CHEMICO-AGRICULTURAL TOUR. 145 



rately in whatever depai-tment of chemistry has the most direct 

 bearing on the object of his studying this branch of natural science 

 which is obviously a very great advantage. 



I was greatly pleased with those laboratories, which appeared to 

 me to be the best constructed and most completely furnished of 

 any I had seen elsewhere in Germany or in other parts of the Con- 

 tinent. Dr. Fresenius has likewise made a number of very ingen- 

 ious arrangements, which hava the effect of economising time and 

 labor, and obviating more or less disagreeable circumstances con- 

 nected with the different branches of chemical research. Some of 

 those arrangements I took sketches of, that I might afterwards 

 adopt them in the Society's laboratory. I obtained, also, some in- 

 formation which I was desirous of knowing as to the methods 

 employed in this celebrated school of chemistry in different 

 analytical determinations. 



Leaving Wiesbaden, I returned by the same line of railway I 

 had last traversed as far as Cassel, where I got aboard one of the 

 Rhine steamers, and proceeded down that noble river as far as 

 Bonn, where I remained for one day, being desirous of visiting the 

 agricultirral college at Poppelsdorf, which is situated near that 

 town. This college, which is about a mile from Bonn, and close 

 to the small village of Poppelsdorf, is' a good substantial building, 

 possessing some excellent apartments for the instruction of its 

 pupils in the various branches of knowledge connected jvith agri- 

 culture which are taught in the institution. It possesses a small 

 but well-arranged museum, containing a number of agricultural 

 models, specimens, and casts of various agricultural products and 

 the objects of manufacture connected with agriculture. It also has 

 a library, reading-room, and several lecture-theatres. Tlie offices 

 adjoining the principal building are very good and well constructed 

 and one of them is devoted to a chemical laboratory. 



In the centre of the farm-yard adjoining the College is a large 

 open dung-pit, into which all the litter of the cattle fed in the yard 

 is placed, and the sewerage of the entire establishment flows. 

 Into this, at certain periods, water from a neighboring stream is 

 conducted ; and, after it has remained in contact with the dung for 

 a certain time, the fluid portion is allowed to flow into an adjoin- 

 ing reservoir, furnished with a powerful forcing-pump, which, by 

 a series of canvas tubes or hoses screwed on to it, readily distrib- 

 utes the liquid manure to the fields and meadows surrounding the 

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