THE BRISTOL PERIOD 89 



in a letter to Dr. Blaikie, dated 4th May, 1884, is inter- 

 esting and characteristic of both : 



" I was very early at the dinner and was putting off time, 

 looking at the names of people to be present, when a peculiar 

 foreigner, every hair of whose head acted in independence of 

 every other, came up bowing. I said, ' We are to have a good 

 attendance I think.' He said, ' I do not spik English. 5 I said, 

 ' Vielleicht sprechen Sie Deutsch ? ' He replied, ' Ja, ein wenig. 

 Ich bin Mendeleeff.' I did not say, ' Ich bin Ramsay,' but ' Ich 

 heisse Ramsay,' which was perhaps more modest. His method 

 reminded me of ' the only Jones.' Well, we had twenty minutes 

 or so before anyone else turned up and we talked our mutual 

 subject fairly out. He is a nice sort of fellow, but his German 

 is not perfect. He said he was raised in East Siberia and knew 

 no Russian even till he was 17 years old. I suppose he is a 

 Kalmuck, or one of these outlandish creatures." 



The origin and early history of University College, 

 Bristol, and other provincial colleges was sketched very 

 briefly at the beginning of the chapter. In a very few 

 years from their foundation most of these colleges found 

 themselves involved more or less in financial difficulties. 

 Their very success was in many cases a source of embar- 

 rassment, for not only was it necessary to replace appar- 

 atus or fittings which had become obsolete and to provide 

 libraries, but the increased number of students rendered 

 necessary additional teaching assistance. Moreover, 

 colleges which were dependent partly on annual dona- 

 tions and subscriptions found that some of these were 

 apt to silently vanish away, and so for one reason or 

 another nearly all these colleges found themselves face 



