A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



teoritic hypothesis has received ever-increasing sup- 

 port from most unexpected sources, from none more 

 brilliantly or more convincingly than from this new 

 star in Perseus." And I suspect that as much as this 

 at least if not indeed a good deal more will be freely 

 admitted by every candid investigator of Sir Norman 

 Lockyer's theory. 



SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY AND THE NEW GASES 



The seat of Sir William Ramsay's labors is the 

 University College, London. The college building it- 

 self, which is located on Gower Street, is, like the 

 British Museum, reminiscent or rather frankly du- 

 plicatory in its columned architecture of the classical. 

 Interiorly it is like so many other European institutions 

 in its relative simplicity of equipment. One finds, for 

 example, Professor Ramsay and Dr. Travers generating 

 the hydrogen for their wonderful experiments in an 

 old beer-cask. Professor Ramsay himself is a tall, 

 rather spare man, just entering the gray stage of life, 

 with the earnest visage of the scholar, the keen, pierc- 

 ing eye of the investigator yet not without a twinkle 

 that justifies the lineage of the "canny Scot." He is 

 approachable, affable, genial, full of enthusiasm for 

 his work, yet not taking it with such undue serious- 

 ness as to rob him of human interest in a word, the 

 type of a man of science as one would picture him in 

 imagination, and would hope, with confident expecta- 

 tion, to find him in reality. 



I have said that the equipment of the college is 

 somewhat primitive, but this must not be taken too 

 comprehensively. Such instances as that of the beer- 



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