50 
SCHEELE  AND  HIS  DISCOVERIES. 
and  became  sworn  associates  from  that  hour.  A  few  months  af- 
terwards Scheele  read  a  notice  on  Fluor  Spar  before  the  Acade- 
mie  des  Sciences,  and  on  the  proposition  of  Bergmann,  a  simple 
student  of  Pharmacy,  was  elected  an  associate  of  the  Academy. 
Such  a  distinction  affected  little  the  studious  and  retiring 
Scheele,  who  longed  only  for  the  quiet  which  would  enable  him 
in  peace  to  pursue  his  studies.  In  vain  Bergmann  tried  to  keep 
so  promising  a  man  at  Upsal  by  the  temptation  of  a  good  position. 
In  the  name  of  the  Government  he  offered  him  a  Chair  in  the 
Faculty,  and  the  direction  of  different  manufactories.  Scheele 
absolutely  refused ;  but  learning  that  there  was  a  vacant  phar- 
macy in  a  small  and  obscure  country  town,  he  set  off  for  Keep- 
ing, on  the  Lake  Malaren.  He  was  then  thirty-one  years  old, 
and  while  occupied  in  the  routine  duties  of  that  seemingly  un- 
enviable position,  he  pondered  over,  and  in  his  leisure  moments 
successfully  worked  out,  that  series  of  discoveries  that  will  for- 
ever be  associated  with  his  name.  Two  years  from  this  date, 
(1777),  the  Royal  College  of  Medicine  received  him  gratuitously, 
and  dispensed  with  all  the  usual  formalities  of  introduction* 
Nine  years  he  patiently  worked  on  at  Keeping.  He  found  the 
business  in  a  languishing  condition,  and  he  succeeded  in  its  res* 
toration  ;  paid  the  debts  of  his  defunct  predecessor,  as  well  as 
created  a  small  fortune  for  the  widow,  whom,  in  his  less  ab- 
stract moments,  he  meant  to  marry.  Bergmann  was  his  unfail- 
ing herald  in  the  world  of  Science.  At  his  suggestion  the 
Academies  of  Berlin,  Erfurt,  and  Sardinia,  and  the  Royal  So- 
ciety of  Medicine  at  Paris  admitted  him  amongst  their  ranks. 
Just  when  the  present  seemed  to  give  promise  of  the  brightest 
future,  he  was  suddenly  enfeebled  in  his  health.  He  had  wished, 
as  a  last  point  of  honor,  to  have  left  his  name  and  moderate  sav- 
ings to  the  widow,  but  the  very  day  appointed  for  his  marriage 
he  was  seized  with  fever,  which  proving  fatal,  he  died  at  the 
early  age  of  forty-three. 
The  first  essay  of  Scheele  was  on  Tartaric  Acid.  It  was  ad- 
dressed to  Bergmann,  who  returned  it  to  the  author  without  the 
slightest  comment.  Hurt  by  this  strange  indifference,  Scheele 
sent  his  manuscript  to  Retzius,  Professor  at  Lund,  who  inserted 
it  in  the  Transactions  of  Stockholm  for  1770,  but  with  no  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  author.    In  1771  he  published  his  "Ex- 
