Mr Johnston's Visit to Berzelius. 193 



^erv'ant can do this. If this be all I am to learn, I may as 

 well stay away." — " Oh but," replied Afzelius, " your next 

 operations will be more difficult." Accordingly, when he 

 asked for a second operation, he was instructed to prepare 

 caustic potash, by burning cream of tartar in a crucible. 

 " This so disgusted me," says Berzelius, " that I vowed I 

 would never ask for another operation. Still I frequented 

 the laboratory, and at the end of three weeks found myself 

 attending regularly every day, though I had no right to do 

 so, and Afzelius could have turned me out. Yet I was allow- 

 ed to return and operate, and break much glass, while Eke- 

 berg, especially, was exceedingly annoyed that I never asked 

 a single question ; for," he adds, " I liked better to seek for 

 information from reading and thinking and experimenting, 

 than from men, who, having little practical experience them- 

 selves, gave me, if not evasive, at least unsatisfactory answers 

 regarding phenomena they had never themselves observed." 

 Chemistry at that time was at so low an ebb, that nobody 

 thought of studying it for its own sake. Yet in this way, led 

 on by an increasing interest in the pursuit, did Berzelius, while 

 at Upsala, lay the foundation of that high name in the chemi- 

 cal world to which he has since attained. This short account, 

 which I had from himself, throws much light on the sources of 

 his distinction. In that ardour and perseverance which led 

 him on, fighting single handed with all his difficulties, we see 

 a sure foundation of future eminence — in his continued ex- 

 perimenting the origin of that extensive knowledge of facts and 

 phenomena for which he is now so remarkable, — and in his 

 being driven thus early to his own resources, the commence- 

 ment of those habits of close-thinking which pervade all his 

 chemical writings. 



After leaving the university, he was appointed assistant to 

 Sparrman, the same who had sailed with Captain Cook, 

 and who was at that time professor in the School of Medicine 

 at Stockholm. On the death of Sparrman in 1806, he suc- 

 ceeded to his chair. At this time there were only three por- 

 fessors in the *School of Medicine, so that the load devolving 

 upon each was very great The profession of Berzelius in- 



