128 Mary Somerville. 



sent us a valuable collection of crystals of sapphire, 

 ruby, oriental topaz, amethyst, &c., &c. Somerville 

 used to analyze minerals with the blowpipe, which 

 I never did. One evening, when he was so occu- 

 pied, I was playing the piano, when suddenly I 

 fainted ; he was very much startled, as neither I 

 nor any of our family had ever done such a thing. 

 When I recovered, I said it was the smell of 

 garlic that had made me ill. The truth was, the 

 mineral contained arsenic, and I was poisoned for 

 the time by the fumes. 



At this time we formed an acquaintance with Dr. 

 Wollaston, which soon became a lasting friendship. 

 He was gentlemanly, a cheerful companion, and a 

 philosopher ; he was also of agreeable appearance, 

 having a remarkably fine, intellectual head. He was 

 essentially a chemist, and discovered palladium ; but 

 there were few branches of science with which he 

 was not more or less acquainted. He made experi- 

 ments to discover imponderable matter; I believe, 

 with regard to the ethereal medium. Mr. Brand, of 

 the Royal Institution, enraged him by sending so 

 strong a current of electricity through a machine he 

 had made to prove electro-magnetic rotation, as to 

 destroy it. His characteristic was extreme accuracy, 

 which particularly fitted him for giving that preci- 

 sion to the science of crystallography which it had 



