ANovOU?;i87TM-}    Memoir  of  Prof .  Wm.  Procter,  Jr.  519 
of  Pharmacy  containing  many  contributions  from  his  pen  :  of  these, 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak,  in  reviewing  his  life  as  an  author 
and  investigator. 
Continuing  unostentatiously  in  his  position  at  Sixth  and  Pine 
streets,  we  find  his  mind  keenly  sensible  to  the  deficiencies  of  his 
early  education,  and  striving,  by  a  diligent  course  of  study  and  read- 
ing, to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  subjects  kindred  to  his  profession. 
His  habit  was  to  rise  early,  and  devote  the  morning  hours  to  his  self- 
culture.  Turner's  Chemistry,  Ure's  Dictionary  and  Dalton's  Chemistry 
appear  to  have  been  text-books  which  he  carefully  perused.  His 
custom  was  to  keep  notes  of  his  reading,  and  indicate  by  signs 
whether  a  particular  subject  had  been  pursued  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  mind,  or  whether  farther  examination  was  desirable.  His  read- 
ing was  attended  with  experiments  in  pneumatic  chemistry,  and  an 
examination  of  the  properties  of  the  elementary  substances.  Elec- 
tricity, galvanism  and  electro-magnetism  were  attractive  branches  to 
him,  at  the  time  when  Davy  and  Faraday  were  opening  the  portals 
which  lead  to  a  knowledge  of  these  once  mysterious  agents  of  nature. 
He  attended  lectures  given  by  Drs.  Hare,  Mitchell  and  Bache,  in  the 
winter  of  1840,  and  expressed  his  gratification  with  Dr.  Hare's  ex- 
periments on  electricity,  and  the  solidification  of  carbonic  acid,  by 
Dr.  Mitchell.  He  writes  in  his  diary,  "  I  obtained  a  piece  of  solid 
carbonic  acid,  and,  returning  home,  repeated  Dr.  Mitchell's  experi- 
ments on  freezing  mercury,  my  thermometer,  after  falling  to  — 40°, 
suddenly  contracted,  and  was  frozen."  He  also  constructed  an 
electro-magnet,  and  was  pleased  to  find  it  capable  of  supporting  a 
one-fourth  pound  weight.  A  table  blowpipe  was  also  a  piece  of  his 
mechanism,  to  enable  him  to  construct  apparatus  of  glass.  Alluding 
to  the  lectures  of  Dr.  Bache,  he  records,  "  Dr.  Bache  deserves  the 
greatest  credit  for  the  considerate  manner  in  which  he  discharges  his 
duty  to  his  students." 
Nine  years  had  now  passed  since  he  entered  the  store  as  an  ap- 
prentice, and  he  was  in  his  twenty-third  year ;  an  offer  made  to  him 
to  enter  into  a  chemical  works  in  Baltimore  was  declined,  and  his 
engagement  with  Henry  M.  Zollickoffer  renewed.  His  leisure  time  was 
now  divided  between  literary  and  scientific  pursuits.  His  vacations, 
in  occasional  journeys  for  recreation  and  improvement.  One  note- 
book gives  an  account  of  a  trip  to  Washington,  and  the  country  bor- 
dering the  upper  Potomac ;  another  was  to  Ohio,  returning  by 
Niagara  Falls ;  another  by  sea  to  Boston. 
