Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/277

Rh the results of this training among a class of children that, from their general environment, would grow up to be a burden or a menace to the city. The intelligent culture of hand and eye, the mental quickening and moral uplifting, the capacity and purpose of honorable self-support, and the protection from moral and social perils, that are imparted and secured through the agency of these schools, are to him a constant source of enthusiasm.

The jeweled chalice above referred to is of scientific interest from the great variety and rarity of the gems with which it is set. During years of travel to and from many parts of Europe, Professor Egleston had remarkable opportunities, in his visits to mining regions and his intercourse with mineralogists, to obtain fine and choice specimens of gems; these he had mounted in elegant forms as presents to his wife, Mrs. Augusta McVickar Egleston. Her death, in 1895, was a very great blow to her husband, as their married life had been extremely happy; and the only satisfactory use to which this beautiful treasure of jewelry could be put seemed to him to be in the services of divine worship in the church. It is not possible in brief compass, without a figure, to describe the arrangement of these jewels on the base, stem, and cup of the golden chalice; but it must suffice to say that there are one hundred and eighty stones set in, with embossed work, on a cup and pedestal nine inches high and half that width. The species and varieties number fifteen, many of them in rare shades of color; among them are the ruby-colored Siriam garnets, green "demantoid" garnets of the Ural ("Uralian emerald"), Ceylonese moonstones, colored diamonds, sapphires, both yellow and green (Oriental topaz and emerald), rubellites, red zircon, moldavite (the rare green obsidian of Moravia), green tourmaline, chrysoberyl, the rich purple amethysts of the Urals, etc. Considered either mineralogically or as a work of art, this chalice is almost unique; while the conception and designing, which are wholly of Professor Egleston's own, reveal the same union of artistic and scientific qualities that was shown in the Audubon monument above mentioned, joined with a religious and a personal sentiment almost too sacred to dwell upon in a sketch like the present.

In all these aspects of his life and work, as we said at the beginning. Professor Egleston has been little known to the general public; but among scientific and engineering circles he has been highly honored. In these pages he may become more mdely known, and the people of the metropolis and of the country at large may learn something of the manner of man that has lived and labored so honorably among them, and has done so much for science and his fellow-men.