ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 27 



tilled the same lot of mercury five-hundred times to con- 

 tradict the old alchemical notion that an essence could 

 be g*otten from it, and other mercury he kept at a raised 

 temperature for fifteen years, watchincr for anv chang-- 

 es, meaning- countless repetitions of the same tiresome 

 work. 



I knew, myself, a young* German student who, for 

 weeks and weeks, was practically an outcast, working- 

 in a part of the laboratory- to himself, unable to eat 

 with his fellows, a burden to himself and to others be- 

 cause of the loathsome chemical substances he had 

 chosen to work upon. We always threatened to put 

 him under the sink or soak him in the water butt if 

 he came near our part of the laboratory, and so I know 

 little of his work or success, but he showed the scien- 

 tific spirit and pluck. The work had to be done to 

 g-ain the desired knowledg-e. It was loathsome, it was 

 drudg-ery, but someone had to do it, and why not he? 



I have heard of an American student who spent 

 months in distilling- and examining- foetid bone oil. It 

 seems to me, as a would-be scientific man, I should be 

 forced to draw the line at bone-oil. 



Only a vear or two ag-o, I reported to the Society 

 the patient toil of an Eng-lish worker who was trying- 

 to understand the processes in theg-ermination of g-rain. 

 His microscopic dissections counted up into the hun- 

 dreds, and yet, thoug-h spoken of casualh^ and as a mat- 

 ter of course, seemed to me a marvellous proof of skill 

 and patience. 



But this drudg-ery may meet you at the outset of 

 your career, and not only after you have become veter- 

 ans, and if we listen to the older masters of Sci- 

 ence, it is best for us that we should be so tried. 



My teacher was one of the pupils of the g-reat Ger- 



