SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL 143 



Extracts from his letters to Professor Johnson during 

 this period give an outline of his work in Pennsylvania. 



(E. P. TO S. W. J.) 



[October 1859] . . . On the 3rd of last August . . . one 

 and a half hours before starting [for America] 1 received a 

 telegraphic message informing me that the Penn. Ag. College 

 had sent me 800 dollars to purchase apparatus with. I then 

 left Liverpool for London, then to . . . Dresden (saw Stoeck- 

 hardt, who wished to be remembered to you, and also those 

 experiments with plants in water). Chemnitz (Dr. Wunder 

 sends his Griise) Leipsic (Griise von Erdmann). . . . Ciren- 

 cester (saw Voelcker, he thinks your summary in Silliman's 

 Journal is good as also does Stoeckhardt — it certainly is, too). 

 And finally left for New York . . . after a few days came on 

 here and saw Judge Watts, the President of the Board of 

 trustees of Penn. Ag. College. ... I took tea yesterday even- 

 ing with Dr. Elwyn. He says you have just published some- 

 thing on the American Phosphates, I wish to see it — Can't 

 you send it? . . . 



By the way, what about = 8 or = 16? The English 

 chemists are drifting into =: 16, and Kopp told me that he 

 had a great mind to come to it himself, as it was best, and he 

 was only prevented by the trouble involved in making the 

 experiment. I am studying about whether I had better not 

 commence here with = 16. 



I am not sure that our ambition, as indicated in our cata- 

 logue to which you refer, — to develop upon the soil of Penna. 

 the best Ag. College in the world for the ag. student of 

 America — would not require an apology to such a venerable 

 Institution as Yale with its history of half centuries looking 

 down upon us, and the concentrated energy of its ripened 

 vigour now devoted to the establishment of an ag. school. . . . 

 I have been too busy to get to Washington, but I hope I yet 

 may do so. . . . We are doing all in our power to move our 



