716 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



who afterwards collaborated with A^an 't Hoff in his phase-rule 

 investigations. One day Meyerhoffer burst into the room, and 

 pointing excitedly along the corridor, said, "Arrhenius is there." I 

 peered out and saw a stoutish fair young man talking to Ostwald 

 near the entrance hall. It was Arrhenius. We were made ac- 

 quainted by Ostwald, but at that time I saw little more of him. 

 Next year he came to work in Leipzig, and I had the opportunity 

 of meeting him daily. He was one of the simplest and least assum- 

 ing of men. He gave himself no airs and treated us young fellows 

 as if we were his scientific equals, although at that time he was 

 being recognized in Germany as a leading spirit in physical chem- 

 istry. In his own country he was still unregarded. 



Svante Arrhenius came of Swedish farmer folk, a remote ancestor 

 being one Lasse Olofsson, who in 1620 moved to the village of 

 Arena, from which the family derived its surname in the Latinized 

 form of Arenius, the spelling being changed in the early part of the 

 nineteenth century to Arrhenius by the uncle of Svante, Prof. Johan 

 Arrhenius, a botanist and secretary of the Academy of Agriculture. 

 Johan and his younger brother, Svante Gustav Arrhenius (1813- 

 1888), the father of our Svante, went as students to the University 

 of Upsala, and the latter subsequently established himself in that 

 town as a land surveyor. He was appointed collector to the univer- 

 sity, but the emoluments of the post were so meager that he was 

 forced to undertake in addition the management of the estate of 

 Wijk, on Lake Malar, which belonged to Count von Essen. He 

 married in 1855 Caroline Thunberg, and at Wijk there was born on 

 February 19, 1859, a son whom they called Svante August Arrhenius. 

 Owing to improved prospects the family moved to Upsala in the 

 beginning of 1860. Young Svante was educated at the cathedral 

 school of Upsala, and was fortunate in the fact that the rector of the 

 school was a good teacher of physics. He left at the age of 17 with 

 a good record in mathematics and physics to enter the University 

 of Upsala, where he soon passed the candidate's examination, ad- 

 mitting to study for the doctorate. It seems to have been his orig- 

 inal intention to take chemistry as his main subject under Cleve, 

 Avell known for his investigations on the rare earths and on complex 

 ammoniacal compounds. Cleve, however, was apparently an unin- 

 spiring teacher and neglected the theoretical side of chemistry. 

 Arrhenius records that he never heard any mention from the rostrum 

 of the periodic law, although it was already 10 years old, nor when 

 he came to write his thesis had he any knowledge of the existence of 

 the law of Guldberg and Waage, which was even older. In 1881 

 he definitely turned to physics, although the conditions for its study 

 in Upsala were far from ideal. Thalen was at that time professor 

 of physics there. His reverence for his master and predecessor 



