Jan. i, 1S85] 



NA TURE 



197 



ment of Berzelius's prompt and cordial acquiescence in 

 his wish : — 



" Wie sehr freue ich mich auf diesen Winter," he 

 writes, "wo ich mich einmal so ganz con amore der 

 Chemie ergeben kann, ohne die Zeit in andere, mehr oder 

 weniger fremdartige, nicht so ansprechende Studien 

 theilen zu miissen." 



Wohler remained about a year in Stockholm ; he was 

 wont to speak of his stay with Berzelius as "cine nicht 

 zu berechnende Wohlthat." As to Berzelius, no one of 

 his pupils lay nearer to his heart than Wohler. 



In the selection of his letters it is obvious that Dr. 

 Hjelt has been loyally mindful of the condition imposed 

 by Wohler. Doubtless much of the correspondence had 

 reference to letters of Berzelius, and therefore to matters 

 which the world can only know of in the twentieth century. 

 The letters which we are permitted to see have, however, 

 a great interest from the light they shed on the writer's 

 character, and from the accounts they give of the origin 

 of those fruitful discoveries which have made the names 

 of Liebig and Wohler inseparable. How that partner- 

 ship originated need not be told again. It seems, how- 

 ever, that in more than one letter Berzelius had expressed 

 his conviction that Wohler's share in the work was but 

 imperfectly recognised. That Wohler was, in fact, the 

 mainspring of much of their labour is now known, but he 

 himself writes, '' What matters it, however, when the 

 business in hand profits thereby, and such is assuredly 

 the case. We two, Liebig and I, have dissimilar kinds 

 of talent; each, when in concert, strengthens the other. 

 No one recognises this more fully than Liebig himself, 

 and no one does me greater justice for my share of our 

 common work than he." 



In the following letter we get a glimpse of Liebig's 

 mode of work : — 



"The days which I spend with Liebig slip by like hours, 

 and I count them as among my happiest. His apparatus 

 for organic work seems to me most excellent, and he is a 

 master, of almost pedantic exactitude, of organic analysis. 

 But in all that relates to inorganic analysis, as, for ex- 

 ample, filtration, use of lamps, &c, one sees throughout 

 the imperfect French methods. He uses neither a filter- 

 stand, nor good filters, nor usually a lamp. . . ." 



Liebig's earnestness, and restless energy, and fiery im- 

 pulsiveness, brought him unfortunately into frequent conflict 

 with his contemporaries. It was almost inevitable that he 

 and Berzelius should sooner or later come into collision. 

 Nothing in the letters is more charming than the manner 

 in which Wohler sought to maintain peace between his 

 friends, constantly seeking to excuse the one to the other. 

 He writes of Liebig to Berzelius : — 



" He is thoroughly upright, honourable, and generous, 

 but passionate and inconsiderate." 



At another time he wrote : — " He who does not know 

 him intimately would hardly realise that at bottom he is 

 one of the most good-natured and best fellows in the 

 world." 



It is somewhat remarkable that Wohler, although 

 trained in a school of which analysis was made the pre- 

 dominant characteristic, should have failed to discover 

 any new elementary body, even whilst constantly occu- 

 pied with the examination of rare minerals. We all 

 remember the story of Vanadis and the "Schalk" Wohler, 

 who failed to woo her with proper assiduity. It now 

 appears that the element thorium also slipped through 

 his fingers unperceived. "Also," he wrote, " eine analoge 

 Geschichte mit dem Gotte Thor, wie mit dem Gottin 

 Vanadis." Wohler's triumphs were won in organic 

 chemistry. " The organic chemistry of to-day," he wrote 

 > n 'SjS) "is enough to make one quite dazed. It is 

 like the primeval forest of the tropics, full of the most 

 curious things ; an immense thicket without exit and 

 without end." 



< )ne of the most historically interesting letters of the 



series is that in which he communicates to Berzelius his 

 memorable discovery of the synthesis of urea — "ohne 

 daztt Nieren oder uberhaupt ein Thier, sei es Mensch 

 oder Hund, nothig zu haben." It now appears that the 

 transformation of ammonium cyanate into a body which 

 gave no reactions for either cyanic acid or ammonia was 

 observed by Wohler whilst in Stockholm, but the signi- 

 ficance of the change escaped him for the time. How, 

 almost accidentally, he returned to the subject, and how 

 by three or four decisive experiments he establishes the 

 nature of the new body, is shown in the letter. Berzelius 

 had not then invented the word "isomerism." For a 

 time, indeed, his conservatism rebelled against the con- 

 ception. Wohler's words in reference to urea — " This is 

 therefore an incontestable example that two absolutely 

 dissimilar bodies can contain the same proportion of the 

 same elements, and that it is merely a difference in the 

 mode of combination which brings about the dissimi- 

 larity in their properties" — must have paved the way 

 for Berzelius's conversion. How strange; too, the follow- 

 ing sentence must have sounded in 1S28 ! " May not 

 this artificial formation of urea be regarded as an example 

 of the production of an organic substance from inorganic 

 materials ? " 



The witty and sarcastic letter which appeared in the 

 Arinalen for 1840, in which " S. C. H. Windier, aus Paris," 

 sought to ridicule the substitution theory of Dumas, was 

 at the time generally ascribed to Liebig, but we know 

 now that it was written by Wohler for the amusement of 

 Liebig, " ohne dass ich aber im Entfernsten daran dachte 

 dass er so toll sein wurde ihn in den Annalen Abdrucken 

 zu lassen." 



Wohler not unfrequently amused himself and his 

 friends with allotria of this kind. The well-known flash 

 which attends the crystallisation of plate sulphate of 

 potash was on one occasion thus explained : — " Die 

 Lichtfunken bei krystallisirenden Salzen hangen mit 

 einer gleichzeitig im Krystall vor sich gehenden isomeris- 

 chen Umsetzung der Bestandtheile zusammen, z. B. ein 

 krystallisirtes Schwefelsaures Kali kdnnte eigentlich 

 unter gewissen Umstanden KS0 4 or K0 3 SO geworden 

 sein. Nun aber arrangiren sich plotzlich die Atome zu 

 KOS0 3 und dabei blitzt es, weil in dem einem Falle 

 Kalium zu Kali, und in dem anderen unterschweflige 

 Satire to Schwefelsaure verbrennt. Ich will diese Idee an 

 Kastner verschenken." 



Berzelius died on August 7, 1848, after a long illness. 

 Almost his last words had reference to Wohler. Wohler 

 always spoke of their friendship as one of the brightest 

 memories of his life, and we are told that even to the last 

 the eyes of the old man would glisten when the name of 

 Berzelius crossed his lips. T. E. Thorpe 



AMERICAN STORM WARNINGS 



THE Meteorological Office, through the co-operation 

 of the Chief Signal Officer of the United States 

 War Department, has commenced to issue notices of the 

 current .Atlantic weather, and it so happens at the very 

 commencement of the system that the frequent occurrence 

 of storms in the vicinity of the British Islands, as well as 

 out in the open Atlantic, has afforded a favourable oppor- 

 tunity for testing the value of this extension of our weather 

 knowledge. As a specimen showing the nature of the 

 information, we append a copy of the notice issued on 

 December 19: — 



"The Chief Signal Officer at Washington, U.S., re- 

 ports that, at 4 a.m. on the 16th inst., in lat. 4:" N., long. 

 6o : W., with the barometer at 20'4 inches, there was a 

 fresh gale from south, veering to west." 



A subsequent notice was issued, showing that the same 

 storm was met with eight hours later, and had advanced 

 rapidly to the east-northeastwards. It appears highly 

 probable that the disturbance in question was the same 



