xlix 



remedy, cessation from such occupation and head rest. I have in conse- 

 quence given up, for the last ten years or more, all professional occupation, 

 and voluntarily resigned a large income that I might pursue in some degree 

 my own objects of research. Bat in doing this I have always, as a good 

 subject, held myself ready to assist the Government if still in my power — 

 not for pay, for, except in one instance (and then only for the sake of the 

 person joined with me), I refused to take it. I have had the honour and 

 pleasure of applications, and that very recently, from the Admiralty, the 

 Ordnance, the Home Office, the Woods and Forests, and other departments, 

 all of which I have replied to, and will reply to as long as strength is left 

 me ; and now it is to the condition under which I am obliged to do this 

 that I am anxious to call your Lordship's attention in the present case. 

 I shall be most happy to give my advice and opinion in any case as may 

 be at the time within my knowledge or power, but I may not undertake 

 to enter into investigations or experiments. If I were in London I would 

 wait upon your Lordship, and say all I could upon the subject of the dis- 

 infecting fluids, but I would not undertake the experimental investigation ; 

 and in saying this I am sure that I shall have your sympathy and appro- 

 bation when I state that it is now more than three weeks since I left 

 London to obtain the benefit of change of air, and yet my giddiness is so 

 little alleviated that I don't feel in any degree confident that I shall ever 

 be able to return to my recent occupations and duties." 



To Professor Schonbein he writes, three months later : — " I shame to 

 say that I have not yet repeated the experiments (on ozoue), but my head 

 has been so giddy that my doctors have absolutely forbidden me the pri- 

 vilege and pleasure of working or thinking for a while ; and so I am 

 constrained to go out of town, be a hermit, and take absolute rest. In 

 thinking of my own case it makes me rejoice to know of your health and 

 strength, and look on whilst you labour with a constancy so unremitting 

 and so successful." 



He was made Member of the Academy of Sciences, Bologna, Foreign 

 Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Belgium, Fellow of the Royal 

 Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, and Correspondent of the Aca- 

 demy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



JEt. 56 (1848). 



He this year communicated his twenty-second series of ' Researches' as 

 the Bakerian lecture. It was on the Crystalline Polarity of Bismuth (and 

 other bodies), and on its relation to the Magnetic form of Force. 1 . Crys- 

 talline Polarity of Bismuth ; 2. Crystalline Polarity of Antimony ; 3. Crys- 

 talline Polarity of Arsenic. The second part of this series on the same 

 subject was (4) on the Crystalline Condition of various bodies, and (5) Na- 

 ture of the Magnecrystallic Force, and general observations. 



" I cannot conclude this series of Researches," he says, " without remark- 

 ing how rapidly the knowledge of molecular forces grows upon us, and 



VOL. xvn. d 



