Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/765

 Faraday for many years before his death lent such an inexpressible charm. The subject of glaciers, which I had never previously treated in a course of lectures, might, it was thought, be rendered pleasant and profitable to a youthful audience. The sight of young people wandering over the glaciers of the Alps with closed eyes, desiring knowledge, but not always finding it, had been a familiar one to me, and I thought it no unworthy task to respond to this desire, and to give such of my young hearers as might visit the Alps an intelligent interest in glacier phenomena.

The course was, therefore, resolved upon; and, to render its value more permanent, I wrote out copious "Notes," had them bound together, and distributed among the boys and girls. Knowing the damage which elementary books, wearily and confusedly written, had done to my own young mind, I tried, to the best of my ability, to confer upon these "Notes" clearness, thoroughness, and life. It was my particular desire that the imaginary pupil chosen for my companion in the Alps, and for whom, odd as it may sound, I entertained a real affection, should rise from the study of the "Notes" with no other feeling than one of attachment and respect for those who had worked upon the glaciers. I therefore avoided all allusion to those sore personal dissensions which, to the detriment of science and of men, had begun fifteen years prior to my connection with the glaciers, and which have been unhappily continued to the present time.

Prof. Youmans, of New York, was then in London, organizing the "International Scientific Series," with which his name and energy are identified. To prove my sympathy for his work, I had given him permission to use my name as one of his probable contributors, the date of my contribution being understood to belong to the distant, and indeed indefinite, future. He, however, read the "Notes," liked them, urged me to expand them a little, and to permit him to publish them as the first volume of his series. His request was aided by that of another friend, and I acceded to it—hence the little book, entitled the "Forms of Water," which the friends and relatives of Principal Forbes have read with so much discontent.

That modest volume has, we are informed, caused an uncontemplated addition to be made to the Life of Principal Forbes, lately published under the triple auspices of Principal Shairp, the successor of Principal Forbes in the College of St. Andrew's, Mr. Adams-Reilly, and Prof. Tait. "It had been our hope," says Principal Shairp, in his preface, "that we might have been allowed to tell our story without reverting to controversies which, we had thought, had been long since extinguished. But, after most of these sheets were in press, a book appeared, in which many of the old charges against Principal Forbes in the matter of the glaciers were, if not openly repeated, not obscurely indicated. Neither the interests of truth, nor justice to the dead, could suffer such remarks to pass unchallenged. How it has