AUGUST WILHELM VON HOFMANN. 413 



on the jury at most of the great exhibitions. He was also a 

 prominent member of the London Chemical Society, — Foreign 

 Secretary as early as 1847, and President in 18G1 ; in 1856 he 

 was appointed Master of the Mint. With these varied activities 

 and the numerous distractions caused by the brilliant scientific 

 society of London at this time, it is surprising that he should 

 have produced a very large volume of scientific work of the 

 highest quality; but the riddle is solved by his statement that 

 he often worked in the laboratory till two or three o'clock in 

 the morning, and in this way succeeded in getting through an 

 amount of work which would have broken down a man with a 

 less robust constitution. 



After twenty years of this life, in spite of its pleasures and 

 honors, he began to turn his eyes toward Germany again, and at 

 first intended to go to Bonn, where the laboratory was built 

 under his direction; but before leaving London to take charge of 

 it, his destination was changed by a call to Berlin, where he 

 became Professor in 1865, and at once set to work with his accus- 

 tomed energy to reorganize the chemical department of the 

 university, which had fallen into some disorder, and to build 

 the large laboratory, which was finished in 1869. The site was 

 chosen so that the laboratory could be connected with a house 

 which had been for many years the property of the Prussian 

 Academy, and was used as the dwelling of both its chemist and 

 astronomer, until the astronomer was removed to other quarters 

 shortly before Hofmann's arrival, and the chemist of the Acad- 

 emy left in undisputed possession; to this post Hofmann suc- 

 ceeded in virtue of his appointment as Professor of Chemistry 

 in the Berlin University, and here the last years of his life were 

 passed in happy activity. 



In term time he gave three lectures a week, each lasting two 

 hours, — a severe tax on the strength of any man, especially in 

 the hot, close weather of a Berlin July. Then he went into the 

 laboratory and visited his private assistants, of whom he some- 

 times had as many as six, and his advanced students. This filled 

 the morning. The afternoon was devoted to work in his private 

 laboratory, or a second visit to his students; and in the evening, 

 after supper between half-past eight and ten, he passed a short 

 time with his family, and then at about eleven settled down to 

 work in his study till from one to three in the morning. As in 

 London, he added to his regular work a great many other occu- 



