xv HOME LIFE AND TRAVELS 365 



At that time we kept a capital pair of cobs, to wit, 

 Pippin and Phoebe, who were certainly important 

 members of the household, and with them in front of 

 a light phaeton we had many charming driving tours 

 over the Welsh hills, across the North Yorkshire 

 moors, down the valley of the Wye, and elsewhere 

 through some of the most picturesque parts of the 

 country. No mode, in my opinion, of seeing the 

 country and enjoying the air is more charming than 

 this. 



We spent the autumn of 1866 at a house in North- 

 umberland called Roddam. And that place is memor- 

 able to me because, on working out my analytical 

 results concerning the vanadium compounds, I found 

 out the cause, already alluded to, of the discrepancy 

 between the numbers I obtained and those which had 

 been previously found by Berzelius. 



Among the undoubted advantages of a professorial 

 life is the Long Vacation. This, in my case, was spent 

 during many pleasant summers at the English Lakes, 

 and I still remember the joy of the first breath of pure 

 mountain air after the smoke of Manchester and the 

 smells of the laboratory, which, though dear to the 

 nose of the chemist, are not altogether hygienic. As 

 the children grew older we enjoyed ourselves at the 

 Lakes with riding and driving about the country, with 

 bathing and boating on Ullswater and Windermere, 

 and generally appreciating that beautiful country, 

 which, when the weather is fine, surpasses most places 

 on earth, but whose climate is unfortunately marred 

 by the very heavy rainfall. It is not generally known 

 that there is a spot situated in the hollow of the 

 mountains between Stye Head Pass and Wastwater 

 in which the rainfall is absolutely tropical, amounting 

 to an average of 190 inches per annum. When rain- 



