84 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



short absence, I found all these papers, which had caught fire, 

 a glowing heap of ashes. The photographs of the apparatus, 

 and the drawings of all the spark-spectra, namely, those of 

 the rarer earths, to separate which had cost me untold trouble 

 all, all burnt ! 



Yours ever, 



R. W. BUNSEN. 



To conclude the subject of Bunsen, I am pleased to 

 be able to add the following picturesque description by 

 my friend Thorpe of his introduction to the master : 



MY DEAR ROSCOE, 



You are good enough to ask me to tell the story of my first 

 acquaintance with Bunsen. I well remember the circum- 

 stances. Indeed, thanks to your good offices, I look back 

 upon the years I spent in the Heidelberg laboratory, in 

 close association with that great man, as one of the most 

 precious memories of my life. You may remember you sent 

 me to Heidelberg with a scholarship awarded on your recom- 

 mendation by the trustees of the old place in Quay Street, 

 and for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, for it meant 

 everything to me at that time. I had tried my 'prentice hand 

 at a little bit of research carbonic acid in sea-air and you 

 had the temerity to believe that with encouragement and assist- 

 ance I might do better. Years afterwards I learned from our 

 old friend Mr. Aston, the legal adviser of the College, that the 

 award of that scholarship settled a constitutional question : it 

 brought the Atlantic Ocean within the purview and jurisdiction 

 of the Council. 



Well, in the autumn of '67 I set out for Germany, fortified 

 with much good advice, and the bearer of sundry presents 

 from you and yours to Bunsen among them a copy of the 

 Times containing an account of a " horrid murder " (you 

 remember ^the dear old man's amiable weakness for "horrid 

 murders "), a small consignment I think from Mrs. Roscoe, 

 your mother of potted shrimps (another amiable weakness), 

 and above all some magnificent specimens of potassium and 

 sodium (calculated to go straight to his heart) from Mather's 

 works at Patricroft. Sonstadt had worked out Caron's 

 process for the manufacture of magnesium, and there was 

 what we then considered a great demand for the metals of 

 the alkalis. 1 



1 Sodium is now manufactured electrolytically to the amount of many 

 thousands of tons annually. (H.E.R.) 



