CHEMISTRY 19 



episode of his life, his travelling to Leipzig, Frei- 

 berg, Vienna, Prague, in quest of racemic acid. 

 He visited chemical factories and business houses, 

 collected samples of tartars, learned for himself the 

 whole process of the manufacture of commercial 

 tartaric acid : 



" I must go to the places themselves," he writes, 

 from Leipzig, to his wife. " If I had money 

 enough, I would go through Italy ; but that is 

 impossible : that will be for next year. I'll go 

 on for ten years, if need be. ... 1 haven't 

 left the laboratory for three days, and all that I 

 know of Leipzig is the street from the hotel to the 

 University. . . . There are two tartar-refining 

 factories at Trieste and Venice : I shall go there 

 and examine if I find a laboratory their waste- 

 products, and get to know exactly where their 

 tartars come from. Then I shall provide myself 

 with several kilogrammes of each kind, which I 

 shall carefully study in France." 



From Vienna, he writes to her : 



" We went off to the Seybel factory, not far 

 from Vienna. The chemist of the factory received 

 us, and made no difficulty over letting us into 

 the inner sanctuary : and after much questioning 

 we came at last to feel sure that they had seen 

 the famous acid, the racemic, last year. . . . 

 There is another factory, in Vienna : we went 

 there : I repeated my string of questions, M. Red- 

 tenbacher interpreting : they had seen nothing. I 

 asked to see their products ; and came across a 



