BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 27 



lery, left hand, facing and near stage. A few green plants were 

 arranged in front of the platform, and above rose a mass of 

 heads of the most distinguished scientists of our day. The 

 ladies were in evening dress, low necks, and many aesthetic 

 costumes were in the hall. The audience present seemed of a 

 higher social caste than our own scientific assemblies." 



The weather grew unpropitious ; Miss Abbott was con- 

 fined to her room by a bad attack of bronchitis and found no 

 other amusement on the 2d of September, than "a wiry up- 

 right piano, Chopin nocturnes, and the Schumann Carnival." 

 She records a call from Joseph S. Ames, of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, who had been for eight months at Helmholtz's 

 laboratory at Berlin, and complained bitterly of the primitive 

 methods, the disregard of the value of time, and the boorishness 

 of the students that distinguished that university. As she was 

 informed that it was idle to go there without one's own ap- 

 paratus and with work already planned out, she notes that her 

 plan is "to get a number of products ready and to take them to 

 some one laboratory to work under advice." She was told that 

 the celebrated chemist, Sir William Crookes, and other distin- 

 guished men desired to meet her, and that when she should 

 once get out she would find herself " quite a lion." She says: 

 " I am gathering experience from my trip. It was just the thing 

 to do ; by the time it is over I shall have a clearer idea of how 

 to follow up my work. The meeting with men is the greatest 

 educator for me. A wide or limited experience makes the dif- 

 ference between people." 



On the 4th of September, she was able to go to Dr. Edward 

 Schunck's, where she was delighted with his beautiful house, 

 grounds, and laboratory. She told her host, when she saw the 

 yellow brick exterior, the stone staircases, and the walls painted 

 robin's egg blue with fine gold bordering, the opal glass window- 

 panes with soft, mellow, creamy light, that it suggested to her 

 mind "celestial chemistry." 



She remarked the exquisite crystalline products that Dr. 

 Schunck had isolated from plants, his specimens of substances 

 dyed with chlorophyll and various organic products in a glass 

 case with pomegranate-red glass doors. She was delighted 



