180 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



Delicatessen in Germany, i.e. pickles, salt fish, jam, ham, sausages, 

 etc. We filled up, however, and stood on a gangway above the 

 trucks and looked at the lights of Malmo. Then a second night 

 in a sleeper, quite comfortable except that it was so warm that 

 we opened the window, and next morning, i.e. this morning (but 

 it looks a week ago), there was 6 inches of snow on the foot of 

 my bed ! We passed through very pretty country this morning, 

 broken and full of lakes, birch trees and red wooden houses. 

 The lakes were all frozen and people sledging on them. Then 

 at 9.30 Stockholm. M. made me invest in a lordly fur coat, and 

 it was welcome here, for the thermometer is a long way on the 

 wrong side of freezing. There was a deputation to meet us 

 and put us on our way to the hotel. . . . Here we found Lord 

 Rayleigh, who left the evening before we did ; and also another 

 prize-winner, a Russian physiologist named Pavloff, with his 

 wife. . . . We have been driven all over Stockholm to-day by 

 a celebrated mathematician, Mittag-Leffler, a great friend of 

 the Russian mathematical girl who made a great stir some years 

 ago. To-morrow the ceremony takes place. ... I believe we 

 get our prizes from the hand of the king, and that he is to be 

 at our dinner party to-morrow. It begins at 10.30 p.m. Good- 

 ness knows when it will end. However, it will be a thing to 

 remember." 



From Stockholm the Ramsays went to Kandersteg 

 in Switzerland, and on 27th December he wrote to the 

 same friend as follows : 



" We had a most gorgeous time for nearly a week, dining with 

 all the celebrities, including old King Oscar. The old gentleman 

 was very kindly and took Lord R. and me into his private room 

 and showed us all his curiosities, the portraits of his sons when 

 they were children and his reliques of Gustavus Adolphus and of 

 Charles XII. The Crown Prince told Mag that it was a difficult 

 job to be a king, thereby confirming the Swan of Avon. He said 



