106 Correspondence of J. Nickles. 
that their part was not yet ended; only like all innovators he carried his 
conviction even to fanaticism. nevolent than Laurent, he did not 
allow his pupils to hold other views than his own, but like him he seized 
every opportunity to make known his ideas ; all situations were goo 
this ; but in talking chemistry he did not ask if his interlocutor under- 
stood chemistry, or if he knew of what it treated. If his partner was 
competent he often gave answers which provoked reflection and thus 
brought light on points before obscure—the contradictor thus becoming, 
in the language of another, “ accoucheur d’idées,” and rendering a service 
which he rarely suspected. f 
It was thus that the idea of paramorphism came to Laurent at the end 
of a conversation-with a friend of his, a chemist and crystallographer, 
who designated a particular case of isomorphism by the name of #s0- 
morphisme de transition, It was thus also that the idea of the chemical 
series came to Gerhardt at the conclusion of a conversation with a social- 
ist, and with the botanist Dunal, whom science has just lost. : 
othing gave a premonition of.the sudden death of Gerhardt. Five 
days before his death he had bathed in the Rhine and had corrected the 
last proof of his treatise on Organic Chemistry. Several times, however, 
he happened to say, “ Provided I shall be able to finish the publication of 
my treatise.” Having bee the evening of the 15th of August with 
Gerhardt to see the illumination of the Cathedral of Strasbourg, he 
said “T shall never see it thus illuminated again,” he returned immedi- 
ately, complained of cholic, and three days afterward he could say like ~ 
ideas,” 
Laurent, “I shall never see the triumph of my i 
Gerhardt had the good fortune to perceive the necessity of having an 
organ where he might make known his ideas. In 1845, he established 
the Comptes Rendus des travaux de Chimie exécutés aux laboratoires dé 
which will one day command a price like that of the Memoirs d’Ar 
had a sélect and discriminating circle of readers. Notwithstanding this, 
the publisher, did not pay his expenses. Gerhardt then offered his aid. to 
the Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie, an important publication which 
i i Annales de Chimie et de 
\ 
