Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1872-11-08
LIGHT AND HEAT"
Professor Tyndall's First Lectur in
America.

A Boston dispatch of the 18th
says: Prof. Tyndall made his de-
but before an American audience
this evening, in the great dingy,
ugly hall of the Lowell Institute, on
Washington street. 1t was packed
with people, and his reception was
exceedingly warm and hearty. The
tickets to the lectures, which will
continue for six alternate nights,
were gwen out yesterday morning,
and twenty minutes sufficed to dis
pose of them all, although but one
ticket was allowed to each person.
The lectures are free, and are the
gift to the public Of this splendid
institution, which does in another
way something of what the Cooper
Institute does for New York. The
front seat at these lectures is always
reserved for Mr.. Lowell's friends,
and among those who attended him
tonight were Robert G. Winthrop,
Josiah Quincy, Prof. Gray Of Har-
ward College. DR.. A. p. Peabody,
Prof. John Fiske, the Rev. Dir.
Neale, and many other distinguish
ed people. Though so exceedingly
plain, the hall is adapted for the
purpose of popular lecturer. Prof.
Tyndall's apparatus was chiefly up
on large table, arranged as three
sides OF square, in the centre of
which he stood while speaking. A
long narrow bridge was built out
from the front of the platform over
the heads of his audience, and on
this was placed the auxiliary in
struments with which the Professor
produced his most brilliant effects
in analyzing ray of light upon a
canvass at the back of the platform.
He was as prompt as his audience.
AT 1880 he emerged from the ante
room and began to talk in rapid,
unassuming, polished way Of the
circumstances of his coming to
America. In person Prof. Tyndall
is a gentleman of medium hight and
rather slight in build. His features
are slight and his manner betokcns
the accomplished and genial gentle
man. He was followed by his two
assistants, who were kept busy
throughout the evening in prepar-
ing for his experiments. With that
happy faculty of speech which is
his most charming trait, he settled
down Immediately into the good
opinion Of his hearers, who cheered
him so warmly that he intimated at
once he felt quite at home. He told
how, many years ago, he was be-
sought by Mr.. Lowell to come to
America, and how last year the
summons came with such a force
from many distinguished men that
he could not longer refuse it. So
here he was before Boston audi
cnce. lie spoke ofhis Indebtedness
to +. L. Youmans and Prof. Henry,
and when the ice was fairly broken
he set his assistants to work, and
while they were preparing the bat
teries and wires and electrical
lamps and prisms he gave little
discourse on the pursuit of science
for the truths sake, vindicating the
Investigator and claiming for his
apparently aimless labors an i'm
partance equally as great as the
practical work Of the worldly. He
showed there could be no industrial
England or industrial America to-
day without such labors. Next he
spoke of the Importance ofthe work
ofthe scientific demonstrator, and
then turned to his instruments. His
lectures, he said, were to be confined
to the exposition of the laws of heat
and light. BY the aid Of a platinum
wire and a battery he explained the
electrical light which he uses in all
his experiments. Bidding the glass
glarc'bc gone, he caused platinum
wire stretched across the table in
front Of him, and no thicker than
horse-hair to glow with an intense
bri ghtness, and then melt by elcc-
tricity, (which sufficed to demonstrate
the principles of electrical action.