86 
HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 
sembled in the anteroom. A large table where tea, coffee, 
etc., were served was surrounded by members. Crookes in¬ 
troduced me to McCleod, Austen, Frankland, and several 
others; then we passed into the meeting-room. The papers 
were principally on palaeontology (Seely). Professor Flower 
and Whittaker were present, and many others whose names 
I do not remember. It was very interesting to see the formal 
manner in which the meeting was carried on. At 5.30 we ad¬ 
journed to the Chemical Society rooms, and soon Dr. Arm¬ 
strong came, and off we went to the station.” 
She cites some of Armstrong’s recollections of Germany 
and the German chemists and ends her account of that even¬ 
ing with these characteristic words: — 
“I came back to London at 10 p. m. alone and reached 
the hotel independently. What a delight to be free! Arm¬ 
strong said that abroad it was now quite generally recognized 
that women could go about in the most independent way and 
still be respected.” 
She had a long and “most instructive conversation” with 
Professor Holmes, curator of the museum, and lecturer on 
Materia Medica at the Pharmaceutical Institute, whom she 
found a man of immense knowledge of his specialty. He 
showed her a great variety of specimens of plants and of chem¬ 
ical compounds, many of them having the most delicate per¬ 
fumes. She was interested to learn that great strides had re¬ 
cently been made in determining the genus and species of any 
bark or plant by its microscopical character. She questioned 
him very closely on points touching her own theory, but found 
that he had no answer ready; as in the case of others, “it is 
so eminently a subject foreign to their minds that they are un¬ 
able to grasp the thought.” He expounded to her an inge¬ 
nious theory as the reason for the sap mounting in the spring: 
“He believes that the warmth of the spring sun shining on 
the trunks causes the vessels to expand and thus allow the sap 
to mount. I asked if the sap flowed more rapidly on sunny 
days than at night or on cloudy days, and he said he believed 
so. He had never been able to investigate this point and had 
never published his idea.” 
