AT THE PHYSICO-TECHNICAL INSTITUTE 421 



' On hearing of the sudden death of. Hertz, I asked myself 

 how the German people can show their respect for his memory. 

 Might it not be possible to address a petition to the Reichstag, 

 to vote a national gift to those whom Hertz has left behind 

 him? . . . One should emphasize the extraordinary import of 

 Hertz's discoveries in relation to our whole conception of Nature, 

 and the fact that beyond a doubt they have pointed out the 

 only true direction that investigation can take for many years 

 to come: and insist that it would be as uncalled for to do 

 anything out of the common for an investigator (such as 

 myself, for example) who does his duty and has the good 

 fortune to discover two or three new laws, as it would be in- 

 excusable not to do something out of the common for Hertz/ 



Boltzmann was convinced by Helmholtz's answer of the 

 impracticability of his proposition. 



On February 24, 1894, Helmholtz published Vol. I of the 

 Scientific Transactions of the Deutsche Physikalisch-Technische 

 Reichsanstalt. 



In the spring he sought rest and refreshment from the 

 harassing experiences of the past year at Abbazia. But fate 

 made new gaps in the circle of his friends and acquaintances. 



His successor in the University Chair of Experimental 

 Physics in 1888 had been Kundt. It was a great distress to 

 Helmholtz to learn that this distinguished physicist and amiable 

 man, who was still in the prime of life, was suffering from 

 a severe form of heart disease. When Kundt informed him 

 that he wanted leave of absence, Helmholtz, who was at 

 Klagenfurt on his return journey (April 18), wrote him words 

 of sympathy and consolation : 



' I can but approve of your decision, since I too have long 

 felt how exhausting it is to expend one's intellectual time and 

 strength on tiring details, when one is conscious of the 

 capacity for better work, and is actually made responsible by 

 the nature of one's post for carrying it out. I myself went 

 through a stage at the beginning of my life in Berlin when 

 I felt very infirm, and believed myself to be suffering from 

 acute disease of the heart. But I came to Berlin later than 

 you, and was already case-hardened, so that I took it less to 

 heart when I was told to give up the more wearing parts of 

 my work, and was thus able to recover comparatively quickly, 



