24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



anything about him. The other professor is not here. He is 

 coming on Friday. I am very sorry he could not be here 

 to-day, for I would like to have you see him. He is a hearty, 

 full-blooded, wide-awake, nervous German. I will not compare 

 him with Agassiz, but I will say he is a man of a temperament 

 something like his. We were fellow-students in a German 

 university twenty years ago, and he was one of the best students 

 of his time. When we graduated together, the professor came 

 to me and said : " What do you think of that young man as an 

 assistant for me ? " "I think he is the very best man you can 

 find." Said he, " I think just so," and immediately appointed 

 him his assistant. That professor is the best chemist in the 

 world. This young man remained with him, rising higher and 

 higher ; he became a lecturer upon organic chemistry ; became 

 Professor of Chemistry in the university, and would to-day have 

 been in that position in Gcettingen, if he had not come to 

 America. But he had acquaintances here, and he wished to 

 travel. He asked and obtained permission of the government 

 to travel two years in France, England, and the United States, 

 that he might learn all he could about chemistry as applied 

 in the arts and in manufactures in different countries — taking 

 the wise German course ; for a man cannot build a house in 

 Germany unless he has spent at least two years in a foreign 

 country learning how. He came to this country, and fell in 

 with some of his old students at Philadelphia, who would not 

 let him go back. They took him to their father's house, and 

 insisted on his remaining here. They were^ engaged in sugar 

 refining, and they said, " We want you here; we want you to 

 tell us what to do," and they kept him there. After that he 

 became a teacher in Rensselaer Institute at Troy, and for six 

 years past he has been the chemist of the salt works at Syra- 

 cuse, where they make from six to eight millions of bushels a 

 year, and where he has introduced important improvements 

 in the manufacture, by which the salt is prepared fit for table 

 and dairy use. But I will not give any further description of 

 him. I know there is not a better practical chemist in the 

 United States than Dr. Goessmann. I anticipate that he will be 

 a light in this country, right here among this people, and that 

 scientific investigations and experiments will be carried on 

 under his supervision here, by the students of this college, 



