540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



where he prepared for the university. Among his teachers at the 

 gymnasium were several men who afterward became renowned for 

 their learning and special acquirements, namely, F. A. Schlosser, Groti- 

 fend, and Carl Ritter. The boy was faithful in his attendance upon 

 the exercises of the school, and satisfactorily passed all of his exami- 

 nations, but was not distinguished for much knowledge of the ancient 

 languages ; indeed, his passionate love of the chemical and physical 

 sciences and his zeal in collecting minerals absorbed so much of his 

 time and tempted him so frequently to neglect both the classics and 

 mathematics that private tutors were occasionally necessary to coach 

 him over difficult passages or knotty problems. He kept up a system 

 of exchange of minerals with his fellow students, and with dealers, 

 especially with Hermann von Meyer and with Herr Menge, in Hanau, 

 to the latter of whom he carried many a bagful of hyalite collected 

 by himself. An important influence was exerted upon the scientific 

 bent of his mind by Dr. Buch, a very intellectual and learned man, 

 who occupied himself largely with chemical, physical, and mineralogi- 

 cal studies, with whom Wohler enjoyed for years a most instructive 

 intercourse, and to whom he subsequently expressed his indebtedness 

 for the first serious encouragement to pursue scientific studies. Dr. 

 Buch had improvised a laboratory in his kitchen, where, on certain 

 days, experiments were allowed. Among other things, aided by his 

 young pupil, Dr. Buch analyzed some pyrites from Bohemia, in which 

 he found the recently discovered element selenium, and published the 

 result in Gilbert's " Annalen," to the great satisfaction of Wohler, who 

 then, for the first time, saw his name in print. The two also prepared 

 some cadmium, another new metal, from zinc-ore. 



Wohler afterward carried with him on a pedestrian tour to Cassel 

 and Gottingen a specimen of what he had prepared, in order to show 

 it to its discoverer, Professor Stromeyer, and to have him identify it 

 as genuine. It was during this visit that he made the acquaintance of 

 the celebrated Blumenbach, whose text-book of " Natural History " he 

 had zealously studied. Blumenbach received the young student very 

 cordially, and kindly showed him the curiosities of his natural history 

 collection. He could hardly have anticipated that a few years later 

 the young man would become his colleague at the university, as the 

 successor to the lamented Stromeyer. 



By slow degrees Wohler obtained more correct ideas of chemistry, 

 and abandoned the doctrine of phlogiston, in which, without fairly 

 comprehending it, he had at first believed. Dr. Buch's rich library 

 was always open to him, and he was not, as formerly, confined to 

 Hagen's old " Experimental Chemistry," which had been used as a text- 

 book by his father. Chemical ex2^eriments now became a passion with 

 him, they absorbed his mind by day and night ; his room at home was 

 transformed into a laboratory full of glasses, retorts, washing-bottles, 

 and minerals everything in the greatest confusion. No coal-hod in 



