346 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



Wilhelm Hittorf was born in Bonn, where his father was 

 a merchant. He studied in his native town with a short 

 interval in BerHn, and gained his doctorate at the age of 

 twenty-two. A year later he became a member of the staff 

 of the university of his native town, presenting as his thesis 

 an experimental research to which he had been led by his own 

 observations on electrolysis. At the same time he also re- 

 ceived a call to the Academy (later university) at Miinster 

 in Westphalia, as a teacher of physics and chemistry. It 

 was very fortunate that he thus obtained an independent 

 sphere of action at so early an age. However, he then re- 

 mained for the whole of his active life in the same position, 

 although his external circumstances improved; he never re- 

 ceived a chair at any of the greater German universities. 

 His fate was much the same as that of Ohm.^ 



Hittorf however was even more reserved by nature than 

 Ohm; but since the many confidential petitions to ministries 

 and princes made by the latter had no noticeable effect in 

 giving him a more advantageous opportunity for work, Hit- 

 torf's reserve cannot have made much difference. At the 

 age of sixty-five Hittorf retired from his position of teacher 

 in Miinster. He lived in his own house and garden, his 

 younger and also unmarried sister keeping house for him. 

 He died at the age of ninety. 



William Crookes was born in London and also lived there 

 for the greater part of his life. He appears to have educated 

 himself mainly by the study of literature, and by his own 

 experimenting. At the early age of twenty-three he obtained 



in the Royal Institution a lecture entitled 'Radiant Matter, or the Fourth 

 State of Aggregation, and this became still better known -also in its 

 German translation - than his publication in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society. 



1 Both of them received distinctions and honours in their old age; that 

 however is of no importance, fot what matters is to be recognised, and to 

 have opportunity to work when still young enough. The fact that no 

 specialist of influence in Germany took any notice of Hittorf became 

 particularly clear when Crookes 's later achievements were the subject of 

 general admiration: Hittorf still remained un-named without protest. 



