32 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



assistant in the laboratory here, is very obliging and pleasant. 

 He is an American. If I am here in winter, I must board with 

 some family, for it is very difficult to pick up any German, living 

 in lodgings." 



This intention was carried out later. David King, 

 Sir William Thomson's nephew, arriving in Tubingen at 

 this time, Ramsay reports on 22nd May that he has 

 to-day just succeeded in getting him housed with a 

 German professor's family. His own letters are hence- 

 forward dated " Auf dem Graben," so he also was 

 similarly housed (though whether under the same roof 

 as his friend David King does not appear), for this was 

 the house of Professor Kommerell. This unfortunate 

 man was taken ill suddenly in January 1872, and after 

 some weeks died. This was a distressing experience for 

 the young boarder and in a letter to his mother he 

 expresses his sympathy and admiration both for the 

 widow " the best specimen of a woman I have ever 

 seen " and the deceased professor, of whom he says : 



" I have scarcely ever seen so good a father and pleasant and 

 upright a man. He was about the only man in Tubingen about 

 whom no evil was gossiped. I am just beginning to realise that 

 he is gone. I sat up with the corpse one night and it was rather 

 eerie work. However I did it willingly, as the others had been 

 up the whole night before round his bedside." 



As the winter came round, there are many references 

 to the cold and the skating. He has to assure his mother 

 that if the Neckar is frozen over, there is no part within 

 their reach deep enough to provide danger. He also 



