His moving pictures and spectral analysis were almost miracles at that time.  He delighted to show how the earth in forming was flattened at the poles, and he would illustrate the growth of the rings of Saturn.  As a lecturer he was a star, the only chemist and scientist to offer experiments.  His lectures were always attended by crowds of admirers.  As a toxicologist he was marvellous in his accuracy; no poisoner could escape his exact analysis.  His compressed cartridges, made waterproof and coated with collodion, were used in the blasting operations at the Mont Cenis tunnel through eight miles of otherwise impenetrable stone, solid Alpine rock, between France and Italy.

When the obelisk in Central Park showed signs of serious decay, he saved the hieroglyphics by ironing it with melted parafine.  He makes us think of the juggler who can keep a dozen balls in the air as if it were an easy trick, never dropping one.

  [Illustration:  PROFESSOR R. OGDEN DOREMUS]

But I forget to give my own memories of Dr. and Mrs. Doremus in their delightful home on Fourth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets,—­a home full of harmony, melody, peace, and love.  Vincenzo Botta called Dr. Doremus the “Maecenas of New York,” and his beautiful wife, the ideal wife and mother, was named by her adoring husband the “queen of women.”  Mrs. Doremus was prominent in New York’s various societies and charities, but the interests of her own family came first.  One of her sons said:  “She never neglected her children; we were always loved and well cared for.”  Both Dr. Doremus and his wife were devoted to music, always of the best.  He was the first president of the Philharmonic Society who was not a musician by profession.  All the preceding presidents had been selected from the active musicians in the society.  One evening he was serenaded by the Philharmonic Society under the leadership of Carl Bergman, the recently elected president of the society.  After the classic music had ceased, Dr. Doremus appeared and thanked the society for the compliment.  All were invited into the house, where a bountiful collation was served and speeches made.  If you could see the photograph of the Philharmonic Society serenading Dr. and Mrs. Doremus at their home, you would get a rare insight into the old New York life, as compared with the present, in which such a thing would be impossible.  He said that his mother used to take a cup of tea at the Battery afternoons with her sons.

He was a lifelong friend of Christine Nilsson whom he considered the greatest vocal and dramatic genius of the age.  He wrote:  “Never did mortal woman sing as she sang that simple song that begins: 

’Angels, Angels, bright and fair,
Take, O take me to thy care!’”

I saw Nilsson and Parepa introduced there, who were to sail on the same steamer in a few days.  Nilsson made the banjo fashionable in New York society, accompanying herself charmingly.  All the famous opera singers regarded the house of Dr. Doremus a place where they were thoroughly at home, and always welcome.  Ole Bull was for many years his most devoted friend.  Dr. Doremus writes: