MENDEL^EFF 129 



Kespected by the official classes in Russia, the police did 

 not interfere with his laboratory, for he would not allow 

 them although university and other laboratories in 

 Russia are under the control of the police. 



Although of humble origin, by his loyalty to the 

 house of Romanof, and his well-known political views, 

 he enjoyed privileges which were denied to many of his 

 fellow-professors and students. 



Through influence, capitalists and others, Mendele'eff 

 became rich, bought an estate near Moscow, and became 

 scientific adviser to the Minister of Finance. He was 

 a thrifty man, arid disliked society society was a bore 

 to his philosophic brain and to his love of solitude. 

 Scarcely any branch of chemistry is there, practical or 

 philosophical, which his genius has not touched and 

 adorned. 



While he was engaged in writing the first edition of 

 his celebrated Principles of Chemistry in 1868-70, the 

 periodic law occurred to him, and in March 1869 he 

 presented his views on the subject to the Physico-Chemical 

 Society of Russia. His fame rests, and will rest for all 

 time, on the famous periodic law of the elements. John 

 Dalton had shown at the commencement of the nineteenth 

 century that the elements of matter, when reduced to 

 their smallest and indivisible forms, or atoms, combine 

 in certain definite proportions, depending upon their 



weights. From Dalton's time onward some of the best 



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