ERECTION OF A PHYSICO- TECHNICAL IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. 375 



which their teaching vocation left them, used these for 

 carrying on their researches, and have accomplished 

 much, but for extensive thorough research neither the 

 rooms and their fittings nor the leisure -time of the 

 scientists were sufficient. My proposal to add to the 

 planned institute for the scientific support of engineer- 

 ing a second, which should be exclusively at the 

 service of scientific research, met indeed with much 

 sympathy, but the execution of the plan was re- 

 garded as impossible under the existing circumstances. 

 Suitable premises were wanting, sufficiently large and 

 not liable to vibration from vehicular traffic, and it 

 also appeared difficult to obtain the consent of the 

 Prussian Diet to the considerable expenditure required 

 for the erection and subsequent maintenance of such 

 an institution. 



I had already bequeathed in my will a conside- 

 rable sum of money to be applied to the furtherance 

 of scientific research, but precious time would perhaps 

 have been lost before my possibly still remote death, 

 and particularly the favourable opportunity would then 

 have gone by for calling into life a large undertaking, 

 answering to the needs of the time, by the combina- 

 tion of the planned institute destined for scientific re- 

 search with the scientific-technical one already agreed 

 to in principle. I therefore resolved not to wait till 

 my death, but to make the Imperial Government the 

 offer, to place at its disposal a large piece of ground 

 perfectly suited to the purpose or the equivalent 

 capital for an Imperial institute devoted to scientific 



