i8o 



NATURE 



{July I, 1875 



of practising jnedicine, took up chemistry as the aim of his 

 life, and repaired to Stockholm as a pupil of Berzelius. Choosing 

 the route from Liibeck by sea, he was obliged to wait six 

 weeks for the departure of a boat. The tedious stay in that 

 harbour was shortened through the acquaintance of a mineral 

 dealer already known to Wohler from the Frankfort fair, where 

 he had exchanged hyaliths for other minerals, and where Wohler 

 had met Goethe bent upon a similar errand. He also made the 

 acquaintance of a pharmaceutical chemist, Mr. Kind, at Liibeck, 

 and with him prepared potassium in quantities hitherto unknown 

 in Germany, and which, later on, Berzelius made use of in his 

 studies of boron and silicium. Arriving after a stormy passage, 

 he managed to find his way, by the aid of a Swedish student, 

 with whom lie had to talk Latin, the only language they had in 

 common. He trembled almost at the first interview with the 

 celebrated chemist, but was soon put at ease by his genial 

 manner. Berzelius's laboratory was of the simplest. It consisted 

 of two bare rooms and of a kitchen, which served at the same 

 lime for cooking the meals of the bachelor-household. This 

 was the time when Berzelius had just adopted the chlorine 

 theory. An old maiden cook who reigned supreme at the 

 hearth complaining one day of the smell of * ' oxidised muriatic 

 acid," Berzelius exclaimed, smiling, " There is no longer any 

 oxymuriatic acid, Anna ; you must say it smells very badly 

 of chlorine." To try his pupil's patience, he put him to the 

 analysis of lievriete, demanding great exactness. When the 

 analysis did not come up to the mark, he said : "Doctor, that 

 was quick, but bad," But soon he took the greatest interest in 

 his pupil's researches on cyanic acid, for which the ferrocyanide 

 of potassium had to be sent for from Liibeek. Berzelius kept 

 his simplicity in his intercourse with the courtiers who sometimes 

 visited the laboratory, and for whom some interesting experi- 

 ments had to be performed. He was an excellent narrator, and 

 Wohler listened with the greatest interest to his recollections of 

 Gay Lussac and of Sir Humphry Davy. Wohler passed a very 

 busy winter, spending his evenings in translating Berzelius' 

 annual reports and Hisinger's treatise on mineralogy. When the 

 spring came he enjoyed walks in the beautiful neighbourhood of 

 Stockholm, studded with the last oaks of the northern zone, and 

 he became intimately acquainted with the Swedish philosophers 

 Caro, Mosander, Retzius, Arfvedson, Hisinger, and others who 

 have now all left the scene of life. At last the time arrived 

 when he had to take his departure from Sweden, and he did so, 

 accompanied by Berzelius himself, who had invited him to take 

 a journey through Sweden and Norway. Many mineral trea- 

 sures were collected on the road, and the great mines and indus- 

 trial establishments were visited. At Helsingborg the travellers 

 stopped for several days to wait for the arrivai of .Brogniart, 

 iather and son, the French geologists, and of Sir Humphry 

 i3avy. The latter was then salmon-fishing in Norway, and 

 announced his arrival to Berzelius in a letter commencing, "My 

 dear sir and very honoured brother in science." He had some 

 kind and encouraging words for young Wohler, not forgotten by 

 the latter in his celebrity and his old age. Sir Humphry soon 

 left for Copenhagen, where he had an engagement to shoot 

 snipe with Forchhammer. Oerstedt arrived also to pay Berze- 

 lius his respects, and so did several professors from the neigh- 

 bouring university of Lund. In fact, Berzelius's celebrity was 

 so great that an official in the passport office refused to take any 

 fee from the pupil who had come to study under such a master. 

 Messrs. Brogniart had taken their comfortable travelling carriage 

 over from Paris. Their comfort, however, was disturbed by the 

 arrival of a French courier, the bearer, as they feared, of news of 

 Louis XVIII. 's death. Putting the question to the courier, they 

 received the answer, " Messieurs, vous savez, qu'un courier doit 

 etre aveugle, sourd et muet." The journey to Norway was con- 

 tinued in common, the elder Brogniart and Berzelius occupying 

 the carriage of the former, Wohler and the younger Brogniart 

 following in Berzelius's carriage. They often had to stop all 

 night in their carriages ; for it so happened that the Crown 

 Prince preceded them on their road with a numerous suite, and 

 the inns were overcrowded. We cannot enter into the details of 

 this interesting journey. When it came to a close at Helsing- 

 borg, Wohler had to take leave of his master, and the feelings 

 of regret were mutual and deep. Translating Berzelius's reports 

 and his handbooks became henceforth a duty to Wohler, by 

 which, regardless of the time it demanded, he tried to repay a 

 debt of gratitude. The meeting sent a vote of thanks to the 

 great and modest author of these recollections, praying for his 

 permission to print them in the Society's Reports ; and your corre 

 spondent hopes he may be forgiven any indiscretion he has l>een 



guilty of in preserving for the scientific world these short extracts. 

 — Th. Zoeller and E. A. Grothe have introduced xanthogenate 

 of sodium as a remedy for Phylloxera. Compared with the 



sulfocarbonate of sodium, it deserves the preference. CS o-vr^ 



IS easily transferred into CSj and HSg, the former killing the 

 Phylloxera, while the latter gas injures the vine : but xanthoge- 



SC H 

 nate of sodium, CS r\^ ®, cannot produce hydrosulphuric acid, 



and appears to be by far the better remedy of the two, as well 

 as the cheaper one. — S. Reymann proposes the following way 

 of determining the amount of orcine contained in lichens. Bro- 

 mine-water of known strength is added to the solution, pro- 

 ducing iribromorcine, C7ll5ljr;j02, until the solution has a per- 

 manent smell of bromine. Iodide of potassium is then added, 

 and the amount of iodine set free (corresponding to the excess of 

 bromine added) is determined by volumetric analysis. — The same 

 chemist described an easy method of determining the quantity 

 of bromoform contained in commercial bromine. — E. Donath 

 described a method of extracting from yeast a substance inverting 

 cane-sugar, and called by him invertine. — E. Zuercher has 

 found bromonitrorcthan to be transformed by nitrite of potas- 

 sium and alcoholic potash into yellow needles of potassic dinitro- 

 rethan : 



CH3 CH3 



I -f KNO., -h KOH - I + KBr -j- H^O. 



CH(N02)Br " CH(N02)2K 



The substance resembles the corresponding picrate. The acid is 

 an oily liquid.— E. Forst and Th. Zincke have oxidised the 

 two isomeric glycols, hydrobenzoine and isohydrobenzoine, 

 Ci4Hj2(OH)2. Both yield benzoic aldehyde. The authors try to 

 explain the identity of these reactions by constitutional formula;. 

 — F. Tieftrunk exhibited specimens of gas-tight membranes, 

 invented by Mr. Schiilke, and used for a new system of dry- 

 meters by Mr. S. Elster in Berlin. The membranes are not 

 acted upon by hydrocarbons, sulphuret of carbon, or ammonia, 

 and form a much better material for dry-meters than leather. 

 Mr. Tieftrunk demonstrated another application of this inven- 

 tion, consisting in a gas-burner yielding a constant flame. An 

 air-bath heated with this burner did not vary in temperature 

 more than one degree during six hours. 



BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED 



British. — Differential and Integral Calculus : C. P. Buckingham 

 (Triibncr and Co ) — Italian Alps : Douglas A. Freshfield (Longmans). — An 

 Analysis of the Lite Form in Art : Dr. Harrison Allen (Triibner and Co.) — 

 Nuragghi Sardi and other non-historic Stone Structures of the Mediter- 

 ranean Basin: CapL S. Pasfield Oliver, R. A., F.S.A , F.R.G..S. (Dublin, 

 Carson Bros.)— Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1874-75. 



CONTENTS Page 



Sir William Edmond Logan. By Prof. Arch. Geikie, F.R.S. . . 161 

 Trevandrum Magnetic Observations. By Prof. B. Stewart, 



F.R.S 1G3 



Our Book Shblf:— 



Martineaa's " Chapters on Sound " J 165 



Letters to the Editor : — 



On th» Temperature of the Human Body during Mountain Climb- 

 ing. — Prof. T. E. Thorpe 165 



Arctic Marine Vegetation. — Wm. H. Dall 166 



South American Earthquakes. — W. G. Palgrave 167 



Glacier and other Ice. — Josbph John Murphy 167 



The House-fly. — Rev. D. Edwardes 167 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



An Ancient " Uranometria " 167 



The "Black Saturday " Eclipse, 1598, March 7 167 



D'Arrest's Comet 168 



The Minor Planets i63 



On the Plagiograph alHer the Skew Pantigraph. By Dr. J. J. 



Sylvester, F.R.S. (ffz/A ///«j/ra/'2V)«f) 16S 



Science in Germany 168 



Magneto-Electric Machines, III. By Dr. Andrews, F.R.S. {Wilk 



IUustraiions)\ 170 



Tub Government Eclipse Expedition to Siam. By Frank 



Edw. Lott 172 



Notes 173 



Recent Progress in our Knowlrdge of the Ciliate Infusoria, 



III. By Dr. G. J. Allman, F.R.S 175 



Prizes of the French Academy 177 



Societies and Academies 179 



liooKS and Pamphlets Received . w . iSo 



