20 



Notwithstanding his discontentment, in December 1886 Beije- 

 RINCK rejected the chance put bef ore him of becoming director of one 

 of the sugar experiment stations in Java. When some years later 

 things at the factory had become very difficult, he was bitterly dis- 

 appointed when nothing came of a post offered him on a sugar estate 

 on Java, where he would have received an enormous salary, 



Throughout his time at Delft Beijerinck was very well off and 

 behaved very liberally in financial matters towards his family. He 

 indulged himself in frequent holidays which he passed in foreign 

 countries. He visited Switzerland several times. Little information 

 reaches us about these jaunts, because Beijerinck nearly always 

 travelled alone, and he never told much about his excursions, not even 

 to his sisters i). 



By 1890 he had come to feel so uncomfortable in his post, since he 

 feit that he could not come up to the expectations people had had of 

 him, that he spoke of resigning, hesitating to give his resignation 

 more definitely. 



This state of mind must undoubtedly be ascribed to Beijerinck's 

 more or less neurasthenie proclivity, which sometimes made him 

 place grave interpretations upon very innocent happenings. To his 

 sisters he said that he was going to leave the works "unless a miracle 

 took place". The sisters at once rented a house next-door to their own 

 in the Dijkstraat at Wageningen, and furnished it for him. 



However, the situation was — as many times before — saved by 

 Mr. VAN Marken, who wrote Beijerinck a very tactful letter in 

 which he was rebuked for his fickleness, but in which Beijerinck at 

 the same time was assured that the Board of the factory indeed ap- 

 preciated his work. So Beijerinck wired to his sisters : 'The miracle 

 has happened ! They wish to keep me, and I wish to stay". 



Beijerinck's troubles were also caused by his deep sense of failure 

 in looking after the interests of the factory, the Board of which paid 

 him so well and were so obliging to him. On studying his coUected 

 papers we see that besides researches on butyl alcohol fermentation, 

 and Schizosaccharamyces octosporus, he also studied Bacillus radicicola, 

 luminous bacteria, and green algae, subjects the relation of which with 

 the technical trade is hard to find. The managing board showed them- 

 selves to be very broad-minded by allowing Beijerinck so much 

 freedom in his scientific work and his publications. 



Meanwhile Beijerinck was considered for the occupation of the 

 chair of botany at the University of Groningen, as the successor of 

 Professor de Boer. Probably because Beijerinck asked for too 

 much, the professorship was given to Dr. J. W. Moll. From that 

 time onwards the managing board of the factory seemed to have feit 



i) He once remarked that at some time in Switzerland he had been wondering 

 whether the diameters of the boulders at the feet of the glaciers would vary according 

 to a "Galton"-curve. 



