Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/28

24 if not the beauty, of their attire. Two nations only, the Swiss and the Japanese, wore plain black clothes. Chancellors of English universities are usually noblemen of no particular distinction intellectually; but most fortunately and appropriately, the present official head of the University of Cambridge is Lord Rayleigh, himself a scientific worker of the highest rank. In this, and also in the person of Professor A. C. Seward, who was the official more immediately in contact with the delegates, Cambridge was happy in being represented by scientific eminence no less than academic distinction.

At Christ's College, where Darwin was in residence some eighty years ago, there was an exhibition of objects connected with his life.

This included many manuscripts, the apparatus he used upon the voyage of the "Beagle," specimens he collected, numerous portraits, etc. There was even a series of contemporary caricatures, some good-natured, some otherwise. One represented a monkey with a face more or less like that of Darwin, sitting in a tree, reading the "Origin of Species." "Here," ran the legend, "but for natural selection and the survival of the fittest, sits Charles Darwin."

As we were looking at these things, Dr. Francis Darwin came in, leading an old man. My heart stood still for a moment to realize that this was Sir Joseph Hooker, the great botanist who was Darwin's friend and adviser more than fifty years ago. I had never expected to look upon his face, but there he was, ninety-two years old, yet quite able to enjoy the proceedings and converse with those who were presented to