MEMOIR OF OERSTED. 171 



many a subtle genius has exhausted itself without exhausting the subject. But 

 the (il)scurity of these depths is sometimes quite d la mode ou the shores, always 

 a little foggy, of the Baltic sea. 



It seems certain, however, that the lectures of Oersted were well received l>y 

 the youth and the public of Copenhagen, for they were always much freciuented, 

 and they secured for the professor an eminent position among his fellow-citizens. 

 He was not long in establishing agreeable relations with pei'sons of the highest 

 position in the capital of Denmark, and even with the princes of the royal family. 



But apart of his success miglit also be attributed to his lively and intellectual 

 conversation, to the frequent articles which he put forth on various subjects, and 

 to the works which he pul)lished at this epocli, such as his Considerations on the 

 history of chemistn/, his Experiments respecting the figures 2^fodaced Inj nodal 

 lines on vibrating surfaces, a subject to which Chladni had already devoted an 

 important work ; and a Discourse on the ptleasiirc irroduced hi/ sound, a discourse 

 in which he developed, under a point of view peculiar to himself, the laics of 

 the beautiful. 



He thus continued to publish, as he had done from his youth, a multitude of 

 memoirs and articles of more or less extent on different subjects relating to the 

 natural sciences and to philosophy, all of which met with appreciative readers. 

 Nevertheless, Copenhagen was not a center to which everj'thing converged as 

 is Paris or London. In a city of secondary importance one may keep himself 

 informed of what is written, but the inconvenience is soon felt of not knowing 

 what is talked about in the learned world. Oersted, who had need of direct 

 communication with entire Europe, felt himself impelled to undertake new expe- 

 ditions. He set out for Berlin May 7, 1812, where he passed three months and 

 gave to the press, in the German language, one of his most important works, 

 entitled " Views of the chemical laws of nature," {Ansichten (ler chemisclicn 

 Naturgesetze.) In passing through Germany he visited Oken, Schweiger, and 

 Hegel, and established friendly relations with the ingenious ph^ysicist Seebeck, 

 who, some years afterwards, made the discovery of thermo-electricity. He then 

 revisited Paris, where he made quite a long stay, and, about the middle of the 

 3'ear 1813, returned to Copenhagen, there to receive anew from his countrymen 

 tokens of the cordial consideration which he had long before inspired. 



In 1814 Oersted published, in the progranmre of the university, an essay on 

 a chemical nomenclature common to all the Germano-Scandinavian languagcB, 

 The names proposed were so happil}' appropriate to the genius of those tongues 

 that they were generally adopted, and are still in use in all the countri<^s of tne 

 north. In 1815 the lioyal Society of Sciences of Copenhagen, having lost its 

 excellent secretary, Bugge, Oersted was chosen to replace him, and, the same 

 year, the King named him a chevalier of the order of Danebrog. Two years 

 afterwards the university conferred on him the title of professor in ordiiuirv, 

 {professor ordinariu's,) a title superior to that of professor extraordinary wmch 

 he had borne for more tlian 10 years. 



About this time Oersted undertook a remarkable series of experiments on the 

 compressibilit}^ of water, and found almost exactly, though by new means of his 

 own invention, the numbers which the celebrated English physicist CantoM had 

 obtained half a century Ix.'fore. 



In ISIS and 1819 he undertook, with MM. Esmarch and Forschhanimer, 

 explorations in the island of Bornholm, for th(^ purpose of examining itsgeomgical 

 constitution with reference to the working of the coal and iron ore wlucii are 

 found there, and he made these investigations the subject of several publica- 

 tions. This was the commencement of a geological study of Denmark, estab- 

 lished on new scientific bases. Oersted, however, was ini;ible to prosecute this 

 operation, which, continued by M. Eorschhannner, has given to Denmark the 

 excellent geological chart well known to this Academy. 



The joitrneys to Bornholm did not inteiTupt the habitual course of Oersted's 



