866 
from student to student with enquiries, sug- 
gestions and useful hints. Desirous of 
securing my share of this personal contact 
I soon found the best way to induce the 
Hofrath to linger was to have a supply of 
clean test-tubes and beakers on an orderly 
desk, with a query or two requiring experi- 
mental answers. Any suggestion as to the 
use of the spectroscope in connection with a 
substance under examination was sure to 
interest the Professor, as that famous in- 
strument was a comparatively new adjunct 
to chemical work, being then about four 
years old. 
When in the laboratory Bunsen habit- 
ually carried between his lips a short, un- 
lighted cigar, and he often stopped at a stu- 
dent’s desk only long enough to light the 
tobacco at a ‘Bunsen Burner’; in a few 
minutes the cigar was again without a spark 
owing to his absent-minded neglect to pull 
on it. Absent-mindedness was a marked 
trait in Bunsen’s character, and many 
amusing anecdotes are told of the difficul- 
ties it brought him. The statement that he 
remained a bachelor because he forgot his 
wedding day is, of course, apocryphal, as is 
the other about his putting on a suit of gar- 
ments onthetop of others that he had forgot- 
ten to take off ; but the following came under 
my personal observation. Bunsen used to 
dine every day ai a little table reserved for 
him in a restaurant connected with the 
hotel in which I lived; one spring he fell 
into the habit of ordering veal-cutlets and 
asparagus as the chief item for his meal, 
and without reflection or feeling that a 
change of diet would be agreeable, he con- 
tinued to order ‘ialbs- Cotelette und Spargel,’ 
daily for several weeks, until one day the 
Kellner gravely informed him that asparagus 
was no longer in season and could not be 
supplied. Bunsen seemed to be immensely 
taken a-back and to realize for the first 
time that he had been dining on one dish 
for a long period ; he soon recovered him- 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. X. No. 259. 
self, however, and asked the waiter for the 
bill-of- fare, from which, after careful ex- 
amination, he ordered mutton-chops and 
peas, and this was his daily diet up to the 
time I changed my hotel. 
When the laboratory was closed for the 
Christmas holidays I tried to get permission 
to work in the deserted rooms, but in vain, 
and not wishing to be idle I worked at 
growing crystals, improvising a desk out of 
a hotel wash-stand, and a heater out of the 
huge porcelain stove. Some time aftér I 
showed to Bunsen a single crystal of copper- 
calcium acetate about three inches long, 
with perfectly regular facets, and of which 
I was quite proud; he looked at it rather 
solemnly, as I thought, and enunciated the 
single word ‘ausgezeichnet’! This was not in 
my limited vocabulary and whether a com- 
mendation or a disapproval I could not di- 
vine; I puzzled over the word all day, and 
on returning home the dictionary explained 
its meaning to my great satisfaction. 
As my knowledge of German increased I 
attended the lectures of Kirchhoff and of 
Kopp, but never was able to enjoy the latter’s 
interminable sentences and involved style. 
Bunsen’s assistants in the laboratory at 
the time of my sojourn were Dr. Bender and 
Dr. Rose; the latter had the reputation 
among the students of giving more accurate 
instruction in mineral analysis than Bunsen 
himself. Rose is now professor in the Uni- 
versity of Strassburg. 
Bunsen’s methods in mineralanalysis were 
not wholly approved by the students; one 
day he stopped at my desk for a moment, 
and picking up a filter containing a moist 
precipitate he inquired : ‘‘ What have you 
here?” Seeing with consternation a por- 
tion of my quantitative precipitate sticking 
to his thumb, I hastily seized a ‘Spritz- 
Flasche,’ and washed the substance off his 
thumb into the filter on the funnel before 
venturing areply. Bunsen smiled genially 
and passed on to my neighbor. 
