310 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VI I. 



In the previous summer, George Wilson's generous nature 

 had been aroused on behalf of his friend Dr. Samuel Brown, 

 whose experiments on transmutation were exciting intense in- 

 terest in the minds of scientific men. The fifty simple elements, 

 up to this time believed to be indecomposible, he asserted were 

 capable of transmutation, one instance of which he gave in pro- 

 cesses for transforming carbon into silicon. Dr. Brown was a 

 candidate for the Chemistry Chair in the Edinburgh University, 

 then vacant, and his success in gaining it seemed to hang upon 

 the confirmation of his new views. Invalid though George 

 then was, he left no stone unturned on his behalf; and in a 

 letter to the Lord Provost, in September 1843, printed and 

 widely circulated, though not published, he strongly advocated 

 Dr. Brown's claims on the Chair, independently of the transmu- 

 tation experiments. With this preface, we turn to George's 

 letters for information as to his occupations during the session 

 1843-44, in which he laboured to verify the experiments in 

 question, and which afford an example of devotion to a friend's 

 interest with few parallels, if any, in the annals of science. In 

 October he laments the absence of his friend Dr. Cairns, who 

 had left for the Continent : " I cannot tell you," he writes, " how 

 much I shall miss you on Sabbath-days. I have not much 

 prospect of being often inside a church this winter, and I feel 

 how great my tendency is to grow languid in earnest devotional 

 feeling when cut off from communion with fellow-Christians. 

 But is not the very isolation from others as much intended for 

 a part of preparatory probation as sore physical agony or mental 

 distress ? It must be so, and the conviction that it is, soothes my 

 regret at parting with you, from whom I have learned so much. 

 You will pray for me, however, and send me a word of advice 

 at times, and I will try to ' let patience have her perfect work/ " 

 Again to the same friend he says, December 27, 1843 : " I sit 

 down to write you with great shame and confusion of face at 

 the thought of the time that has elapsed since I received your 

 Hamburgh letters ; but, in truth, I have been so occupied that 

 I have never had the leisure to sit down to write you calmly. 

 The repetition of Dr. Brown's experiments has engrossed me 

 day and night, and still occupies my time ; and I have been so 



