1850 TO 1865 303 
jovial and kind. Very few men can laugh more heartily. One of his 
great beauties is his thoughtfulness for his pupils, he is always trying 
to find out something which may interest or help them. He was once 
in my room and saw a canary bird. When I returned from a journey 
afterwards, he asked if that bird had not starved in my absence. His 
quickness of perception in matters chemical and his memory are 
wonderful. I was amused at him this afternoon. We had an award of 
prizes for essays in Theology, Law, Medicine, and Philosophy. The 
professors came to the academical hall (4uda) in full costume, with 
black velvet gowns trimmed with purple and scarlet and flat tile caps. 
I saw Wohler puckering up his mouth and looking as if he wanted to 
say “What a humbug.” At last when he came in sight of me he 
laughed in the most comical way. I think he is unquestionably the 
most useful chemist in the world. He is sacrificing his fame to his use- 
fulness. He says he furnishes subjects and his pupils get the credit of 
them, and it is literally true. Haussman is a fine old man. A digni- 
fied impressive man with large features and a calm steady light in his 
eye which tells of the broad thinker. He is the best lecturer I ever 
heard except Knight of New Haven. In his treatment of geology he 
is microscopically minute and systematic, a most endless division and 
sub-division. He has been lecturing 6 times a week on Petrography 
for six weeks and is not near through yet. His distinctions and divi- 
sions are drawn with almost mathematical exactness, and if he is at 
times prolix, he is never obscure. The old man has a spice of vanity 
about him, and talks a good deal about “Meine Methode.” He likes 
very much to tell as good jokes the mistakes which distinguished 
geologists have made in regard to rocks and strata. He is very kind 
and affable and takes a good deal of trouble to serve young men. Of 
old Gauss, I know nothing but what I see. He is what we call at home 
a rum-looking old fellow. I see him very often in the reading room. 
He is very fond of newspapers. He comes into the room, takes an old 
comical velvet cap out of his pocket, puts it on his head, hunts up-all 
the newspapers he wants till he has an armful, and then carries them 
off to digest at his leisure. He is thought here to be a more agreeable 
man than Humboldt. He speaks English very well and is said to bea 
fine Russian scholar, having taken up that language in his old age as a 
relaxation! Weber, the great physicist, is a little slender timid looking 
man who goes about like a paralytic grasshopper. His body is utterly 
