148 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



style. Eliot is in the highest possible spirits, and is studying 

 the French system of education con amore — root and branch. 

 He writes that chemical thoughts have no chance of getting 

 near him at present. 'Tis really jolly to read how new sensa- 

 tions are buffeting the hay from all quarters. It makes me 

 feel, though, almost as the Childe Harold did after he had 

 soared his swing. 



E. is fortunate in arriving just as a new minister of instruc- 

 tion is ventilating all the dry bones; he says that the news- 

 papers and journals are filled with discussions concerning the 

 new measures. . . , Yours ever truly, Frank H. Storer. 



In September 1866, Professor Storer answered 

 various questions concerning materials and methods 

 of analysis : 



I have been intending to inform my mind about those peat 

 firms for a long while, so that your spur touches effectively. 

 . . . Eliot will be equally glad with myself to see the light 

 of your countenance. We are gay and festive in spite of 

 undue friction. 



Late in the year he wrote: 



Accept my love ! I reproach myself with the thought that 

 I failed to write to you last spring the address of an artificer 

 in glass — so ein rechter, vornehmer reicher (not a mere 

 blower), who much desires chemical custom. . . . He is an 

 independent tinker who goeth about where he listeth, buying 

 molten glass in the pots of various works and fashioning his 

 goods then and there. I think him capable of making the 

 "H2SO4 dryer" which was so near your heart in the days of 

 lang syne. 



This "H2SO4 dryer" was a piece of apparatus early 

 devised by Professor Johnson and fondly cherished in 

 imagination for many years. It assumed corporate 

 form about 1889, when in his ''Report of Director" 



