24 GUSTAV MAGNUS. 



Thus it is with Magnus's researches. Wherever he 

 has attacked, he has brought out a host of new and 

 often remarkable facts ; he has carefully and accurately 

 observed them, and he has brought them in connection 

 with the great fabric of science. He has, moreover, 

 bequeathed to science a great number of ingenious and 

 carefully devised new methods, as instruments with 

 which future generations will continue to discover 

 hidden veins of the noble metal of everlasting laws in 

 the apparently waste and wild chaos of accident. 

 Magnus's name will always be mentioned in the first 

 line of those on whose labours the proud edifice of the 

 science of Nature reposes ; of the science which has so 

 thoroughly remodelled the life of modern humanity by 

 its intellectual influence, as well as by its having subju- 

 gated the forces of nature to the dominion of the mind. 



I have only spoken of Magnus's physical labours, 

 and have only mentioned those which seemed to me 

 characteristic for his individuality. But the number 

 of his researches is very great, and they extend over 

 wider regions than could now be grasped by any single 

 inquirer. He began as a chemist, but even then he 

 inclined to those cases which showed remarkable phy- 

 sical conditions ; he was afterwards exclusively a 

 physicist. But parallel with this he cultivated a very 

 extended study of technology, which of itself would 

 alone have occupied a man's life. 



