22 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



by that time have acquired considerable familiarity with lan- 

 guages, for he read a good deal of Beranger and other French 

 poets. I was not able to understand fully, but that did not 

 make much difference as he was always willing to translate. He 

 was also at the same time trying to learn Gaelic and used to amuse 

 us a good deal by going down to the kitchen to test his progress 

 and to ask questions from a Highland cook they had. In the 

 summer of 1870, when I was in the first year of my apprentice- 

 ship, I went with him to Shetland. His father and mother 

 went also and we stayed at Walls most of the time. I was away 

 three weeks, but they stayed on for a considerable time longer. 

 When we started, about the end of June, there was no thought 

 of war, but when he and I walked into Lerwick after my holidays 

 had expired, we found that war had already broken out between 

 Germany and France. No hint had reached us at Walls. 



When he came back from Germany he had made a great advance 

 in every way. Before that he was much of a boy, but afterwards 

 he had made greater progress than any of us who had remained 

 at home. Very soon he became Assistant in the Chemistry 

 Department of Anderson's College, and I think was also Assistant 

 in Technical Chemistry there. He must have been in this position 

 for about two years. He did not do any lecturing, but he worked 

 in the laboratory and acted as Tutorial Assistant. During that 

 time we were constantly meeting and took several short trips 

 together in the summers. Somewhere about 1874 we went to 

 Ireland together, meeting one morning in Dublin and going 

 across by train to Galway. From Galway we started on a walking 

 tour through Clare, coming back by rail from Limerick to Dublin. 

 In 1876 we went to Paris together with Guthrie Smith and 

 Charles MacLean and spent about ten days there, and afterwards 

 we went to Normandy, taking the steamer from Havre to Caen. 

 From Caen Guthrie Smith, MacLean and I came home, but 

 Ramsay stayed on. One of the scientific institutions of France, 

 the Association Franaise pour 1'Avancement des Sciences, was 



