60 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



" I said I did not know when I should be up in London, 

 but since I wrote circumstances have occurred to change 

 my intentions, and I think I shall be able to spend the 

 month of October with you. I don't think I can get away 

 sooner; perhaps I may, in the end of September. How- 

 ever, believe me, your loving, affectionate brother, 



" GEORGE." 



" 1th August, 1838. 



" I am going to publish a paper in one of the Journals, 

 on a new exposition of a chemical law, which has been 

 debated all over Europe, and argued one way and another, 

 without any one being able to prove which of two opinions 

 was the true one. 



" While engaged in a wholly different inquiry, I made a 

 little discovery which threw some new light upon the 

 subject. I was confined at home two days unwell, and 

 tried an experiment or two, which proved my views, and, 

 in short, before the week was done, I had proved my point, 

 beyond the possibility of contradiction. 



" Samuel Brown recommends me to speak to Christison 

 to get it put in the Royal Society's Transactions. I intend 

 doing so to-morrow. I was only kept by a dread of 

 seeming to over-value the matter, and especially by an 

 unwillingness to seem courting patronage ; but I'll see him 

 and be guided by his conduct to me." 



Passages in the foregoing letters have alluded to a long 

 cherished desire to visit his brother in London. It was a 

 great delight to him when it became at last possible to 

 satisfy this desire. 



On September nth, the final arrangements are an- 

 nounced : " You will be surprised not to have heard from 



