empty end being the handle, and the ball at the other would hit a good blow, or coil round a fellow's leg, and by a jerk pull him up so that he fell backwards… The invading party were always to station a watch at the head of the stairs, to give notice of the approach of 'Bluebeard,' for he was particularly severe against this warfare, though he never succeeded in putting it down. He used to come up with a cane, which, as none were clothed, took dire effect on those caught out of bed. He had a fortunate twist in his left foot, which made his step recognizable at a distance, and his shoe to creak loudly. This offence was high treason, not only because it led to broken heads, and made a horrible row in the night, but because Mrs. Radcliffe found that it made her bolsters wear out most rapidly."

Charles grew ill at Salisbury, and was taken home for three months. "I began," he says, "to get annoyed with ennui, which did not improve my health, for I was always most exceedingly miserable if unemployed, though I had an excessive aversion to work unless forced to it. It happened that, a little before this time, my father had for a short time exchanged botany for entomology, a fit which only lasted just long enough to induce him to purchase some books on the latter subject, after which he threw it up; principally, I believe, from a dislike to kill the insects. I did not like this department of the subject either…

"Collecting insects was just the sort of desultory occupation which suited me at that time, as it gave sufficient employment to my mind and body, was full of variety, and to see a store continually increasing gratified what in the cant phrase of the phrenologist is termed the 'accumulative propensity.' I soon began to know what was rare, and to appreciate specimens by this test. In the evenings I used to look over 'Donovan's Insects,' a work in which a great number of the British species are well given in colored plates, but which has no scientific merit. This was a royal road of arriving at the names, and required no study, but mere looking at pictures. At first I confined my attention to the Lepidoptera (butterflies, moths, etc.), as the most beautiful, but soon became fond of watching the singular habits of the aquatic insects, and used to sit whole mornings by a pond, feeding them with flies, and catching them if I could.

"I had no companion to share this hobby with me, no one to encourage me in following it up, yet my love for it continued always to increase, and it afforded a most varied source of amusement… Instead of sympathy, I received from almost every one else beyond my home either ridicule, or hints that the pursuits of other boys were more manly… The disrepute in which my hobby was held had a considerable effect upon my character, for I was very sensitive of the good opinions of others, and therefore followed it up almost by stealth; so that, although I never confessed to myself that I was wrong, but always reasoned myself into a belief that the generality of people were too stupid to comprehend the interest of such pursuits; yet, I got too much in the habit of avoiding being seen, as if I was ashamed of what I did."

The temporary ill-health of the schoolboy led to the long hours of observation of nature; these led to a devotion to science, which brought a worldwide fame. Thus, often, that which seems a hindrance in life proves a blessing in the end.

At twelve, Charles was placed in a school where there were seventy boys, with much fagging and fighting. That this roughness was not in accordance with his noble and refined nature is shown by his words, years afterwards: "Whatever some may say or sing of the happy recollections of their school days, I believe the generality, if they told the truth, would not like to have them over again, or would consider them as less happy than those which follow… The recollection of it makes me bless my stars I have not to go through it again.

"My ambition," he says, "during the second half-year was excited by finding myself rising near the top of a class of fifteen boys in which I was; and when miserable, as I often was, with the kicks and cuffs I received, I got into a useful habit of thinking myself happy when I got a high number in the class-paper." Each year he received a prize for speaking, and often prizes for Latin and English original composition.

At seventeen young Lyell entered Exeter College, Oxford. He still devoted many hours to entomology, and took some honors in classics. A book, as is often the case, had already helped to shape his life. He had found and read, in his father's library, Bakewell's "Geology," and was greatly excited over the views there expressed about the antiquity of the earth. Dr. Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford, was then at the height of his fame, and Lyell at once attended a course of his lectures and took notes.

College life was having its influence over the youth, for he wrote to his father: "It is the seeing the superiority of others that convinces one how much is to be and must be done to get any fame; and it is this which spurs the emulation, and feeds that 'Atmosphere of Learning,' which Sir Joshua Reynolds admirably describes as 'floating round all public institutions, and which even the idle often breathe in, and then wonder how they came by it.'"

And yet Lyell, like most students, found it a difficult matter to decide what was best for a life-pursuit. His father wished him to study law. In reply, the son says: "As for the confidence and quickness which you were speaking of, as one of the chief requisites of the Bar, I don't know whether intercourse with the world will supply it, but God knows, I have little enough of it now in company."

During his college course, Lyell made a journey with some friends to Staffa, and wrote a poem upon the place, and then, with his parents and his eldest sisters, travelled in France, Switzerland, and Italy. Here, in the midst of art and beautiful scenery, his mind still turned toward science. He thought the collections in comparative anatomy in the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, would tempt any one to "take up ardently the study of anatomy." In Cuvier's lecture-room, filled with fossil remains, he found "three glorious relics of a former world, which have added several new genera to the Mammalia."

In the Jura chain he concluded the limestone to be "of a different age from what we passed through before Dijon, for the latter abounded in organic remains, whereas I could not discover one fossil in the Jura. By the roadside I picked up many beautiful petrifactions, which must be forming daily here, where the water is charged plentifully with lime."

"The rock of the Col de Balme," he said, "is a brown, ligneous slate, with some veins of white quartz intersecting it: the appearance is very curious. On the top was the richest carpet of turf I ever saw, spangled with thousands of the deep blue gentian, red trefoil, and other mountain flowers." Nothing said about law, but much about rocks!

At twenty-two Lyell graduated from Oxford. The same year he became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and also of the Linnæan Society, and, in accordance with his father's preference, began the study of law in London.

But the way to success is almost never easy. Lyell's eyes became very weak, and he was obliged to desist from reading, and go to Rome with his father. Many a young man, well-to-do, would have given up a profession, preferring a life of leisure. Not so Charles Lyell. On his return he inspected Romney Marsh, an extensive tract of land, formerly covered by the sea, and also the Isle of Wight, and wrote his first scientific paper on the geology of some rivers near his native place in Forfarshire. At twenty-six he was made secretary of the Geological Society. Already such men as Dr. Buckland felt the deepest interest in the enterprising young student, who was devoting himself to original research.

And now he was going to Paris, to perfect himself in French. Dr. Buckland and others gave him letters of introduction to such persons as Humboldt and Cuvier. Fortunate young Lyell! Such men would fan the flame of aspiration to a white heat.

Once in Paris, the stimulus of great minds did its accustomed work – developed and beautified another mind. He attended a levée at Alexander Brongniart's, "who among the English geologists has the highest reputation both for knowledge and agreeable manners of all the French savans," he wrote home to his father. Again he wrote: "My reception at Cuvier's last Saturday will make me feel myself at liberty to attend his soirées next week, and they are a great treat. He was very polite, and invited me to attend the Institute on Monday. There he introduced me to several geologists, and put me in an excellent place for hearing…

"Humboldt addressed me, as Duvau had done, with, 'I have the honor of being familiar with your name, as your father has labored with no small success in botany, particularly the cryptogamiæ…' He was not a little interested in hearing me detail the critiques which our geologists have made on his last geological work, – a work which would give him a rank in science if he had never published aught besides. He made me a present of his work, and I was surprised to find how much he has investigated the details of our English strata… He appears to work hard at astronomy, and lives in a garret for the sake of that study. The King of Prussia invited him to adorn his court at the last Congress; thence he went to Vesuvius just after the grand eruption, and brought away much geological information on that head, which he was good enough to communicate to me. He speaks English well. I attend lectures at the Jardin du Roi, on mining, geology, chemistry, and zoölogy, all gratis! by the first men… I have promised Humboldt to pass the afternoon to-day in his study. His new edition serves as a famous lesson to me, in the comparison of England and the Continent. There are few heroes who lose so little by being approached as Humboldt."

Who shall estimate the value of such a friendship to a young man! It was a foregone conclusion that Lyell and Agassiz and Liebig, and others, who sought the society of such as Humboldt, and were willing to work, would come to greatness.

Cuvier introduced Lyell to Professor Van Breda of Ghent, who gave him letters to all the Dutch universities, – Ghent, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Leyden.

The next year, 1824, Lyell made a geological tour with M. Constant Prévost, a noted French geologist, from London to Bristol and Land's End, and with Dr. Buckland, in Scotland, where they dined with the far-famed Francis Jeffrey, editor of the "Edinburgh Review." Lyell's eyes still troubled him so that he could scarcely write letters home; but he was laying up a store of knowledge from which the world was to profit in a few years.

In 1825, his eyes having improved, he resumed his law study, and was admitted to the bar. But he could not give up geological work, and published several papers, – one on a dike of serpentine, another on shell marl and fossil fruit, and others on plastic clay in Hampshire and the fresh-water strata of Hants. He had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society at twenty-nine, and was one of the writers in the "Quarterly Review."

The law work went on, but it was easy to see where his heart was. He wrote a friend that he had been "devouring" Lamarck: "That the earth is quite as old as he supposes has long been my creed, and I will try before six months are over to convert the readers of the 'Quarterly' to that heterodox opinion… Buckland has got a letter from India about modern hyænas, whose manners, habitations, diet, etc., are everything he could wish, and as much as could be expected had they attended regularly three courses of his lectures."

At thirty-one Lyell had made up his mind "that there is most real independence in that class of society who, possessing moderate means, are engaged in literary and scientific hobbies;" he had given up the law, and planned the book that was to make him famous – "Principles of Geology." He travelled now extensively in Italy and France, studying volcanoes, glaciers, and fossils. At Auvergne, he began work with his dear friend Murchison at six o'clock in the morning, "and neither heat nor fatigue has stopped us an hour," he writes to his parents. "I have really gained strength so much, that I believe that I and my eyes were never in such a condition before; and I am sure that six hours in bed, which is all we allow, and exercise all day long for the body, and geology for the mind, … is the best thing that can be invented in this world for my health and happiness."

Eighteen hours of labor daily, and yet he was happy! He had found his life-work now. To a sister he writes about the beetles at Aix. He cannot be laughed out of this study as when a boy. He has been to Parma, to see Professor Guidotti's "finest collection of fossil-shells in Italy, … spending three days, from six o'clock in the morning till night, exchanging our respective commodities."

To his sisters he writes all his discoveries in rocks and fossils, with the enthusiasm of a boy. "I rode to the upper Val d'Arno, – a famous day for me, – an old lacustrine deposit, corresponding delightfully with our Angus lakes in all but age and species of animals; same genera of shells. They have just extracted the fortieth skeleton of hippopotamus; have got about twenty elephants, one or two mastodons, a rhinoceros and stags, and oxen out of number… At Rome I found the geology of the city itself exceedingly interesting. The celebrated seven hills, of which you have read, and which in fact are nine, are caused by the Tiber and some tributaries, which have cut open valleys almost entirely through volcanic ejected matter, covered by travertine containing lacustrine shells."

He made the ascent of Etna, and sketched the crater. "Inside the crater, near the lip, were huge masses of ice, between which and the scoriæ and lava of the crater issued hot sulphurous vapors, which I breathed in copiously; and for six hours after I could not, even after eating and drinking, get the horrid taste out of my mouth, for my lungs had got full of it. The wind was so high, that the guide held my hat while I drew; but though the head was cold, my feet got so hot in the cinders, that I was often alarmed that my boots would be burnt."

In 1830, the first volume of "Principles of Geology, being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation," was published. "It will not pretend," he wrote to Murchison, "to give even an abstract of all that is known in geology, but it will endeavor to establish the principles of reasoning in the science; and all my geology will come in as illustration of my views of those principles, and as evidence strengthening the system necessarily arising out of the admission of such principles, which, as you know, are neither more nor less than that no causes whatever have from the earliest time to which we can look back, to the present, ever acted, but those now acting… I must go to Germany… Their language must be learnt; the places to which their memoirs relate, visited; and then you may see, as I may, to what extent we may indulge dreams of eminence, at least as original observers." He, too, like all the other great ones, indulged in "dreams of eminence." Did ever man or woman achieve anything worthy without these dreams?

He had worked earnestly upon the "Principles," which showed wonderful research, study, and thought. He said, "The facts which are given in a few sentences require weeks of reading to obtain… By the aid of a good amanuensis, my eyes hold out well."