HELMHOLTZ IN KONIGSBERG 



visit to London marks an epoch in one's life ; after such 

 a visit, one learns to judge human actions on a scale 

 hitherto unknown. I have been very unfortunate in 

 meeting scientific men, missing Rankine, Brewster, 

 Joule, Thomson, and Wheatstone, but with Faraday, 

 Stokes, Sabine, Grove, Airy, Bence Jones, Andrews 

 the chemist, Hamilton the mathematician, and many 

 others of lesser importance, I have had better luck. 

 These men seem to be as generous as Swiss tourists 

 are odious ! 



* Bence Jones is " a man among men," as we say in 

 Berlin. He invited me to his villa at Folkestone, on 

 the sea coast, where I met Du Bois Reymond and his 

 wife. Our friend has become quite an Englishman. 

 I was received there as heartily as if I had been an old 

 friend. I spent three weeks sight-seeing in London, 

 and when I left it for the meeting (of the British 

 Association) in Hull, I had not even seen the half of 

 it. The organisation of the meeting at Hull greatly 

 interested me. There was not much scope for 

 physics, chemistry, and such like sciences, in which a 

 man must work by himself, and the leaders of these 

 sciences kept in the background. For other sciences, 

 however, such as meteorology, ethnology and geology, 

 where there must be co-operation among many ob- 

 servers, the meetings (of sections) were of great 

 importance. There were over 800 members, and, in 

 addition, 250 ladies who came to listen. As a 

 foreigner, I was the guest of Dr Cooper, a physician, 



