112 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



the way, did the Ancients ever have holidays ? I imagine not. I 

 think they merely took things easier all round. 



Anyhow I am now an instructor of medical youth, and so 

 have to keep their terms, which means that I go on till July 20th 

 and then stop till October 1st, when I again repeat the wondrous 

 tale. They are an unsatisfactory style of people, having regard 

 to their exams, more than their instruction. It is as if one paid 

 more attention to the ejecta than the injecta ; as if all the 

 pleasure were in having a tooth drawn not in making use of a 

 sound molar. However, our nation is being radically corrupted. 

 The natural mind is enmity against wisdom, knowledge and all 

 instruction. It occurs to me that I quote in a mangled form 

 from Proverbs. It might not be a bad thing to begin one's 

 lectures with a few homilies on the sayings of Solomon. He was 

 pretty well up in human nature, that old wiseacre, and has left 

 on record many quaint and pithy sayings mrginibus puerisque. 

 . . . What are your results with the breaking strain of liquids ? 

 I have just got rid of the molecular weights of metals and am 

 glad to be done with it. I am now preparing for an onslaught 

 on vacua and am having my private-room fitted up as a 

 laboratory." 



The research mentioned was embodied in a paper on 

 " The Molecular Weights of the Metals," published in 

 the Transactions of the Chemical Society for 1889 (p. 521). 

 The method adopted was the estimation of the depression 

 of the vapour pressure of mercury by dissolution in it 

 of a known quantity of the metal. The results obtained 

 led to the somewhat unexpected conclusion that in 

 solution as a rule the molecules of metals are composed 

 of single atoms. This, however, agrees with the usual 

 view as to the constitution of those metals of which 

 the vapour densities have been determined, namely 



