THE GREAT LONDON CHEMISTS 57 



useful work ; such men as Turner, Graham's predecessor ; 

 Daniel, who gave us the battery known by his name; 

 Miller, to whose painstaking labours we owe the revision 

 of our standards of weight and measure ; and many others 

 of less eminence. But of these I can only mention the 

 names. 



The city of Glasgow gave Graham to London ; Boyle 

 was an Irishman; Cavendish was born in France; and 

 Davy came from Cornwall. But London made some 

 return for depriving Glasgow of Graham ; for Penny was 

 a Londoner, who passed the major part of his life in 

 Glasgow, having been called thither as successor to 

 Graham. He, too, did good work in his day; he was 

 an extremely attractive lecturer, and may be said to have 

 brought the art of giving professional evidence to perfec- 

 tion. In the eyes of many, this last may prove no recom- 

 mendation; but if it be regarded as unworthy of the 

 character of a true man of science, voluntarily to abandon 

 that most precious heritage of a genuine philosopher, an 

 open mind, Penny atoned for his sins by many beautiful 

 investigations, the most important of which are perhaps 

 his determinations of atomic weights, determinations 

 which even to-day rank among the most reliable. 



Thomas Graham was the son of a Glasgow manu- 

 facturer, and was born towards the end of the year 1805. 

 He was educated in the Glasgow High School, and after- 

 wards at the university there. His university career lasted 

 an unusually long time ; for entering when he was four- 

 teen years of age, he did not graduate until he had reached 

 the mature age of twenty-one. I am well aware that to an 

 Oxford or Cambridge ' man,' the age of fourteen appears a 

 ridiculously early one at which to enter the university; 

 but in many cases, as for instance in that of a late 

 president of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, it is amply 

 justified in its results. There are many boys who 



