BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
27 
lery, left hand, facing and near stage. A few green plants were 
arranged in front of the platform, and above rose a mass of 
heads of the most distinguished scientists of our day. The 
ladies were in evening dress, low necks, and many aesthetic 
costumes were in the hall. The audience present seemed of a 
higher social caste than our own scientific assemblies.” 
The weather grew unpropitious; Miss Abbott was con¬ 
fined to her room by a bad attack of bronchitis and found no 
other amusement on the 2d of September, than “a wiry up¬ 
right piano, Chopin nocturnes, and the Schumann Carnival.” 
She records a call from Joseph S. Ames, of the Johns Hopkins 
University, who had been for eight months at Helmholtz’s 
laboratory at Berlin, and complained bitterly of the primitive 
methods, the disregard of the value of time, and the boorishness 
of the students that distinguished that university. As she was 
informed that it was idle to go there without one’s own ap¬ 
paratus and with work already planned out, she notes that her 
plan is “to get a number of products ready and to take them to 
some one laboratory to work under advice.” She was told that 
the celebrated chemist, Sir William Crookes, and other distin¬ 
guished men desired to meet her, and that when she should 
once get out she would find herself “quite a lion.” She says: 
“I am gathering experience from my trip. It was just the thing 
to do; by the time it is over I shall have a clearer idea of how 
to follow up my work. The meeting with men is the greatest 
educator for me. A wide or limited experience makes the dif¬ 
ference between people.” 
On the 4th of September, she was able to go to Dr. Edward 
Schunck’s, where she was delighted with his beautiful house, 
grounds, and laboratory. She told her host, when she saw the 
yellow brick exterior, the stone staircases, and the walls painted 
robin’s egg blue with fine gold bordering, the opal glass window- 
panes with soft, mellow, creamy light, that it suggested to her 
mind “celestial chemistry.” 
She remarked the exquisite crystalline products that Dr. 
Schunck had isolated from plants, his specimens of substances 
dyed with chlorophyll and various organic products in a glass 
case with pomegranate-red glass doors. She was delighted 
