SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY, K.C.B., F.R.S.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA ' MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

R WILLIAM RAMSAY

K.C.B., F.R.S.
MEMORIALS OF HIS LIFE AND WORK

BY

SIR WILLIAM A. TILDEN, F.R.S.

VIVIT POST FUNERA VIRTUS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1918

COPYRIGHT

::.: SrVI-l : . .

:.- '. . --• • •-• ^ » •

GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BT ROBERT MACLEHO8E AND CO. LTD.

PKEFACE

EVERY reader of this volume will at once perceive that
its compilation would have been impossible but for the
active co-operation of many friends. Foremost among
them was, of course, Lady Ramsay, who has not only
placed at the disposal of the writer the immense collec-
tion of letters preserved by herself and by members of
the family on both sides, but she has contributed many
facts and incidents, and with her own pen has set down
her recollections of the journeys taken with her husband
to the West and to the East.

The source of quotations inserted in the text has been
indicated in each case, but the writer is under special
obligations for the use of correspondence and for in-
teresting recollections of early days in Ramsay's life to
Mr. H. B. Fyfe, of Glasgow, his life-long friend and legal
adviser, and to Sir James Bobbie, his early pupil and
associate in chemical research, also to Professor Sydney
Young, Ramsay's assistant at Bristol and colleague in
research during a period of some seven years, while
Professor Hicks, of Sheffield, has kindly supplied much
information relative to the progress of the movement

vi PREFACE

which ultimately resulted in obtaining pecuniary assist-
ance for university colleges from the Government.

To Lord Rayleigh the writer desires to express his
best thanks, for kindly consenting to read the MS. of
that part of Chapter V. which relates to the discovery
of argon, and for notes thereon, which have been
embodied in the text.

Mr. W. G. Ramsay has taken the trouble to compile
the chronological list of honours conferred on his father,
which will be found at the end of the book.

The long series of letters addressed by William Ram-
say to his cousin, Miss Ramsay, the eldest daughter of
his uncle, the late Sir Andrew C. Ramsay, has afforded
much insight into his character and the intimate rela-
tions subsisting in the family.

Among other friends who have supplied information,
or have allowed the use of letters, are the following :
Mr. James Rafter, the Registrar of the University of
Bristol ; Professor E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S., of Liverpool
University ; Professor J. Norman Collie, F.R.S., Pro-
fessor F. G. Donnan, F.R.S., and Professor W. P. Ker,
of University College, London ; the Provost of Univer-
sity College (Sir T. Gregory Foster) ; Mr. Otto Hehner,
Dr. George M'Gowan, Miss F. Mac Vicar, Mrs. M'Nicol,
Mr. M. M. Pattison Muir ; Professor Alfred Marshall, of
Cambridge ; Professor Lloyd Morgan, F.R.S., of Bristol ;
Sir Henry A. Miers, F.R.S., Principal of the University,
Manchester ; Mr. B. J. Padshah ; Lieut.-Colonel A.
Smithells, F.R.S., of Leeds ; Professor F. Soddy, F.R.S,,
of Aberdeen University ; Mrs. John Baird Smith, Mr.

PKEFACE vii

William Turnbull, Mr. Robert Dowie Urquhart, Mrs.
Worthington, and Dr. Morris Travers, F.R.S.

Thanks are also due to the Council of the Chemical
Society for permission to photograph the portrait oppo-
site the title-page and to the Council of the Royal
Society for the figures of apparatus. Professor John M.
Thomson, F.R.S., has kindly supplied the excellent
portrait taken by him in 1912.

A word of explanation may also be looked for in
regard to the authorship of the volume. Late in the
autumn of 1916 I was requested by the Professors in
the Chemical Department of University College to
undertake the work. This may have been suggested
by the fact that I had already prepared hastily an
obituary notice for the Journal of the Society of Chemical
Industry by desire of the Council of that Society. I did
not, however, feel at liberty to undertake the task until
I had been assured that my doing so would be consonant
with the wishes of Lady Ramsay. I cannot refrain
from offering to her an expression of more than ordinary
thanks for the privilege, as I regard it, of being admitted
to the view which I now have of her brilliant husband's
life and character. I can claim an acquaintance with
him of more than thirty-five years, and I can boast of
a friendship of at least twenty-five. Nevertheless, I
feel that it is only now that I know something of the
man. The long series of letters which have been pre-
served, extending over nearly fifty years, many of them
written in the full confidence of youth and a close
intimacy with friends and relations, reveal the dominant

viii PREFACE

features of his character, which are quite in accord with
the estimation formed by the friends who knew him
from earliest days. The contents of some of these
letters, especially to his wife, are too sacred to be quoted,
but they have left deep impressions on my mind, and
these I have endeavoured to indicate in the book.

Since the beginning of the war it has become more
than ever obvious that in the interest of national in-
dustries a larger number of able young men and women
should be induced to take up the study of chemistry
with a serious view to the applications of the science.
But it is clear that for this purpose assistance must be
given in many cases to enable promising students to
follow to the end the protracted course of study necessary.
And it is with this object that the movement for a
" Ramsay Memorial " has resulted in the scheme which
includes provision of opportunities for further study by
advanced students of chemistry. It is even hoped that
the idea of founding a Ramsay Memorial Fellowship
may assume an international character. There is every
reason for believing that the scheme would have received
approval from Sir William Ramsay himself, with pro-
bably two conditions, namely, that the Fellows selected
should be chosen by some method which does not involve
competitive examination, and that they should devote
the greater part of their time during tenure of the
Fellowship to scientific research.

W. A. T.

NOBTHWOOD, February, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

Autobiography — The Ramsay family — Extract from Geikie's Life of Sir Andrew
— Grandfather, William Ramsay — Children of W. R., including the father
of Sir William — Catherine Robertson, mother of Sir William — Birth of
their son, 2nd October, 1852 — Recollections of his early childhood by Mrs.
M'Nicol and Miss Flora Mac Vicar — Reminiscences by Mr. M. M. Pattison
Muir ; by Mr. R. D. Urquhart — William Ramsay's own recollections, and
those of Mr. W. Turnbull — Belmont House at Kilcreggan ; W. R. enters
the Glasgow Academy — Recollections by Mr. H. B. Fyfe of the Academy
and University — Begins chemistry in Tatlock's laboratory — The friends
of his youth pp. 1-27

CHAPTER II
AT THE UNIVERSITY

Early expeiiences in chemistry — Classes at the University — Correspondence
begun with his cousin Ella Ramsay — Holiday in Shetland — Franco-Prussian
war in 1870 — Proceeds to Heidelberg and afterwards Tiibingen, 1871 —
Attends Fittig's lectures — Life in Tubingen — Practice in German, Italian
and French — Billiards — Holiday at home, March, 1872 — Examination in
July — Professor Remsen's recollections — Back in Glasgow, autumn 1872 —
Becomes Assistant in Anderson's College — Mr. O. Hehner's reminiscences —
Trip with his uncle Andrew and family to the Rhine and Switzerland, 1873
— Appointed Tutorial Assistant in the University — First papers — Work on
picoline bases — Work on quinine jointly with J. J. Dobbie, 1876 — [Sir James
Dobbie's reminiscences — In the University laboratory — Preference for
physical chemistry — Appointed Professor at Bristol — Walking tour in
Western Highlands, 1878— Excursion to Norway, 1879]— Ramsay at the
British Association Meeting in Glasgow, 1876 ; at the French Association
at Havre, 1877 ; at the British Association Meeting in Dublin, 1878 —

Removal to Bristol, 1880 pp. 28-65

ix

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER III
THE BRISTOL PERIOD

The rise of the University Colleges — University College, Bristol : its origin and
early history — Ramsay appointed Professor of Chemistry, February 1880 ;
Principal, September 1881 — Marriage — Demonstrators successively: D. O.
Masson, A. Blaikie, W. L. Goodwin, and Sydney Young — Papers on physical
chemical subjects — Dr. Young's account of joint researches on thermal
properties of solids and liquids, etc. — Miss Williams' work on food — Ramsay's
colleagues — Intercourse with staff of Clifton College and with residents in
Bristol and Clifton — Professor Lloyd Morgan's reminiscences — Visits to
London — First meeting with Mendeleeff — Financial difficulties of the
College — Beginning of the struggle to obtain Government help — Ramsay's
part in the movement — Record of events by Professor Hicks — Ramsay at
Oxford — Deputation to Mr. Goschen — The first Government Grant, 1889 —
List of Papers by Ramsay and Young pp. 66-101

CHAPTER IV
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 1887 TO 1894

The Professors of Chemistry at University College— Elected F.R.S. (1888) —
Beginning work with new Assistant (Dr. Collie) — Assistant Professor
Dr. R. T. Plimpton — Admission of women to men's classes — The staff in
the Chemical Department — Ramsay's popularity with the students —
Methods of instruction in the laboratory — " Experimental Proofs of Chemical
Theory for Beginners " — Habits of medical students — Letters to Professor
Worthington — Paper on the Molecular Weights of Metals, 1889 — Researches
on the oxides of nitrogen — Meeting of the British Association at Leeds —
Theories of solution — Discussion — Brownian movement of fine particles —
Ramsay's influence at the University of London — Views as to examina-
tions pp. 102-123

CHAPTER V
THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE

Lord Kelvin quoted — Lord Rayleigh's researches on the densities of

Difficulty in the case of nitrogen — His appeal to chemists, September 1892 —
Discussion of the anomaly, April 1894 — Cavendish's experiments, 1785 —
Ramsay's magnesium method of fixing nitrogen — Letters to Mrs. Ramsay
and Lord Rayleigh — Publication jointly with Lord Rayleigh agreed upon —
Announcement of new gas at Oxford Meeting of British Association —
Hodgkin Prize awarded by the Smithsonian Institution at Washington —
Special Meeting of the Royal Society, January 1896 — Properties of argon

CONTENTS xi

— Hillebrand's experiments on uraniferous minerals — Recognition of

terrestrial helium — Annual Meeting of the Chemical Society — Properties of
helium — Lectures in Paris in March — Journey to Iceland with Professor
Ker, August 1895 — Visit to Springs at Cauterets (Pyrenees) April 1896 —
Place of the new elements in Mendel^efPs Periodic Scheme — Ramsay
receives the Davy Medal, 1895 — Account of helium and argon in the Annales
de Chimie, April 1898 — Prediction of other gases — Ramsay President of the
Chemical Section of the British Association at Toronto, 1897 — Discovery of
the companions of argon, 1898 — Johnstone Stoney on the composition of
the earth's atmosphere — Ramsay receives the Longstaff Medal — Contest
for the Presidentship of the Chemical Society — Anonymous attacks —
Lectures in Berlin — Appendix I. Letter describing the journey through
Canada — Appendix II. Apparatus used in isolating Argon from Air

pp. 124-157

CHAPTER VI
WORK ON RADIUM

Radium salts isolated by Madame Curie, 1902 — Discovery of helium as a product
from the emanation by Ramsay and Soddy — Origin of the atmospheric
inert gases — Density of the emanation (niton) estimated directly by Ramsay
and Whytlaw Gray — Experiments on the action of niton on the common
elements — Letters to Professor Worthington — Difficulties of the investi-
gation— Manufacture of radium salts by the Radium Corporation — Use of
radium for medical purposes — The Radium Institute — A new mineral
thorianite yields radio-thorium — Mesothoriuin the parent of radio-thorium —
Explanation of the source of radio-thorium - - - pp. 158-171

CHAPTER VII
LATER YEARS

Many official engagements during early years of twentieth century — President
of the Society of Chemical Industry — Visit to New York — Address on the
" Education of a Chemist "—Address at St. Louis on " Present Problems of
Inorganic Chemistry " — The Nobel Prize— Letter from Stockholm — Letter
from Switzerland describing reception by Bang Oscar—Presidential Addresses
to the Chemical Society, 1908-9 — The electron as an element — Trans-
mutation of elements — International Congress in London, 1909 — Voyage
to Rio de Janeiro — President of the British Association Meeting at Ports-
mouth, 1911 — Excursion to Algiers — Resignation of chair at University
College, 1912 — British Association Meeting at Birmingham — International
Association of Chemical Societies meeting in Brussels — Removal to Hazle-

mere (Bucks.), 1913 — Book on Joseph Black — Visit to Havre, July 1914

Return on outbreak of war — Activity in national work — Illness and death.

pp. 172-193

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII
VIEWS ON EDUCATION

Articles on elementary and secondary education — The Science and Art Depart-
ment and Examinations — The older Universities — Letter to Professor
Worthington — Popular lectures — Physical Science does not attract all
minds — Reference to Martineau — Experience with chemical students in the
laboratory — Relation of teaching to research — Conditions of graduation in
a university — Examinations should be conducted only by the teachers —
Examiner at the University of London — Letter to Professor Smithells —
Letter to Mr. Worthington on the recognition of teachers by the London
University — Oration at University College, 1901 — Functions of a Univer-
sity— Lord Rosebery at the University of London — Views of Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain pp. 194-212

CHAPTER IX
NOTES ON TRAVELS

Wedding trip, 1881 — British Association in Canada, 1884 — Iceland with
Professor Ker, 1895— India, 1900-01— Finland, 1907— America, 1912

pp. 213-288

CHAPTER X
THE END

Difficulty in estimating character — Family influences — Religious practice —
Letter to Professor Worthington, 1903 — Quotations from Howells and
Jerome — Practical benevolence — Notes by Sir James Dobbie — Conclusion
of Autobiography — Ramsay's cheerfulness and enjoyment of fun — Know-
ledge of languages — Personal characteristics — Scientific research an absorb-
ing interest — Many friends in other countries — Honours — Letter to Professor
Smithells, 1910 — A happy life on the whole — Quotations from Ramsay's
Memorial Lecture on Moissan — Family life in the home at Hazlemere —
Testimonies to character — Position as a scientific man - pp. 289-306

ADDENDUM : LIST OF SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY'S HONOURS - pp. 307-8
INDEX 309

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS

PACK

SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY WHEN PRESIDENT OF THE CHEMICAL

SOCIETY - Frontispiece

WILLIAM KAMSAY WITH HIS FATHER AND MOTHER ABOUT

1860 - 14

PROFESSOR RAMSAY IN 1881 71

APPARATUS USED IN ISOLATING ARGON FROM AIR - 154, 156

FACSIMILE OF LETTER - isi

SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY IN 1912 - 187

xiii

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

1852 William Kamsay, born 2nd October at Queen's Crescent,
Glasgow, the only child of William Kamsay and Catherine
Robertson.

1863 Joined the Third Latin Class of the Glasgow Academy.

1866 Entered the University in November.

1869 Entered R. K. Tatlock's laboratory, attending at the same

time lectures at the University on Physics, Chemistry,
Anatomy and Geology.

1870 In Bunsen's laboratory at Heidelberg.

1871 Easter, proceeded to Tubingen.

1872 August, returned to Glasgow, and appointed Assistant in

the Young Laboratory of Technical Chemistry.
1874 Appointed Tutorial Assistant in Glasgow University under

Professor John Ferguson.

First independent paper (Journ. Chem. Soc. p. 857), " On
Hydrogen Persulphide."

1880 Professor of Chemistry, University College, Bristol.

1 881 Principal of the CoUege.

Married, August, to Margaret, daughter of George Stevenson

Buchanan.

1883 First paper of series jointly with Dr. Sydney Young.
1887 Professor of Chemistry, University College, London.

1894 Isolation and study of argon in association with Lord Ray-

leigh.

1895 Discovery of terrestrial helium.

Awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society.
1897 President of the Chemical Section of the British Association

at Toronto.
Awarded the Longstaf? Medal by the Chemical Society.

XV

xvi BIOGKAPHICAL NOTES

1898 Discovery of neon, krypton and xenon.
1900-1901 To India.

1902 K.C.B.

1903 Kecognition of helium as product of the disintegration of

radium emanation.
President of the Society of Chemical Industry.

1904 Awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
President of the Society of Chemical Industry.

1905 Discovery of radio-thorium.
1907-8 President of the Chemical Society.
1908-9 President of the Chemical Society.

1909 President of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry.

1910 Determination of density of niton (radium emanation).

1911 President of the British Association.

1912 Ketires from Chair at University College.
1916 Last communication to the Koyal Society.

Death, 23rd July.

CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

THE Chinaman, whose religion teaches him to reverence
the memory of his ancestors, has for ages given in the
performance of his devotions an explicit recognition of
a principle which only in comparatively recent times
has been the subject of much notice in the western world.
Everyone now knows that all qualities and powers for
good or ill are the products of heredity.

" Born into life, man grows
Forth from his parents' stem,
And blends their bloods, as those
Of theirs are blent in them ;
So each new man strikes root into a far fore-time."

The family tree is therefore not merely traced up for
the satisfaction of family pride, but when it conveys
some knowledge of the individuals whose names appear
on the stem, or rather the two stems, it may possess
definite scientific interest. Biography therefore natur-
ally takes account of not only father and mother,
but of the facts and even the traditions current in the
family during as many generations as possible. Ramsay

A 1

2 , SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

is a comparatively common name in Scotland, but
whether it has any relation to the Ramsey island off
St. Davids or the bay in the Isle of Man must be left
to the philologists. Certainly it is very widely diffused,
for there are Finlanders who bear the same name and
trace their descent from the same ancestry as the
subject of this memoir.

Dr. Johnson is reported by Boswell to have expressed
the opinion that " every man's life may be best written
by himself." Whatever the reader's view may be in
regard to this question the writer who undertakes the
serious task of compiling a biography will naturally
acknowledge an obligation when it happens that this
task has already been accepted by the subject of the
book, though he probably feels that the author of an
autobiography can do little more than supply facts.
Judgment of character and, generally, estimates concern-
ing the life and its influence can only be truly supplied
by contemporaries. Fortunately in the present case an
autobiography, though a mere outline, has been left by
Sir William Ramsay and furnishes a modest record
down to 1912. This however is written in German,
and is to be found as an introduction to Ostwald's
volume of Ramsay's Essays under the title "Vergangenes
und Kiinftiges aus der Chemie " (2nd edition, 1913,
Leipzig : Akademische Verlags-Gesellschaft).

An interesting introductory passage in this auto-
biography expresses the writer's strong conviction of
the all-powerful influence of heredity and refers to the

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3

application of such considerations to his own case,
pointing out that his forefathers on the paternal side
were dyers for certainly seven generations, while on
his mother's side they were physicians, "so that it
may be safely concluded," he says, " that I had the
prospect of possessing chemical instincts by way of
inheritance."

His father was interested in many directions among
scientific subjects. He was a good mathematician and
was accustomed regularly to follow the observations
and researches of his brother Sir Andrew Ramsay,
Director-General of the Geological Survey and successor
to Sir Roderick Murchison. These scientific tendencies
were shared by the whole generation on the father's
side ; for the other uncle, John, became a sugar planter
in Demerara, and his factory and laboratory were fur-
nished with the newest machines and scientific apparatus
connected with the manufacture and examination of
sugar. The library and apparatus belonging to this
Uncle John descended to the nephew. Aunt Eliza,
his father's sister, was an excellent botanist and collected
the local flora of many parts of Scotland.

On the mother's side the grandfather of the chemist
was a physician in Edinburgh and the author of several
text-books on chemistry and anatomy for the use of
medical students. He died in 1835. His cousin, also
named Archibald Robertson, was a Doctor of Medicine
and Fellow of the Royal Society, and became known
through his medical researches. Three sons of the

4 SIK WILLIAM EAMSAY

grandfather became physicians, but they all died
comparatively young. The author of the Autobiography
is therefore justified in his remark that "whatever
chemical talent I possess is an inheritance from my
ancestors on both sides " (p. 4).

The family history has already been traced by Sir
Archibald Geikie in the interesting life he has given of
Sir Andrew Eamsay the geologist (Macmillan, 1895),
uncle of Sir William. From this volume the following
introductory passage may be quoted :

" In the little town of Haddington during last century several
generations of B-amsays carried on the craft of dyers. At length
one of the family, William by name, the son and grandson of
previous Williams who had been content to pursue their calling
by the banks of the East Lothian Tyne, determined to push his
fortune in a wider sphere. He appears to have been a man of
high principle and great energy, wide-minded and good-tempered,
with a strong bent towards chemical pursuits, and not a little
originality as an investigator. About the year 1785 lie went
to Glasgow, and became there junior partner in the firm of
Arthur and Turnbull, manufacturers of wood spirit and pyro-
ligneous acid. Besides making dyer's chemicals and a variety
of prussian blue still known as ' Turnbull's Blue,' this firm was
the first to manufacture ' chloride of magnesia ' as a bleaching
liquor and also ' bichrome.' Had William Ramsay patented
some of his processes it was generally believed among his friends
that he might have become one of the richest men in the west of
Scotland. But he did not consider himself entitled to retain
for his own behoof a discovery which, if made widely known,
would benefit the general industry of the country, and he was
content to remain comparatively poor. The requirements of
his business made him an excellent practical chemist, but his

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5

interest in chemistry reached far beyond these limits. In 1800
he founded the Chemical Society of Glasgow, into which, by the
energy of his example and the kindly courtesy of his manner,
he brought those of his fellow-citizens who were interested in
the progress of theoretical as well as practical chemistry. He
was chosen first President, and among his associates were the
well-remembered chemist and mineralogist Thomas Thomson,
Professor of Chemistry in the Glasgow University, and Walter
Crum of Thornliebank. Two years later, on the foundation of
a wider brotherhood of science by the establishment of the
Philosophical Society of Glasgow, the Chemical Society was
voluntary dissolved. . . . William Ramsay's reputation as a
chemist spread outside his own country. His house was one
of the attractions to foreign chemists who came to Glasgow, and
even long after his death his widow received visits from such
men as Liebig, who remembered her husband's meritorious
work."

There is evidence that this William Ramsay had a
distinct inclination toward experimental investigation,
for the Catalogue of Scientific Papers, compiled by the
Royal Society of London, contains the titles of three
papers under his name, as follows :

1. On the Solubility of some of the Earths by means of Sugar.
Nicholson's Journal, 1807.

2. On Culinary Salt, with the means of purifying it from
substances which contaminate its qualities. Highland Society1 s
Transactions, 1816.

3. On the Antiseptic Power of Pyroligneous Acid. Edinburgh
Philosophical Journal, 1820.

" In the year 1809 William Ramsay married Elizabeth Crombie,
a second cousin of his own, daughter of Mr. Andrew Crombie,
writer in Edinburgh. The Crombies, like the Ramsays, had for

6 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

many generations been connected with the trade of dyers. . . .
Mrs. Eamsay was a woman of strongly marked character, uniting
a firmness of purpose with a gentleness and sweetness of nature
that gave her remarkable influence over all who came in contact
with her. Clever and wise she had had her natural powers
quickened and trained by an excellent education. She was
beloved by the young for whom her face used to light up with
a cordial welcome. In the esteem and affection of her sons she
ever held the foremost place. Her husband died in 1827, and
her circumstances became thereafter somewhat straitened, but
her cheery spirit and unrufHed temper enabled her to keep a
happy, though modest home for her children. She survived till
the year 1858. The children of this marriage were four in
number — Eliza, born in 1810, William in 1811, Andrew Crombie
in 1814, and John in 1816."

The eldest son of this family, William, was the father
of Sir William Ramsay. Without such striking gifts as
his father, brother (Andrew Crombie), or his famous
son, William Ramsay was a man of scientific tastes and
culture and of a most lovable character. At the time
of his father's death this boy of sixteen virtually con-
stituted himself the head of the family and accepted
the responsibility of this post. In the natural course
of events he would have been taken into the chemical
works and, in time, would have succeeded his father as
partner. He was offered a place as assistant under
Thomas Graham at the Mechanic's Institute in Glasgow,
but the well-known shipbuilder Robert Napier, a friend
of his father's, having invited him to become an appren-
tice under him, this was regarded as offering a better
prospect for the future. Here he remained five years.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7

In the last two years of his time he attended lectures in
the University on mathematics, physics, and chemistry,
William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, being among his
fellow-students. Later, as engineer, he took part in
the enormous development of the railway systems then
extending over the whole country. An accident to one
of his eyes having made it advisable to change his
occupation, he obtained the appointment of Surveyor
to the Scottish Union Insurance Company, and with
this company he remained connected for nearly fifty
years. After his father's death he lived with his mother
and tried to take a father's place to his sister and his
younger brothers. It was not till he was nearly forty
years of age that he felt free to marry a lady to whom
he had been virtually engaged for twenty years.

At the time of the elder William Ramsay's death
(1827) one of the leading physicians in Edinburgh was
Dr. Archibald Robertson already referred to — a man
of great charm and ability. His family consisted of
five sons and two daughters. The sons were preparing
for the medical profession and were very delicate,
indeed only one of them lived to take up practice.
The consequent anxiety and sorrow made their father
neglect his affairs, and when he died, at a comparatively
early age, his two daughters found themselves almost
unprovided for. The elder who afterwards became the
wife of Dr. Jolly, a well-known Scottish theologian,
found a post as governess in Dumfriesshire, and though
friends offered the younger sister, Catherine, a home,

8 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

she, with that optimism and independence of character
that were afterwards to appear in her son, declined all
offers of help, and she too found a situation in the
family of Mr. Allan Buchanan of Glasgow, whose wife
was a Miss Crombie, a niece of old Mrs. Ramsay. Allan
Buchanan was the second son of George Buchanan, a
Glasgow worthy of the end of the eighteenth century.
His works were the first in Glasgow to employ steam
power. Three of his sons were partners. The old man,
to distinguish him from the many other Georges of the
Buchanan family, was known as " Bonny Geordie,"
and a large share of his good looks seems to have gone
into the family of his son Allan, as they were a strikingly
handsome set of young people.

It was into this family that Miss Robertson came, at
the age of eighteen, as governess, and as it turned out
lifelong friend. Not only was she much beloved by
her charges, but also by their cousins, a large flock of
young Buchanans, and with them all ties were formed
that lasted till the end. It was a daughter of one of
these cousins (George the son of William Buchanan,
Allan's eldest brother), who, fifty years after, became the
wife of her son.

Miss Robertson was at this time a tall slight, attrac-
tive girl, with the side curls and sloping shoulders of
the period, but even at that age of a very strong char-
acter and clearly defined views. She was not much
older than the eldest of her young charges, but from
the first made her influence felt. One is tempted to

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9

dwell a good deal upon her personality, for it was from
her that her son, the future Sir William Ramsay, in-
herited many of the qualities that made him what he was.

Besides the young Buchanans, Mrs. Allan Buchanan's
own first cousins, the Ramsay family, came a great deal
to the house, and from the first the eldest brother
William and Miss Robertson were mutually attracted.
Probably the similarity in their history and their cir-
cumstances, both being at an early age obliged to take
up positions of authority and responsibility, drew
them together, and from that time forward there seemed
to be, if not an actual engagement, at least a distinct
understanding that they would wait for each other. As
her pupils grew up and passed beyond her care, Miss
Robertson moved from family to family, always making
lifelong friends, though none were ever quite so dear
to her as her first charges, the Buchanan family. It
was not till 1851 that circumstances permitted the
announcement of a formal engagement, both of them
being about forty, at that time considered a very late
period to embark on the dangers of matrimony. There
was much interest felt among their friends as to how
such an elderly pair would fit into each other's ways,
but a happier couple never lived, and the birth of their
little boy in 1852 l was the crowning joy of their lives.

Friendly curiosity was again aroused as to how the
little boy would be brought up, but anxiety might have
been spared, for in spite of their devotion the parents

1 2nd October, at Queen's Crescent, Glasgow.

10 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

carefully refrained from spoiling their only child. He
was a great deal with them, heard them talk, and in-
sensibly copied them so that as a little boy he used
rather grown up words and ways of speaking. He
played quietly with his toys and carried on his child's
life alongside of theirs, thinking his own thoughts and
only coming out of his dreams when actually spoken to.
His mother did all she could to surround him with other
children, and the young MacVicars, Langs and Turn-
bulls, all friends of the second and third generation, were
frequent visitors. Other very early boy friends were the
twin McClures — whose mother was Grace Buchanan,
Mrs. Ramsay's first pupil — the two Urquharts and Willie
Buchanan, who afterwards became his brother-in-law.
These friendships never lapsed, and though both the
McClures are dead their sons are still friends of the family.
From notes supplied by Miss Flora Mac Vicar and
Mrs. McNicol, early friends of the family, we know that
young Ramsay had a very happy childhood and youth,
though in some respects the circumstances surrounding
his life were different from those of other boys. His
father and mother were both intelligent and affectionate
parents, and as Barrie says, in his Margaret Ogilvie, " so
much of what is great in Scotland has sprung from the
closeness of the family ties." He had not much liking
for the games on which boys usually spend so much
time. His youthful amusements had a thread of inves-
tigation running through them, and in such pursuits as
rigging out toyboats or building bricks he always had

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 11

a plan of his own, though in the result he had sometimes
to confess that he had been mistaken. He was fond of
reading and among his favourite books were Alice in
Wonderland, Hans Andersen's Fairy Stories, and later
the books usually enjoyed by boys about lighthouses,
fire-brigades, and other practical things. He had a
strong love of animals and always had a favourite dog.
From his earliest days he had considerable aptitude for
music, and at a preparatory school he attended he was
the quickest among the little pupils to learn reading
music. In later years he was a pupil of Dr. A. L.
Peace, organist of Glasgow Cathedral. He also became
an accomplished " whistler/' and could accompany him-
self on the piano. This accomplishment, it may be
added, often gave pleasure to his friends in later life. It
was delightful to hear a florid air like Bishop's " Should
he upbraid," with all the runs and trills given with
perfect clearness and accuracy. His powers as a lin-
guist were remarkable and the readiness with which he
acquired a new language served him very notably
throughout life and on many public occasions attracted
admiration. He used jokingly to say that the only
language of which the pronunciation had baffled him
was Gaelic. His natural inclination for new languages
and the method early adopted for their acquisition is
illustrated by the reminiscences of Mr. M. M. Pattison
Muir. He says :

"I can scarcely remember the time when I did not know
Ramsay. Looking hack nearly sixty years, I see a small boy

12 SIK WILLIAM EAMSAY

seated between his parents in a pew in the front gallery of Free
St. Matthew's Church in Glasgow. During the long doctrinal
discourses of the minister, I used to wonder what the little boy
in the next pew was doing ; he seemed to be intently reading
his Bible. In after years he told me he was learning French, or
German. Most Scottish boys of that time, all Scottish boys
brought up in a Calvinistic household — as Ramsay was — were
at home in the language of the Bible. He took a French or a
German Bible to church in his pocket ; during the sermon he
read it. To translate into English did not require the help of
a dictionary ; the English text was at his finger-ends. He used
to say that even his mother — a strict Calvinist — could not object
to her son reading his Bible in church. As he read, and translated
backwards and forwards, he heard what the minister was saying.
Years afterwards he often took me back to Free St. Matthew's
church by repeating screeds of the sermons of the Reverend
Samuel Miller. In a letter I had from Ramsay in 1913, he recalled
the old days by drawing a rough sketch of the church and marking
the places where various members of the flock used to sit. Unlike
many scientific men, Ramsay had an excellent visualising memory.
We often wondered, he and I, what the minister meant by praying
that one of the Elders of the Church, a big burly man, ' might go
in and out as a he-goat before the congregation/ '

Another early friend was Robert Dowie Urquhart,
now an advocate in Edinburgh. He tells us that he
and Willie Ramsay were together among the first pupils
of a Scots-Canadian in a house in the then western-
most district of Glasgow.

" Our teacher," he says, " I can visualise almost as if he were
before me, and I realise that the pupils of that engaging person-
ality with his strong features and kind eyes were beginning their
school life under the best of auspices. My earliest recollections

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13

of William Ramsay connect themselves more with the playtime
than the school. In the impressions of him that remain from
those playhours the figure of his mother seems peculiarly present.
He was an only child and his companions were soon the friends
of his mother also. I think I see her on the steps of their house,
with shrubbery on either hand. I see the handsome figure with
a singularly smiling restfulness of countenance. Her son had a
great look of her. At the same time he was about equally like
his father whom we boys knew and who had been a school friend
of my father's. Mr. Ramsay I can also discern with the mind's
eye. He comes before me as a very attractive genial personality,
with a kindly smile always ready to light up his pleasant features.
I have dwelt thus on his father and mother because on thinking
over these early impressions I have come to the conclusion that
Ramsay's after-life was the outcome, to a singular degree, of his
parents' mentality and of their influence."

With the exception of his Ramsay cousins in London
(children of Sir Andrew), who were too far away for
frequent meetings, and his mother's only nephew
Archibald Jolly, son of Rev. Dr. Jolly, who was several
years the elder, Ramsay was the only young member
of his family circle. He managed however to have a
good many of the amusements of youth, not always
unconnected with mischief. He used to describe with
great glee the beginning of his friendship with the
Purdie-Dickson family, a solemn interview with the
learned professor on the subject of a broken study
window and a catapult which was confiscated on the
spot. As he never heard of it being used by its new
owner, he always felt this a great waste. There was
also a tale of a small brass cannon, which, though

14 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

packed hard with gunpowder, would not go off, and was,
with much indignation, thrown into the kitchen fire with
results that were rather startling but fortunately did no
harm beyond a hole in an opposite neighbour's dining-
room wall.

As Mr. Ramsay could not take long summer holidays,
Mrs. Ramsay used to take her son to visit her relations
and friends for a great part of his vacations. As these
were scattered over a great part of Scotland, young
Ramsay had, from a very early age, a wide knowledge
of his native land. Mrs. Ramsay's only surviving
brother, who had been an army doctor, had settled at
Strathmiglo in Fife. He seems to have been rather
eccentric and something of a woman hater. He paid
his professional visits on horseback and taught his
young nephew to ride, also the rudiments of golf. At
Strathmiglo he had the good luck to have the com-
panionship of the " children of the manse," the family
of the Rev. Dr. Macara, with whom he spent much of
his time. This friendship was never allowed to drop,
and the last year of his life he was closely associated
with Sir Charles Macara, the eldest of the "Macara
boys," in his crusade against the importation of cotton
into Germany. Other holidays were spent with his
mother's only sister Mrs. Jolly, the wife of the minister
of Bowden, in the border country. Their nearest
neighbours were the Bruntons, and there at a very early
age he made the acquaintance of " Tommy Lauder
Brunton." The exact form of introduction is not

WILLIAM RAMSAY WITH HIS FATHER AND MOTHER ABOUT 1860.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15

quite clear. One party put out his tongue and the
other threw a stone, but which did which and who
began hostilities, has always been doubtful. Fifty
years after, Sir William Kamsay, as his oldest friend
present, proposed the health of Sir Lauder Brunton at
a public dinner, and began by saying that he remem-
bered, as far back as he could recall anything, playing
and quarrelling with that " big, rough boy, Tommy
Brunton ! " To an audience, familiar with the delicate
frame, the clear cut features, and the chivalrous courtesy
of that beloved physician, the description was too
delightful, and the laughter was so hearty and so long
that it was with difficulty that the speaker could proceed.
Dr. Jolly's son became minister in Shetland, and there
young Ramsay spent holidays, sometimes with his
mother, and sometimes accompanied by a friend of his
own age. There he learned to swim and to manage a
boat in all weathers. As minister of a scattered parish
Mr. Jolly had to go from one island to another, and
though to him it must have been irksome and difficult,
to the boys who went with him it was a time of adven-
ture and delight. They used to arrive cold and drenched
and be welcomed at the farms and made much of.
Sometimes they had strange fare. Once they had cor-
morant, which besides being very tough had " an
ancient and fish-like smell." Its state was apologised
for, it having been buried only for a week, whereas the
proper period should have been a fortnight or three
weeks !

16 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The liveliest of all his visits were those to the Turnbull
family at the place of Bonhill. A branch of the Turn-
bulls' works had been started on the Water of Leven,
and the old manor-house was the home of the Turnbull
family. It was a curious old house, the property of
the Smolletts. It was really two complete houses, at
right angles, touching each other but with no passage
between. Two sons of the old Mr. Turnbull, old Mr.
Ramsay's partner, lived in one house and the widow
of their brother in the other. The establishments were
separate, but there was constant communication, and
one would imagine mutual criticism. The old people
took the greatest interest in all that went on in the
other house, where Mrs. Turnbull lived, with her large
family of sons and one beautiful and charming daughter,
afterwards Mrs. Duncan Jameson. They were all high
spirited, witty and kind hearted, and the hospitality of
the house was unbounded. Formal invitations were
quite unnecessary, and however many friends offered
themselves, there was always room and a warm welcome.
We have the testimony of Mr. William Turnbull (grand-
son of the Turnbull who with Sir William Ramsay's
grandfather constituted the firm of Turnbull & Ramsay)
that young William Ramsay was a very popular visitor
at Bonhill. He writes as follows :

" Being an excellent raconteur and very musical, lie afforded
us all much amusement. He was wiry and athletic, a good
pedestrian, rower, and one of the best swimmers I ever met.
Even in those days he occupied his idle moments in working out

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17

chemical problems, or in devising new chemical apparatus at
which he was particularly expert — being very neat handed.

When, owing to deaths in our family, I was obliged to give
up my farm in the Highlands, in order to carry on our wood
distilling business in various parts of the country, I remember
with gratitude how much he helped me by his advice and chemical
knowledge. He suggested several improvements in our plant,
which proved of considerable advantage."

It was when staying at Bonhill that Ramsay came to
know Loch-Lomond side so well, and picked up many
stories with which he used to regale his friends. It was
an old gardener at Bonhill who complained that an old
gate was fair off its "equileebrum and sair corroborated."

About 1901, he was asked by Miss Duncan Jameson,
now Mrs. John Baird Smith, to write something in her
album. He wrote lines after the fashion of Longfellow's
Hiawatha, of which the following is a sufficient sample :

" Of your ' weird,' ' quaint,' * splendid ' friendship,
Which has lasted generations,
Ever since your greatgrandfather,
And my father's father sauntered,
On the green banks of the Leven,
Talking over current prices

Of the pyrolignous acid,
And the products of the beech-tree,
Of the oak and of the alder
Heated up to fiery redness
In the ovens of Camlachie.
May the pinions of that friendship
Never moult a single feather,
But continue through the ages

Unto countless generations."

18 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Mr. Ramsay's only sister, who had at a rather advanced
age married Mr. Robert Dymock of Edinburgh, had a
house at Kilcreggan at the mouth of Loch Long, and
there the Ramsays spent much of their time in summer.
There Ramsay had a boat, and in it he made long excur-
sions alone or with friends. His friends the MacVicars,
lived for many years at the head of Loch Goil? a very
beautiful loch that branches out of Loch Long, and he
used to arrive there, having rowed all the way, some-
thing like 18 miles, and often with a rough sea on.
Telegraph offices were sparsely distributed in those
parts, and there was no way of announcing his safe
arrival, but his mother never worried. Oddly enough
she was much more anxious about climbing risks than
boating ones, and when he first went to Switzerland she
was in terror all the time ; whereas in the worst of
weathers, she was never anxious about him in his
boat.

Belmont, as the Kilcreggan house was called, passed
to his parents, and afterwards to himself, and remained
in his possession till 1898. During that time it was the
scene of many happy gatherings not only of his early but
also of his later friends. Fitzgerald, Remsen, Ostwald,
the Massons — father and son — Sydney Young and Sir
John Murray were among the many who stayed there,
but this belongs to a later part of the story.

In due time Willie Ramsay entered the Glasgow
Academy, and of his life at this period we get some
glimpses with the aid of a life-long friend, Mr. H. B.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19

Fyfe, who has supplied the following notes of his recol
lections :

" I met William Ramsay for the first time in August 1863 when
we both joined the Third Latin Class of the Glasgow Academy.
He and I and William Miller, nephew of the late Dr. Samuel
Miller, sat together at the foot of the class for two or three days
till the class was arranged in Divisions, and I have a very vivid
recollection of him at that time. He continued in the Glasgow
Academy till May 1866, taking the Third Latin in 63/64, the Fourth
Latin 64/65 and the Fifth Latin 65/66.

So far as I remember he did not take any part in the class
games, and I do not remember that he took any prizes. I
think this was accounted for by the fact that he was nearly
two years junior to the average age of the class. There were
about 60 boys in the Third Latin and it was divided into two
divisions according to seniority. The senior division was con-
siderably larger than the junior, and except Alexander MacEwen
they were all boys who had been born before the end of January
1851. As Eamsay was not born till October 1852 he must have
been about two years below the average in age. He was all the
same about the average height.

In November 1866 he went to the University and took the
usual Arts Degree curriculum. This would be, I think, Latin
and Greek for two years, that is till May 1868, Logic and Mathe-
matics in 1868/69, and Natural Philosophy and Moral Philosophy
in 69/70. I do not think he ever took chemistry in the University.

Our friendship began shortly after we went to College. I was
attending the Junior Latin Class with him, beginning in Novem-
ber 1866, and in addition I took the class of chemistry beginning
in October 1866 under Professor Anderson. I remember that
one day passing through the Quadrangle I heard Ramsay talking
to some students of an experiment which he was going to carry
through. I joined them and told him that I was attending the

20 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

chemistry class and that what he was proposing would be dan-
gerous. Next morning he called for me when I was at breakfast
about half-past seven, on his way down to College. He said he
had read up about what I had said and I was quite right, and we
walked down to College together. After that he called for me
every morning on the way down. The class began at 8 a.m.
and he walked all the way from Ashton Terrace to the High
Street, which must be nearly three miles.

At that time he knew nothing of chemistry theoretically, but
he had for some time been working at home at various experi-
ments as we called them. He worked in his bedroom, and there
were a great many bottles always about, containing acids, salts,
mercury, and so on. When we began to meet in this way, I
found he was quite familiar with all the ways of getting the
material and apparatus for working in chemistry. We used to
meet at my house in the afternoons and do what practical work
we could, making oxygen and hydrogen and various simple
compounds such as oxalic acid from sugar. We also worked a
good deal with glass. We used to go to Spencer's shop in Union
Street, and also to White's, the optician's, and buy flasks, retorts,
crucibles, spirit lamps and so on, and also materials like zinc
filings for making hydrogen, sulphuric and nitric acids, etc.
We never got the length of any real analysis, but became quite
expert at the things we did, which were usually repetitions of
the demonstrations given in the class or described in books.

There were a number of old chemistry books in his house.1
I do not know whom they belonged to originally, but they were
a good deal out of date. Just before that time there had been
considerable changes in chemistry, particularly in the nomen-
clature, and spectrum analysis had just been introduced. I
remember one book in particular was Faraday's Manipulation.
This was a most useful book, and it had been a great stand-by

1 These probably came, at least in part, from the library of the uncle
John, the sugar planter in Demerara.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21

with him. He lent it to me about this time. We used to work
with mouth blow-pipes and Bunsen gas-burners which we made
ourselves, and in this way he became exceedingly expert in
working with glass. I think he found this practice very useful
in after-life. We made nearly all the apparatus we used except
flasks, retorts and beakers.

After this session we were very close friends, and I think
every summer after that I visited his people, besides meeting
very often at our houses and walking together on the Saturdays.
I did very little chemistry with him after the summer of 1867,
but he continued his home work in the following year, 67/68,
while he was attending the Latin and Greek classes. He had
no liking for either Latin or Greek and was not much interested
in his College work. Perhaps he spent too much time over his
scientific pursuits. At that time it was not chemistry alone,
for he was also much interested in geology, and in our walks
he was constantly pointing out interesting things such as ice
marks on the boulders at Arran and evidences of change of level
in the ground.

He did not begin to study chemistry systematically till about
October 1869, when he went to Mr. Tatlock's laboratory in the
afternoons, after his College classes for the day were over, and
began to work under him. I do not know how long he continued
there, but I think he must have kept up this kind of practical
work till he left College. In addition to his College classes and
chemistry he took lessons in music under Dr. Peace, and also
in French and German, the German being under Dr. Schlomka.

It was in 1869 that he first went to Shetland to stay with his
cousin Mr. Jolly at Walls, and while he was there we first began
to correspond, and kept up our correspondence more or less from
that time till the end. On the following winter, 69/70, my
eyesight failed and for nearly a year I was unable to read. During
that time he was exceedingly kind to me in coming to read to
me and also in arranging for walks in the country. He must

22 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

by that time have acquired considerable familiarity with lan-
guages, for he read a good deal of Beranger and other French
poets. I was not able to understand fully, but that did not
make much difference as he was always willing to translate. He
was also at the same time trying to learn Gaelic and used to amuse
us a good deal by going down to the kitchen to test his progress
and to ask questions from a Highland cook they had. In the
summer of 1870, when I was in the first year of my apprentice-
ship, I went with him to Shetland. His father and mother
went also and we stayed at Walls most of the time. I was away
three weeks, but they stayed on for a considerable time longer.
When we started, about the end of June, there was no thought
of war, but when he and I walked into Lerwick after my holidays
had expired, we found that war had already broken out between
Germany and France. No hint had reached us at Walls.

When he came back from Germany he had made a great advance
in every way. Before that he was much of a boy, but afterwards
he had made greater progress than any of us who had remained
at home. Very soon he became Assistant in the Chemistry
Department of Anderson's College, and I think was also Assistant
in Technical Chemistry there. He must have been in this position
for about two years. He did not do any lecturing, but he worked
in the laboratory and acted as Tutorial Assistant. During that
time we were constantly meeting and took several short trips
together in the summers. Somewhere about 1874 we went to
Ireland together, meeting one morning in Dublin and going
across by train to Galway. From Galway we started on a walking
tour through Clare, coming back by rail from Limerick to Dublin.
In 1876 we went to Paris together with Guthrie Smith and
Charles MacLean and spent about ten days there, and afterwards
we went to Normandy, taking the steamer from Havre to Caen.
From Caen Guthrie Smith, MacLean and I came home, but
Ramsay stayed on. One of the scientific institutions of France,
the Association Fran£aise pour 1'Avancement des Sciences, was

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23

about to hold a meeting at Havre, and Ramsay waited on about
three weeks to attend it. He was preparing a paper on the
research work he had done in Germany, and when he went to
the meeting he delivered his address in French and was very
highly complimented. This, I think, was the beginning of his
acquaintance with the notable scientific men of France, which
he kept up ever afterwards. I think it was about this same
year that he became Assistant to the Professor of Chemistry in
Glasgow University, a post which he held until he was appointed
Professor at Bristol about 1880. After that came his marriage.
Even after that we made several holiday trips together from
time to time. In 1887 we made a bicycle tour through England
for about a fortnight and had many interesting experiences.
We also had one later, round the south of Scotland, and another
time we took our cycles to Penzance and bicycled back most of
the way to London. Before these excursions we had a short
tour up the west coast of Scotland and round by Loch Maree.
We also had a trip to Rio de Janeiro in the Royal Mail, in, I
think, 1905.

Of course I met Ramsay's father and mother very frequently
and stayed with them often. I think Ramsay took his scientific
bias from his father, who was greatly interested in every scientific
subject, and glad to talk about them. Geology was his favorite
and it was a constant subject of conversation. Every scientific
question, such as Darwinism, was readily and frequently dis-
cussed between father and son. His father very often came
long walks with us, particularly during the stay in Shetland in
1870, and afterwards at Kilcreggan. When I saw him first he
was suffering from an injury to his eye, and at that time he and
Mrs. Ramsay came to the Glasgow Academy twice to see the
class. It was such an unusual incident that I remember it very
well. I think he also took his sociable disposition and broad
outlook on life a good deal from his father. His mother was a
very notable woman. She had very strong views on all matters

24 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

connected with religion and the Church, and I think she looked
with considerable suspicion on scientific enquiries. She did not
oppose or argue about such enquiries, but she certainly did not
encourage talk about such subjects as Darwinism, and was
immediately up in arms if anything was said that seemed to
question orthodox religious views. I think it must have been
owing to her that so much of Ramsay's education was devoted to
such subjects as Latin and Greek and Philosophy, in which he
never took any particular interest. She had splendidly calm
nerves and a clear logical head, both of which qualities she
passed on to her son.

It has been said that he was a dreamy lad in school.1 He
certainly was not attentive, but I do not think he was dreamy
in the ordinary sense at all. He certainly was not given to
reverie. His own explanation was that he could not bring
himself to take an interest in the subjects that were taught,
particularly Latin and Greek and more particularly the way
in which they were taught, and he professed to be thinking about
other things when we were worrying over Latin syntax. I
remember his telling me that during the sermons in Saint Mat-
thew's, he thought he had worked out a good many of the pro-
positions of Euclid by putting together the lozenge panes in the
windows and seeing how they could work out into different
models. He certainly was not attentive in Church either, but
anyone who heard his imitations of Davidson of Arran must
have been convinced that he could attend to some purpose when
he had a mind to.

When he came back from Germany he was splendidly equipped
both mentally and physically for a successful career. He had
perfect health. He could walk 40 miles in a day without any
difficulty. He was a very strong and graceful swimmer and
could dive further than any amateur I have seen. When we

1 He describes himself in his autobiography as "to a certain extent
precocious, though idle and dreamy youngster " (p. 5).

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25

were in Paris in 1876 the four of us used to go to one of the baths
in the Seine every forenoon, and after the first time, when Ramsay
was ready to dive, the bathman would pass round the word that the
Englishman was going to dive and everyone in the establishment,
including the washerwoman outside, would crowd in and take up
positions to watch him. He dived the whole length of the bath
and sometimes turned there under water and came back a part of
the length. He had absolute control of his nerves and hardly ever
showed excitement or embarrassment. He had great vitality and
also the advantage of being an excellent sleeper all through his life.

With these physical qualities he had also great courage and
tenacity. He never seemed to be upset by anything. All the
little difficulties which usually turn men back never seemed to
make the slightest impression upon him. His enormous vitality
enabled him to take up strenuous work of any kind at any time
and he never seemed to tire. After a session at College he would
look run down, but after two days on holiday he would be as
strong as ever and as ready to undertake a full day's work.

I always found him exceedingly kind-hearted and considerate.
I do not think anyone who needed friendliness or consideration
would ever have been passed by by him, and for my own part,
especially at the time when my eyesight failed me, he was kindness
itself."

His college career cannot be said to have been brilliant
— partly because he was younger than most of his fellow-
students, and partly that the subjects chosen for his
study were, for the most part, not those in which he was
chiefly interested. The one great desire of his mother's
heart was that he should go into the Church ; and though
she never pressed this upon him, it seems almost certain
that the subjects chosen for his first year's work were
selected with that aim in view. His great love of

26 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

learning languages did not extend to the dead languages
as taught in school or college, and he seems to have
passed through these classes with but little distinction.
To him the pleasantest memories of his college life were
of the friendships made there.

It is not possible to write of all those friends : " Some
with lives that came to nothing, Some with deeds
as well undone," mostly all scattered now and many
dead ; but there are a few names that stand out.
Henry Fyfe, a well-known Glasgow lawyer, already
quoted, was both a school and a college friend. So
was also "Alec MacEwen," later more widely known
as the Rev. Professor MacEwen, scholar, theologian
and ardent worker for the gathering into one of
the many divisions of the Church in Scotland. His
work was cut short by death a few months after his
friend Ramsay. There was also George Wardlaw Bur-
net, an Edinburgh advocate and one of the brilliant
wits of the " Parliament House " of his day. His
parodies and other verses are too personal and of interest
too purely local to be quoted here. Ramsay received
the news of his death at Port Said on his way home from
India, just after posting him a long letter telling him all
about the tour.

There was another of the friends whom they all looked
on as the greatest of them all. John Struthers was a
man hardly known out of Scotland and there only to a
restricted public. He was a minister of the " Reformed
Presbyterian Church," of which Butler said all Scots

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27

were grim, but none so grim as they. Though he held
these views he held them with a wide charity, and he
had the gift of a strong sense of humour which rounded
off all angles. A more absolutely sincere person it
would be impossible to meet, and he was at the same time
the most humble-minded of men. In 1895 Glasgow
University conferred, or rather it was announced in
the papers that it was conferring on him the degree of
Doctor of Divinity. It was at once respectfully declined.
He said to his friend Ramsay : " How could I have taken
it when so many better men are passed over ? " It used
to surprise his friends that a man of his gifts should
have belonged to such a very small sect, but nothing
would have made him change it ; his faith was greater
than his creed and his heart than either. Eamsay
never felt a holiday in Scotland complete without a
sight of his friend, though it was difficult to get him
away from his manse even for a night. " You never
know who might want you," he used to say. Though
their walks in life were so very different his friendship
was one of the most precious in Ramsay's life, and his
sudden death in 1915 a very great sorrow.

CHAPTER II
AT THE UNIVEESITY

RAMSAY'S acquaintance with chemistry began early, as
narrated in Mr. Fyfe's account of his recollections. The
autobiography tells us that before he left school he had
the misfortune to break a leg at football. During his
convalescence he read Graham's Chemistry with the
object chiefly, as he confesses, of finding out how to
make fireworks. His father supplied him with small
quantities of potassium chlorate, phosphorus, sulphuric
acid, etc., together with small beakers, flasks, and a
spirit lamp, wherewith he amused himself during the
tedious months of enforced idleness. It is a little
difficult to imagine how such materials could be safely
handled while the operator was in a recumbent position,
but as no accidents are recorded we are left to suppose
that all went well. In Tatlock's laboratory a year was
devoted exclusively to analytical work, both qualitative
and quantitative. One of the assistants having fallen
ill, Ramsay was temporarily promoted to replace him.
Here he received his first idea of responsibility. The
following year he attended the lectures of Professor
Thomas Anderson, known for his researches on the

28

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 29

pyridine and quinoline bases. In consequence of the
failure of Anderson's health the lectures were continued
by John Ferguson, his assistant, who afterwards became
his successor.1 About this time Ramsay also attended
the class in anatomy of Professor Allen Thomson, whom
he describes as one of the best lecturers he ever heard.
His time was, however, chiefly occupied with chemistry
and mathematics. While still in Tatlock's laboratory
he began attendance on Sir William Thomson's (Lord
Kelvin) lectures, as well as hearing the lectures in
geology by Professor John Young. He also began to
work in Thomson's laboratory, which occupied a cellar
in the old college buildings. Here he relates that his
first exercise consisted in getting the " kinks " out of
a bundle of copper wire^a task which occupied a week.
He was then placed before a quadrant electrometer and
required to study its construction and use, and after-
wards to determine the potential differences between
all sorts of surfaces charged or uncharged. Thomson
was a most stimulating and inspiring teacher notwith-
standing the eccentricities of his lectures, which were
chiefly over the heads of his students, and the unusual
methods of instruction in the laboratory. Ramsay has
given in his essay " Lord Kelvin " a most interesting
account of his work and career and a warm expression
of his own indebtedness to the teaching and example of
his great fellow-countryman.

1 Professor Ferguson died 2nd November, 1916, soon after retirement
from the Chair.

30 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

During these years and throughout life he kept up a
correspondence with his cousin, Ella Ramsay (eldest
daughter of Professor Andrew Ramsay). In one of
these letters (4th September, 1869) he conveys an
invitation to his cousins to come to the wedding of hi&
Aunt Eliza. In the course of it he remarks : " I think
it is six years since we met last at Beaumaris. I have
no doubt we have both changed unspeakably." On
24th March, 1870, he writes as follows to his cousin :

" I may as well tell you at once that I have become a dangerous
character. In fact, I have without putting off this mortal coil,
put on a mortal ugly uniform. In other words, as Dr. Young
says when he wants to make a very complicated phrase still
more complicated, I have joined the volunteers, and may be
seen any Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 to 9 p.m. right
facing, etc."

In another letter, dated 21st June, 1870, he describes
the journey of the whole family and " my most intimate
friend Fyfe " to Shetland, calling at Kirkwall on the
way. Shooting, fishing, pony-riding and boating
occupied the boys, and W. R. reports to his cousin
that he has " got that book of Bach's, and can play most
of the pieces. They are extremely difficult. The Gigue
and the Gavotte and Musette are very pretty. I have
been going in for Mendelssohn's Songs without Words
and have learned four of them."

On returning from this holiday Ramsay and his
mother heard of the war between France and Germany.
He had intended to go to Heidelberg to work under

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 31

Bunsen. It was, however, deemed prudent to defer
carrying this intention into effect for a time, and he
therefore remained in Tatlock's laboratory and con-
tinued attendance on Thomson's lectures. As soon as
the victory of the Germans became obvious he pro-
ceeded to Heidelberg, called on Bunsen, and secured a
place in his laboratory. As, however, many of his
friends recommended strongly Fittig's laboratory at
Tubingen, he proceeded there in the spring of 1871,
and resumed the work on platinammonium bases which
he had been carrying on in Tatlock's laboratory. A
number of letters to his father and mother, addressed
from Tubingen, have happily been preserved, and they
give quite vivid pictures of his life in the University.

The letter, dated 7th April, 1871, shows that he
stayed in London at his uncle's house (Sir Andrew's),
29 Upper Phillimore Place, on his way to Tubingen.
He begins by saying " I have got the passport all right, "
but it does not appear when he was to start for the con-
tinent. It was Easter, and he probably remained at his
uncle's for a few days. The next letter is dated 8th
May, Tubingen. Evidently he had got seriously to
work, as he says : " I had two explosions to-day." This
apparently had something to do with the preparation
or use of phosphonium iodide; which is mentioned. He
says farther :

" I go regularly to Fittig's lecture at 8. He lectures very dis-
tinctly and clearly. It is really very beautiful to see the way
the organic compounds are arranged. . . . Dr. Remsen, the

32 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

assistant in the laboratory here, is very obliging and pleasant.
He is an American. If I am here in winter, I must board with
some family, for it is very difficult to pick up any German, living
in lodgings."

This intention was carried out later. David King,
Sir William Thomson's nephew, arriving in Tubingen at
this time, Ramsay reports on 22nd May that he has
to-day just succeeded in getting him housed with a
German professor's family. His own letters are hence-
forward dated " Auf dem Graben," so he also was
similarly housed (though whether under the same roof
as his friend David King does not appear), for this was
the house of Professor Kommerell. This unfortunate
man was taken ill suddenly in January 1872, and after
some weeks died. This was a distressing experience for
the young boarder and in a letter to his mother he
expresses his sympathy and admiration both for the
widow — " the best specimen of a woman I have ever
seen " — and the deceased professor, of whom he says :

" I have scarcely ever seen so good a father and pleasant and
upright a man. He was about the only man in Tubingen about
whom no evil was gossiped. I am just beginning to realise that
he is gone. I sat up with the corpse one night and it was rather
eerie work. However I did it willingly, as the others had been
up the whole night before round his bedside."

As the winter came round, there are many references
to the cold and the skating. He has to assure his mother
that if the Neckar is frozen over, there is no part within
their reach deep enough to provide danger. He also

AT THE UNIVERSITY 33

seems to have enjoyed very much the American game
of base-ball, and became a member of the club. He was
intimate with several American students and with Dr.
Remsen, the assistant (afterwards the well-known pro-
fessor), with whom he kept up a friendly correspondence
to the end of his life. His chemical studies in 1871-2
evidently did not occupy him exclusively, for beside
his constant practice of German, to which there are
several references in the letters, he studied Italian with
a lady, always spoken of as the Grafin, who appears to
have lost her husband toward the end of the year. He
also joined some of his (American ?) friends in arranging
to get dancing lessons once a week on Thursday after-
noons, " when we have nothing else to do. It will
probably be great fun and costs almost nothing here."
He also mentions that he speaks French " a good deal
with the Ma'mselle. She speaks very fluently, though
not with a very good accent." Then he goes on
to say :

" Papa speaks of your possibly coming out in June or July.
Do rub up a little German so as to be able to converse with the
Frau. I'm quite sure that you could get up enough to make
yourself understood in a month or two. It is so stupid to be
with people and not able to say a word. Be able to say der, die,
das, etc., and know about fifty words. There will be only three
left of us English-speaking people in summer."

This free and easy method of learning to speak German
was of course suggested by his own linguistic readiness,
but to others who have struggled all their lives with

34 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

this fearful language the process is longer and more
difficult. But even Ramsay, after referring to genders
and cases, admits, after nearly a year in the country
(March 1872), that he is not making as much progress
as he would wish, and remarks that "it is fearfully
difficult for a foreigner to speak quite correctly, especially
on subjects he does not know much about." It will be
remembered that his mother was a strict Calvinist
and apparently she had been disturbed by hearing
that her son had been playing billiards. He therefore
tried to reassure her in a letter bearing no date,
but written probably in the middle of February 1872.
He writes :

" You speak of our playing at billiards in your first sentence.
There is no harm in playing the game, in fact it is the most
beautiful game to be seen, and second the people who keep the
billiard rooms (there really are no billiard rooms but just belong
to a Wirthshaus) are most respectable people, and third the old
gentleman of the establishment is, so to speak, Professor of Bil-
liards (or Ballmeister) to the University. Fourthly, none but the
most respectable students go there. Fifthly, we never waste
time at it, but only take it as a relaxation when we want a little
exercise to supply the deficiency of baseball in summer. Sixthly,
we never bet, but he pays who loses. Seventhly, the pay is by
no means high ; and if those aren't reasons enough, I don't
despair of convincing you at home. It's all very well talking,
but what can a fellow do when he has not a piano to play (I
haven't played an hour since Jany. 3rd), no walks to take, no
game, no hooks to read, no fire in your room, and a morbid
dislike to sitting down in a Wirthshaus to drink beer and an
hour to wait ? Answer me that, my dear Mama, and see if you
wouldn't do the same yourself."

AT THE UNIVEESITY 35

The question seems to have been renewed, and was
disposed of in a letter a little later by the assurance
that

" I have no intention of playing billiards at home, but in Ger-
many it is something quite different. The billiard-room keeper
is one of the most respectable persons in Tubingen and holds
the rank of university teacher. There is also a university teacher
of dancing and of fencing who stand on the same level as he."

Having on 8th January announced to his mother his
intention of rushing home for a month as soon as the
Semester is over, on 6th March, 1872, he writes to his
father that he proposes to start from Tubingen on
Wednesday evening 13th, proceeding homeward by way
of London. As on his way out, he again stayed in the
house of his uncle at Kensington. As time went on in
his life at Tubingen, Eamsay seems to have felt the
increasing pressure of his work, for on 14th June, 1872,
he writes as follows to his father :

"You appear to think I don't like chemistry so much as I
used to. It is quite a mistake. I only object, as I always do,
to too much work. I was up this morning, for example, at
5.30 and studied and took my breakfast from 6 to 7, — a class
from 7 to 8, one from 8 to 9, from 9 to 3 laboratory (I lunch
now to have more time for work, and don't dine till 6), and from
3 to 5 I studied, then from 5 to 6 lecture, and then I dined. And
now at 8 I must start again. It is simply all work and no play,
except on Thursday afternoons, but Thursday evenings I work
as hard as ever."

Obviously such working hours could not be sustained
continuously, but what was the rule for a student in a

36 SIE WILLIAM EAMSAY

German university may well be commended to the
notice of those students in English colleges who find
difficulty in assembling in a lecture room before ten
o'clock in the morning.

But the shadow of the approaching examination was
over Kamsay and his fellow-students at this time, and
on 26th June he tells his father that even the base-ball
club has broken up, "as almost all the members are
bound on hard study." On 21st July he wrote that
" the Exam, is now past I am happy to say." To those
who are unacquainted with the method of conducting
examinations in a German university at that time it
may be interesting to read his account of the process as
given in the same letter :

" On Monday at 7 it began and lasted till half-past 12 ; then in
the afternoon from 3 till 8, so we had a good spell of it. South-
worth and I were in together. We went to the Pedells and were
shown the questions. They were in chemistry :
The resemblances and differences between the compounds of

carbon and silicium, and
The relations between glycerine and its newer derivatives and

the other compounds containing three atoms carbon.
And in physics :
The different methods for determining the specific gravity of

gases and vapours.
The phenomena which may be observed in crystals in polarised

light.

I managed to answer the first perfectly, the second, however,
not so well, and the two questions in physics pretty well.

Then to-night we had the oral exam. The five professors who
compose the faculty were there. Fittig gave some very difficult

AT THE UNIVERSITY 37

questions. Reusch (Physics), on the other hand, very easy ones.
He is a very nice old fellow and appeared only to wish to make
the thing as informal and easy as poss. for us. Fittig, however,
put on as grave a face as poss. and shoved in his questions un-
mercifully. I had only to reply ' Ich weiss nicht ' (I don't know)
once. We had to dress up and put on white kids, and I had to get a
' tile ' especially for the occasion. Then we were sent out after
the exam, for about 5 minutes and were then called in and formally
told that we had passed."

This examination had to be followed by the disserta-
tion which led to the Ph.D. degree. The title-page of
the dissertation, which is in English, is here reproduced :

INVESTIGATIONS

ON THE

TOLUIC AND NITROTOLUIC ACIDS

INAUGURAL DISSERTATION

FOR THE ATTAINMENT
OF THE

DEGEEE OF DOCTOR OF NATURAL SCIENCES

AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF TtJBINGEN

UNDER THE PRESIDENCY
OF

DR. RUDOLF FITTIG

PBOFKSSOB IN ORDINARY OF CHEMISTRY

PRESENTED
BY

WILLIAM RAMSAY, JUNR.

OF GLASGOW.

TUBINGEN 1872
PRINTED BY L. R. FEUS.

On the flyleaf following is the following note, which is

38 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

not in the present case accompanied by the usual dedica-
tion to parents or friends :

"In presenting this Dissertation to a highly-distinguished
Faculty as candidate for the degree of Doctor of Natural Sciences,
I take the opportunity of conveying my thanks to Professor
Fittig for having suggested the subject and assisted in the work
described in this paper and for his great kindness to me during
my stay at the University of Tubingen."

The Autobiography records his obligations, not only
to the professor, but to Wilhelm Stadel and Ira Remsen,
his assistants, as well as to fellow-students Peter Romer,
Emil Kachel, Bottinger and Riigheimer. Professor
Remsen has supplied the following short account of the
days at Tubingen. In the accompanying letter to Lady
Ramsay he adds :

" After all it must be remembered that your husband was a
boy at that time — only 18 when he came to Tubingen — and I
was not far removed from boyhood, so that the things I recall
of those days are the things that interest boys for the most part.
We were at the beginning of our lives with hopes, with aspirations,
with some anxiety for the future, with doubts, and yet I do not
remember that we ever discussed such matters. I am thankful
for the fact that the lives of our group of English-speaking
students were wholesome. They were not goody-goody as a
rule, but they were not in any sense bad. They were healthy
boys with lots to learn and a strong desire to learn.

TtJBINGEN DAYS

In looking over recently some letters from my old friend,
Ramsay, I came upon one dated March 23rd, 1904, that began
with these words : ' Who would have thought when you opened

AT THE UNIVERSITY 39

the big, front door of the Tubingen laboratory in 1871 and in
answer to my question in questionable German — " Konnen Sie
sagen wo ist die Vorlesungszimmer ? " you replied after a pause —
" Oh, I guess you want the lecture-room," — that I should now
write after 33 years to tell you — .' This was one of his favorite
stories. I have heard him tell it in public and I have read it
in print. That is the way we first met, now 46 years ago. That
was the beginning of a life-long friendship. We met perhaps a
half dozen times in all these years, but we kept up a fairly active
correspondence until the last. I am now asked to give a little
account of the Tubingen days.

In 1870, Fittig, with whom I had worked at Gottingen, was
called to Tubingen to succeed Strecker. He invited me to go
with him and to serve as one of his assistants. I accepted, and
so it came about that I was holding a minor place in the chemical
laboratory when Eamsay arrived. It has always been a source
of satisfaction to me that it was I who opened the ' big front
door ' for him. This fact gives me a feeling that I have been of
some service to chemistry. I remained in Tubingen until the
spring of 1872, so that our association was only for one year.
He came up for examination for the doctor's degree a year later,
but of this second year I know little and that is only hearsay.

Ramsay began in the laboratory by working on a problem
which had been suggested to him by Tatlock at Glasgow, but he
soon put himself wholly under Fittig's direction. At that time
Fittig was still much interested in the aromatic compounds
which had given him his first success, and it is not surprising that
he should have proposed an investigation dealing with compounds
in this field. This had to do with the toluic acids. The results
furnished the basis for the dissertation which Ramsay presented
to the faculty in 1872.

In the laboratory I had little to do with him, but out of the
laboratory our relations were intimate. I remember that a
little group of Englishmen, Scotchmen and Americans then

40 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

studying chemistry in Tubingen asked me to form a coaching
class with the object of helping them in their preparation for
the doctor's examination. This I did, and the class met in my
room. Ramsay was one of the members of that class. When
we were last together, in 1912, he reminded me of those meetings,
and told me that he still preserved the essays he had prepared
as part of the regular work I had exacted. In a jocose way he
always referred to me as one of his teachers, and I must confess
that this has given me considerable satisfaction notwithstanding
the slenderness of the basis.

He was the youngest of our little party and was a great favorite.
One of our forms of recreation was base-ball. It so happened
that the Americans were in the majority, which accounts for the
choice of this particular game. The Englishmen and Scotchmen
took kindly to the game and some of them became fairly good
players according to the standards of those days. When in 1912
the Johns Hopkins University conferred the honorary degree of
Doctor of Laws upon Sir William it fell to my lot as President
of the University to make a few remarks, and he replied. Neither
of us could refrain from referring to our Tubingen days, and the
base-ball club was recalled in public by Sir William. Among
other things, he said : ' I tell you the Tubingen base-ball club was
not to be sneezed at.' In this connection it is interesting to recall
that the present Lord Milner was at times a member of the club.
He was not in the University, but came to Tubingen to spend
some of his vacations and while there he was invited to join us.
As a rule the German students showed no skill in the game.
Some of them liked to watch us, but, as far as I can remember,
only one ever actually took part in a game and he did not show
any aptitude for that kind of activity.

Skating was another form of recreation which was very popular
with us. In this Ramsay was an adept. On many a winter
afternoon we were together on the artificial lake provided for
the purpose. This was conveniently situated, so that it was an

AT THE UNIVERSITY 41

easy matter to take advantage of a few free hours to indulge in
this delightful sport. The old and young of Tubingen, professors
and students, and the younger ladies took part, and, as I think
back, those seem to have been days of unadulterated joy.

Occasionally we came together of an evening for a dinner or
something of that sort, though not often, for the evenings were
mostly given up to study. One dinner I recall very clearly. I
think the host was Stadel, who was then privatdocent in chemistry.
The fact that stands out most prominently in my memory is that
Ramsay sang for us that time-honored song, ' A fine old English
gentleman,' much to our satisfaction. He accompanied himself
on the piano too. Those who have known him well in later life
know that singing was a pleasure to him and that he was apt to
burst into song upon slight provocation. This was a symptom of
the happy disposition of which he was the possessor. We all felt itr
and I am sure we were all helped by it unconsciously. I cannot re-
frain from quoting the last words of the last letter he ever wrote
me, dated March 15th, 1916 : ' Well, I am tired, and must stop. I
look back on my long friendship with you as a very happy episode
in a very happy life ; for my life has been a very happy one.' '

Letters to his cousin Ella show that he was back in
Glasgow in the autumn of 1872. He had obtained the
post of assistant to the Young Professor of Technical
Chemistry in Anderson's College, Glasgow, and on
13th November he informed his cousin that Mr. James
Young was written to about the course of lectures he
was to have given :

" His answer came to-day short and bitter. I do not consider
that organic chemistry has anything to do with technical chemis-
try, and I consider it would be interference with the courses of
the other professors."

So this idea had to be given up.

42 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The professor at that time was Gustav Bischof, son
of the well-known geologist. The professor's knowledge
of English was very imperfect and the instruction of
the few laboratory students was left to Ramsay. Otto
Hehner, now one of the best known public analysts in
London, was the professor's private assistant and a close
intimacy soon sprang up between the two young men.
Ramsay acknowledges his obligation to Hehner 's advice.
The latter had been a student under Fresenius and was
an excellent analyst. On the other hand, in a sym-
pathetic and interesting obituary contributed to the
pages of the Analyst in November 1916 by Mr. Hehner,
the following passage shows a pleasant picture of
family life and hospitable friendliness toward the young
foreigner :

"His kindly silent father and his most gentle and saintly
mother who showed me innumerable acts of kindness while I
had upon me the homesickness of a youngster, who prior to his
emigration to Scotland had never left the parental house, I hold
in affectionate and reverent memory.

I spent many evenings at their home, where William enlivened
the company with songs, which in later years were greeted with
enthusiastic applause by his students at social evenings of the
University College Students' Club — 'Marlbrouk s'en va-t-en
guerre/ and such like. He had a very good voice, played his
own accompaniment and was an expert whistler. He spoke
German fluently, with occasional comic lapses which I endeavoured
to correct in return for services rendered to me by his rough-
hewing my efforts in English. . . .

William Ramsay soon became my intimate friend. We were
both full of enthusiasm, and as neither of us could obtain advice

AT THE UNIVERSITY 43

or stimulus from our professor we were thrown upon our own
resources and mutual help. Our daily conversation turned
largely, apart from matters arising out of our immediate duties,
around philosophical questions renewed occasionally in later
years. On his side he was naturally influenced by his inheri-
tance from Covenanting ancestors ; I, on mine, by that from
unorthodox and agnostic surroundings. As far as I am con-
cerned, these most friendly conversations affected the whole of
my more mature opinions. Chemically our life at the Ander-
sonian was unsatisfactory. ... As a consequence we both
freed ourselves as soon as practicable from our engagements.
He in 1874 entered into the serene and healthy atmosphere of
the Glasgow University."

In the summer of 1873 Kamsay joined his uncle
Andrew, who, with his sister and eldest daughter, were
visiting the Rhine valley with a view to geological
investigations. Two letters, one from Bonn (describing
visits to Brussels, Antwerp and Cologne) and another
from Lucerne, give an account in his usual frolicsome
style of their chief adventures :

" LUCERNE, 1st September, 1873.
MY DEAR MAMA,

Here we are at Lucerne and have the prospect of
staying till the day after to-morrow. We are going up the Rigi
this forenoon : Aunt Eliza and Ella are going to glide up by rail and
we are going to attack his monster sides ferociously, geologically
and pedestrianly. The view is improving. It rained yesterday
most persistently and with an energy worthy of a better cause.
So we went to church in the morning and dined in the afternoon.
Aunt Eliza took a scuttle in the afternoon into a R.C. Church
and participated in the holy water and the various benefits
accruing therefrom, thus showing that extremes meet. Ella,

44 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Uncle Andrew and I sat and smoked the pipe of peace, at least
most of us did. But to-day is rather better and so we are going
to scale the hillock. . . . After staying three days in Bingen
we went by steamboat to Mainz, where we stayed a night. Then
my lamented relatives went on to Strassburg and committed
some little follies in the way of sight-seeing there while I struck
off for Tubingen via Heidelberg. I started at 10 a.m. and arrived
at 7 p.m. The first person I knew was a railway guard, who recog-
nised me instantly and we interchanged ideas to our mutual edifi-
cation. Then as soon as I was stranded on the station I saw a
mighty potentate, a Herr Oberamtmann Lindenmaier, greeted him
and conversed for a time. Then I met some of the KommerelTs
cousins (she) and conversed with them, and finally, having saluted
the hotel-keeper and acquired a room, I saw the Kommerells stand-
ing down below. I devoted my best energies in giving a loudshriek-
ing whistle. It was literally " Whuslin " on the fast day, for I had
had nothing to eat since leaving at 7 a.m., but circumstances
excused me. They glanced in the direction of the whistle, and
gave me an amazed shout. Next moment we were (figuratively)
in one another's arms and I would have fallen on Frau K.'s neck,
had she had one to fall on. But she hasn't, I may say. To sum
up all in one short word — "jolly." Having renewed old ac-
quaintance and called on Fittig and spent the best part of two
hours with him, on Friday I started for Basel, saw the Falls of
Schaffhausen and met my bereaved relations at Basel next
morning. They had come from Mainz and here we are. . . .
When I have done Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn
I shall write again. Adieu. Greetings all round. A kiss to
pussy and two to Doran,1 which you must do yourself or he will
never forgive you. — Yours affectionately, ^ „

About this time Kamsay became an " Abstractor "
for the Journal of the Chemical Society, and continued

1 The dog.

AT THE UNIVERSITY 45

doing the work till lie was appointed professor at Bristol
in 1879.

In 1874 Ferguson succeeded Anderson in the Chair
of Chemistry and he appointed Ramsay to the post of
Tutorial Assistant. His duties consisted in holding
classes to amplify the lectures. There were about two
hundred, chiefly medical, students, attending the chemi-
cal lectures, and these were divided into four groups,
and these had to be " coached " by individual question
and answer and weekly written exercises. Each group
came to the class twice a week and the consequence
was that the teacher learned inorganic chemistry very
thoroughly, but the work was monotonous and at the
end of the six years in which he was thus engaged it
was felt to be exhausting. But he gave some lectures on
organic chemistry, which afforded some stimulus and led
him to undertaking, though usually alone, some research
in the laboratory, for at that time no one worked
independently, except a few students whom he had per-
suaded. Among these were Arthur Smithells, now
Professor in the University of Leeds, and J. J. Dobbie,
afterwards Professor in Bangor and now Director of the
Government Laboratory in London. As a result he
published a notice of a new mineral, bismuthous tesseral
pyrites, and a paper on the action of heat on sodium
ethylthiosulphate. The cellars of the chemical labora-
tory contained the collection of pyridine bases left by
Professor Anderson. Eamsay obtained possession of
these and proceeded to their investigation. The fraction

46 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

containing picoline promised to be the most interesting.
Beside their derivatives already known, he prepared
compounds corresponding to the platinum-ammonium
compounds with which he had been already occupied.

Experiments on the physiological action of some of
these bases induced him to attend the lectures of Pro-
fessor McKendrick, then recently appointed to the Chair
of Physiology. The results of their joint experiments
were published in the Journal of Physiology. The
synthesis of pyridine from acetylene and prussic acid
by passing them together through a heated tube was
accomplished by Ramsay for the first time in 1877.
About the same time, in association with J. J. Dobbie,
he examined the products of oxidation of quinine and
cinchonine. An interesting account of these researches
and of the relations thus begun and continued
through so many years between the two young men
has been given by Sir James Dobbie in a series
of recollections of which the following is an abstract.
He says :

" I first met Ramsay in the summer of 1875, about a year after
his appointment as Assistant to Professor Ferguson in the
University of Glasgow.

I had completed my course for the ordinary M.A. degree and
passed the usual examinations. I had also gone through the
chemistry course with Dr. Anderson and had begun to work
for honours in Natural Science and for the B.Sc. degree of Edin-
burgh University, there being then no science degree at Glasgow.
Ramsay was delighted to find anyone whose views went a little
beyond the routine that was followed by most of the students-

AT THE UNIVERSITY 47

and readily gave me assistance. Although no provision for
teaching organic chemistry existed either in Glasgow or Edin-
burgh, I was required to get up the subject both for my honours
exam, and for the B.Sc. degree. Ramsay saw my difficulty and
very good naturedly undertook to read the subject with me, and
together we worked right through Schorlemmer's Chemistry of
the Carbon Compounds. As Ramsay himself had only recently
returned from Tubingen, he was familiar with all the most recent
developments of the theory of the subject and with the practical
methods of investigation in which the German laboratories then
excelled, and generously allowed me the full benefit of his know-
ledge and experience. He was desirous about this time of starting
a class in organic chemistry, but the difficulties in the way were
very great. He ultimately overcame them and obtained per-
mission to deliver a short course of lectures. The experiment,
however, was not very successful. The subject was not required
for any ordinary degree, and the number of those who were
interested in it for its own sake at that time was not large, and
I do not think the course was ever repeated.

From the first, Ramsay engaged vigorously in research, for which
his official duties left him a considerable amount of leisure. The
atmosphere of the University at this time was not unfavourable
to research. Kelvin was then at the height of his fame and
Gilmorehill was the Mecca towards which all the distinguished
foreign physicists who visited the country directed their steps.
While at Tubingen, Ramsay had investigated the toluic acids
and naturally continued on somewhat similar lines when he
settled down at Glasgow. The cellars of the University Labora-
tory contained a large collection of fractions of ' Dippel-Oil '
prepared by Professor Thomas Anderson. These were regarded
by Ferguson, whose interest in chemistry was almost entirely
that of the antiquary, more or less in the light of museum speci-
mens, and he was horrified when Ramsay suggested that he should
be allowed to ' investigate ' them, but he eventually gave way

48 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

to Ramsay's importunity. The result was a very substantial
addition to our knowledge of the pyridine bases and their deriva-
tives. The original papers were published in the Phil. Mag.
{Oct. 1876, Oct. 1877 and July 1878) and summarised in J.
Chem. Soc. xxxv. 1879. While he was still engaged in this work,
in which I occasionally assisted him, I completed my honours
exam, and B.Sc. degree and won a scholarship which enabled
me to remain at the University and gave me a certain status as
Lecturer in Mineralogy. As my duties in this capacity, however,
only occupied a part of my time, it was arranged between us in
the autumn of 1876 that we should start an investigation of the
quinine alkaloids. The method we adopted — breaking down by
oxidation with permanganate — which has since been very exten-
sively employed, led at once to important results. We obtained
pyridine carboxylic acids from quinine, cinchonine, quinidine,
and cinchonidine, and thus for the first time succeeded in estab-
lishing a connection between these alkaloids and the pyridine
bases.

We had no idea when we commenced our work that any such
a relation existed and, had it not been for the lucky chance that
we were familiar through Eamsay's work on picoline with the
peculiar smell of pyridine, the true nature of the acids we pre-
pared would probably have remained long undetected. Our
first paper was published in 1878 — the work having been inter-
rupted for a time by my absence during the summer of 1877 in
Leipzig — and this was followed by a fuller paper in 1879.
Attempts were afterwards made to ignore our work and to
assign the discovery to Skraup, but an examination of the dates
of the published papers puts it beyond all doubt that ours was
the first published work on the subject.

Not long after we started the investigation, Ramsay's interests
received an entirely new direction, and I was left to carry on the
work alone, with only occasional help and advice from him. So
far as I know he never again engaged in organic research.

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 49

In turning to the physical side of chemistry, I believe he was
greatly influenced by Dr. E. J. Mills, who then held the ' Young '
Chair of Technical Chemistry in Anderson's College (now the
Royal Technical College), Glasgow, and of whom he saw a great
deal about this time. Mills was then engaged in the study of
mass action and elective attraction. Ramsay was greatly
interested in this work and used often to talk to me about it.
Another thing which certainly influenced him was Guldberg and
Waage' s work, which was only then becoming generally known
in this country. When we were in Norway together in 1879 we
tried to see Waage, but he was then on holiday. Ramsay, how-
ever, saw him the following year.1 His first important research
in physical chemistry was on the volumes of liquids at their
boiling points,2 but I cannot recall the exact circumstances under

1 Extract from a letter from Bristol, dated 28th September, 1880 :

" I called on Waage and he asked me to spend an afternoon with him
at his country house — about half an hour's sail from the town. We had
a long chat about things in general. He has given up his experiments on
chemical statics. He speaks a little German, and with my knowledge of
Norse, which as you know is surpassed by few and equalled by none of the
natives of that country, we got along very well. He is great on the liquor
question, and nothing would satisfy him but that we should hammer out
a letter together to Gladstone, asking him to tax heavy beers with a pro-
portionately higher alcoholic tax. I saw afterwards that the People's
William thought it a good suggestion."

It would perhaps be proper to mention, for the information of the general
reader, that Peter Waage was Professor of Chemistry in the University of
Christiania. His fame rests on the thesis published by him jointly with
his brother-in-law Guldberg, Professor of Mathematics, in which the
fundamentally important principle, known as the " Law of Mass Action,"
is developed. Waage was born in 3833 and died in January 1900. A
notice of his life and work will be found in the Transactions of the Chemical
Society for 1900 (p. 591) from the pen of Ramsay himself.

2 In the Autobiography Ramsay accounts for the origin of his interest
in physico-chemical problems by reference to difficulties he encountered
in determining the vapour densities of certain derivatives of dipyridine.
Having used Victor Meyer's air-expulsion method, the idea occurred to him
that the molecular volume of liquids at their boiling point could be deter-
mined by heating a glass bulb of known capacity, containing the substance,
in its own vapour. " Once launched on the ocean of physical chemistry,"
he says, " numerous problems presented themselves."

D

50 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

which he took up this particular piece of work. It was while
blowing the bulbs used in this research, I believe, that he first
became aware of the value of the asset he possessed for physical
work in his skill as a glass-blower. He had learned the art at
Tubingen, although it was only in his later researches that his
marvellous manipulative power was fully developed.

In the ' seventies ' physical chemistry had hardly attained the
dignity of a distinct branch of the science, and there were no
separate lectureships or professorships on the subject in this
country. Specialisation had been pushed a little further in
Germany, and I remember attending a course of physical chemis-
try by Wiedemann in Leipzig in 1877, but the scope of his lectures
was quite elementary.

When he turned to physical work Ramsay became aware of
the defects of his mathematical equipment and would gladly
have remedied them had that then been possible. He did
arrange with one of the young University mathematicians for
coaching in the calculus, but the coach was not sufficiently keen
for a man of Ramsay's ardent temperament and the arrangement
— fortunately, I cannot help thinking, because Ramsay could
not have gained sufficient proficiency in the higher mathematics
to be of real use to him without the sacrifice of much time — was
soon abandoned and he continued to devote himself entirely to
experimental work.

After he had been assistant for several years he became a
candidate for such chairs and lectureships as fell vacant, but met
at first with little support. He was much discouraged by repeated
failures, and I remember we discussed seriously a project for
starting together in business as chemical manufacturers. We
both had connections in that line and were not unfavourably
placed for such a venture. But fortunately before our plans
had matured, the Chair of Chemistry in University College,
Bristol, fell vacant by the removal of Dr. Letts to Belfast and
Ramsay was appointed his successor. He was greatly assisted

AT THE UNIVERSITY 51

in this candidature by the close connection that existed between
Glasgow University and Balliol College, of which Jowett was then
Master. Jowett was a member of the Council of Bristol College.
As was the practice in those days, Ramsay sought interviews
with the individual members of Council before the election —
in plain words canvassed them. He went up to Oxford armed
with an introduction to Jowett from Professor Edward Caird.
He was graciously received and invited to one of the Master's
famous Sunday breakfast parties at which he met a distinguished
company. At that time Eamsay had seen more of the world
than most young men of his age. He was therefore well able
to hold his own at the great man's table, and no doubt the im-
pression he made was carefully noted by his host. As he was
leaving, Jowett took him aside for a moment and made an
appointment with him for the following day. When Ramsay
called at the time fixed, Jowett, as if he had never seen him before,
and without any other greeting, received him with a sharp
' Well ? ' Ramsay's feelings may be imagined, but he grasped
the situation, stated his business as briefly as possible, and took
his leave. Jowett proved a good friend. He not only
supported Ramsay's candidature, but afterwards invited him
repeatedly to Balliol, and evidently formed a just estimate of his
character and intellectual powers.

In the Glasgow laboratory Ramsay exhibited all the char-
acteristics which afterwards became so marked and so generally
known. He was a rapid worker ; came quickly to conclusions ;
was bold almost to audacity in the things he attempted ; and
worked with surprising energy and industry. The only relaxa-
tion he allowed himself during the day was an occasional cigarette.
As smoking was forbidden in the main laboratory where the
students were at work, he retired to the smaller or private labor-
atory where the professor's assistants and one or two senior
students, who occupied a privileged position, had their work
benches. There with his back against the radiator he would

52 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

roll his cigarette, a life-long practice, and retail or listen to the
latest story or the last piece of University gossip. He had a keen
sense of humour and delighted especially in the oddities of
' Chemical ' or ' Comical ' John, the bottle washer of the estab-
lishment. John was a great character, a strange mixture of
shrewdness and simplicity. It was noticed that he absented
himself for a few minutes at exactly the same time every morning,
and on being followed one day it was found that he went to set
his watch by the great clock in the quadrangle. As he was not
responsible for the time-keeping, he was questioned as to why he
was so particular to have the exact time. He confessed then that
he stopped his watch every night and set it going again in the
morning. ' You see/ he added, ' it will last just twice as long
that way.' Ramsay had a keen appreciation of such humours.

He frequently spent his week ends with an aunt at Kilcreggan
on the Clyde, and if I remember aright sometimes travelled up
and down daily. He had been employed to assist in trans-
lating Wurtz's Dictionary of Chemistry for a firm of Glasgow
publishers, who proposed to bring out an English edition, — a
project which was afterwards abandoned, although a very large
part of the translation was actually completed.

He always carried about with him, on his journeys, writing
material and some sheets of the French text. He wrote with
ease in the train or on board the steamer, and as he was paid so
much per sheet he would sometimes remark to me as he entered
the laboratory that he had earned so much on the way up to
town. He translated with great rapidity, and possessed then, as
he did all through life, the power of expressing himself easily and
correctly. His letters written at this time, of which I have
preserved a few, are excellent — gossipy, vivacious, and quite
unconventional in style.1 His handwriting differed little from
that of later years, except that it was not quite so regular as it
became subsequently.

1 One of these letters will be found on a later page.

AT THE UNIVERSITY 53

But it was not all work with him. He enjoyed life thoroughly,
was fond of society, and went out a great deal to dinners and
dances. He was an excellent waltzer, and that and his other
social gifts made him much sought after in Glasgow society.
Walking and climbing were favourite recreations in which I was
frequently his companion. We sometimes spent the week-end
together either at his aunt's at Kilcreggan or at Fairlie, my own
people's summer quarters. Boating was another favourite
amusement. Ramsay had some skill in the management of a
lugsail, but with later experience of that treacherous rig I look
back with a shudder to a morning I spent with him off Kil-
creggan on one of the most dangerous reaches of the Clyde, for
he was as venturesome on the water as on the land.

In the spring of 1878 we made a short walking tour together
through the Western Highlands. Starting from Ardentinny (sung
by Wordsworth) on the Clyde we walked to Inveraray, thence to
Dalmally at the head of Loch Awe and so on to Oban. We
had many adventures by the way, which provided us for long
afterwards with matter for jest and laughter. From Dalmally
we climbed Cruachan (on a Sunday !), and I remember, when we
were standing on the top admiring the magnificent landscape,
Ramsay drew my attention to an eagle soaring high above us,
the first, I think, either of us had ever seen. We descended from
Cruachan into the Pass of Brander, the scene of one of Bruce' s
most noted exploits and sacred ground to us on that account,
for we had been bred up in all the traditions of Scottish
patriotism. Whether under the stimulus of that feeling, I do not
know, but we thought to beguile the time by composing a rhyming
chronicle of our journey. The only couplet I can now recall was
one composed by Ramsay :

' And in the Pass of Brander
The scenery grew grander,'

and I think that is probably a fair specimen of the level to which
our poetic flight rose. An amusing incident took place at Oban.

54 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

We shared the same bedroom, as was our custom, and before
retiring for the night both remarked that the arrangement of the
room and furniture was exactly the same as in the inn at Dalmally
on the previous evening. Early in the morning I was awakened
by a loud voice declaiming : ' Our travellers were now put into
a room in all respects like unto the former, and if anyone thinks
it was otherwise he is entirely mistaken.5 Ramsay was delivering
a lecture in his sleep. He was very wroth when I woke him and
told him what he had said. For long afterwards, whenever he
was more emphatic in the assertion of an opinion than I thought
the occasion warranted, I used to remind him of his dream at
Oban and he always took the hint with perfect good humour.
From Oban we went by steamer to Fort William and the following
morning, the first of May, climbed Ben Nevis. We found the
upper part of the mountain covered with snow and had some
difficulty, and lost a good deal of time, in getting down into
Glen Nevis up which we proposed to walk to the hamlet of Kin-
lochmore near the head of Loch Leven. We expected to find
shelter there for the night, but in this we were disappointed, and
had to choose between crossing by a rough mountain track to
King's House near the head of Glencoe and walking to Leven
Hotel opposite Ballachulish, a distance of 26 miles reckoning
from our starting-point in Glen Nevis. As the daylight was
nearly gone when we reached Kinlochmore and there was no
moon, the former alternative was out of the question. We
therefore made our way as quickly as possible down to the loch,
not without difficulty in the failing light, and for more than two
hours had to march in pitch darkness before we came opposite
Ballachulish. The question then was how to find the hotel ?
Luckily we came upon a house in which a light was burning and
the occupier who had been kept up late by some domestic occasion
good naturedly guided us to the inn. After much banging and
rattling we succeeded in rousing the landlord, who not only found
us a room, but when he knew our plight, with true Highland

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 55

hospitality, provided us with a good supper. It was then nearly
one o'clock in the morning. "We had been out from 6 o'clock
of the previous morning and had been afoot climbing and walking
all the time, with no other food than a few sandwiches. Next day
we intended walking up Glencoe, but our feet were badly bruised
with the previous day's climbing and we were glad to wait for
the steamer and sail back to Oban.

It was on this trip that I first became aware of Ramsay's
aptitude for languages. In all our conversations he had never,
so far as I can remember, shown the slightest interest in philo-
logical studies, although he spoke German fluently and had gone
through some at least of the University classes in Greek and
Latin. But as soon as we got amongst people actually speaking
another language his interest was aroused. We both knew a
few Gaelic words, as most inhabitants of the West of Scotland
do. I was content to let it rest at that, but Ramsay was bent
on learning Gaelic and extracted words from every Gaelic-speaking
person we came across. What struck me as peculiar was that
he took little or no interest in the traditions or manners of the
Highlanders, only in their language.

In our Highland tour we had proved that we were pretty
equally matched as regards our powers of physical endurance
and that we possessed the compatibility of temperament that
is essential for the success of such expeditions. We resolved
accordingly on a walking tour on a more extended scale in
Norway in the long vacation of 1879. We sailed from Leith to
Christiansand and were fortunate enough to have as one of our
fellow-passengers Dr. Amund Helland, now one of Norway's fore-
most geologists and at that time, I believe, a privatdocent attached
to Christiania University. When he found that Ramsay was a
nephew of Sir Andrew Ramsay and that we were both interested
in geology and mineralogy he became very friendly with us
and sketched out a plan of tour which we found of the greatest
assistance. As he was in no hurry to return to Christiania, he

56 SIB WILLIAM RAMSAY

volunteered to accompany us to Hitter in Flekkefjord, where
large pegmatite veins occurring in the 4 Norite ' of the island
had recently been opened up and found to contain many rare
minerals. Accordingly after a night's rest at Christiansand we
caught a coastwise steamer going north, which landed us on
Hitter. There was no inn on the island, but we got comfortable
quarters in a fisherman's house which was built on a ledge of
rock overhanging the fjord. Here we fed sumptuously on trout,
salmon, eggs, milk, flad brod, and coffee, our first experience of
genuine Norwegian fare. The granite veins of the island were a
sight never to be forgotten. The crystals of felspar, mica, and
quartz were of enormous size, compared with anything we had
previously seen, and mingled with them and projecting from the
roof and sides of the cutting were large bosses of euxenite, orthite,
and other minerals of the rare earths. On receiving Holland's
assurance that there was no objection to our helping ourselves, we
secured a goodly supply of fine specimens — most of which are
now in one or other of our museums — and dispatched them to
Christiania to await our arrival there. Long afterwards, when
Eamsay was engaged on his search for sources of the rare gases
of the atmosphere, he bethought him of our Hitter finds and made
a systematic examination of them. The only one, however,
which gave him any positive results, was c Malacon,' a hydrated
variety of zircon, which he found to contain helium. Helland
returned direct from Hitter to Christiansand and we crossed
to the mainland and made our way by carriole, train, and steamer
to Bergen and thence sailed up the Hardanger Fjord to Odde.
We made many acquaintances in Bergen and on board the steamer,
some of whom we met again and again in the course of our tour.
Amongst them I particularly remember two daughters of the
Federal General Lee. As we sailed up the Fjord we were con-
stantly reminded, especially in the lower reaches, of our own
Scottish lochs. The last part of the sail, where the Fjord narrows
and the mountains seem in places to rise sheer from the water,

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 57

is very grand, especially when seen as we saw it in the deep
shadows of an autumn evening with the moon lighting up the
white edge of Folgefond snowfield, where it shows through the
clefts of the rocky summits. Young Scotchmen are not usually
sentimental and are not given to expressing their feelings on
such occasions, and we were silent. But the spell of the fjords
was upon us from that time and we both re- visited them, although
not together, again and again. Odde, the landing-place at the
head of the Fjord, was then quite unspoiled and consisted of
little more than a picturesque hotel near the landing-stage, and
a few scattered houses. Now, I hear, all is changed by the huge
nitrogen works which have been erected in recent years. We
stayed here several days, visiting the Buarbrae (Glacier) and the
Skjaeggedalsfos— a fall of from 500 to 600 ft. We were both
greatly interested in the geological features of the country and
spent much time in examining the action of the glacier, the
moraines, the cirques and, later on, the raised beaches, which
are nearly everywhere along the coast such a prominent feature
of Norwegian scenery. Ramsay was well informed as to his
uncle's views, which afforded us material for many discussions
and much speculation in the light of our own experience. Our
visit to the Skjaeggedalsfos was a memorable occasion. The
way was long and rough and the journey had to be performed
entirely on foot, but we felt fully rewarded by the magnificence
of the scene ; it was the first of the great falls we visited. On
the way back we were caught in a perfect deluge of rain and got
soaked to the skin. We had no change of clothes with us, as
we carried nothing but our knapsacks. When we reached the
inn, our host, evidently quite accustomed to such experiences,
turned out various ancient suits that must have been in his
family for generations and in these we adorned ourselves for
supper. Presently two Austrians, who had also made the
excursion to the fall, returned in the same condition as ourselves.
By this time the clothes of the inn had all been appropriated,

m SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

but the Austrians were not to be beat. To the delight of the
other guests they appeared at supper in kilts improvised for the
occasion out of Norwegian homespun bed coverlets, which were
decorated with the beautiful coloured border common in this
part of Norway. They were both large-sized men of the typical
South German build, and their appearance in this guise was the
signal for general merriment, especially when one of them pro-
ceeded to execute a dance. We were all in high spirits after our
day in the open air. The Austrians were capital fellows, full of
jokes and stories, and we spent a very merry evening together.
We found out later, when the time came for the inevitable exchange
of cards, that one of them was a judge in one of the higher courts
of Vienna and the other an advocate who practised in the same
court. We saw a good deal of them afterwards and found them
excellent travelling companions. From Odde we made our way
by steamer, rowing boat, and on foot to Vossevangen, where we
rested for a few days. One evening spent here dwells in my
memory. The hotel, at that time one of the few hotels in Norway
outside the large towns, was much frequented by Norwegians
from Bergen. It boasted a piano, and after supper Ramsay
commenced to play and then to whistle, — an accomplishment
in which he excelled. Soon this unusual form of entertainment
attracted listeners, and after a time all the guests were gathered
round him applauding vociferously. Then we sang national songs,
and all went merrily until we came to the Marseillaise, when three
Germans, who were of the party, clapped on their caps and
strutted out of the room to the intense amusement of the rest of
the company. At that time the Germans had neither destroyers
nor submarines and the Norwegians stood in no fear of them.

Most of our travelling was done on foot. We carried nothing
with us but our knapsacks and it was necessary to wash up
from time to time, which we generally did for ourselves, retiring
to some secluded spot by the side of a stream for the purpose,
and hanging out our washing afterwards over our knapsacks to

AT THE UNIVEESITY 59

dry as we marched. We halted for a day or two at intervals to
rest and refit. During these rest periods we usually devoted our
time to exploring the immediate neighbourhood of our stopping
place, making the more intimate acquaintance of the people, and
trying to pick up what we could of the language. We had with
us a Norse Dictionary, a never-ending source of amusement on
account of the quaint equivalents with which it abounded. But
we trusted to what we could learn viva voce, and must have made
some progress with the language, for I find amongst my letters
several in Norwegian from travel acquaintances which contain
the assurance that my knowledge of their language was a sufficient
excuse for using it in writing to me. Ramsay's great aptitude
for languages enabled him to make very rapid progress, and he
afterwards continued the study both at home and on subsequent
visits to Norway and became very proficient in it. I noticed
in Norway again what I have referred to in connection with our
Highland trip, that his interest in the language was much greater
than in the history and traditions of the people, to which so far
as I remember he paid very little attention. He took great
pleasure, however, in the Norse folk-songs, many of which we
learned from chance companions on our walks. We found great
interest in compiling lists of Scandinavian words which, although
not known in England, are in common use in Scotland. These
words were either introduced into Scotland by Scandinavian
settlers or are survivals of the common Teutonic vocabulary
which persisted in Norway and in the northern parts of the
British Isles after they ceased to be used elsewhere. I remember
the delight with which we first heard ' barn ' (Scot, bairn) ' child/
and ' gjore' (Scot, gar) ' make do,5 and many others with which
we had been familiar from our earliest days but had never before
heard out of our own country.

Another amusement of Ramsay's during our longer halts was
sketching in water colours, an art in which he possessed no
inconsiderable share of the talent which belongs to his cousins,

60 SIK WILLIAM EAMSAY

Sir Andrew Ramsay's family. His sketch book was in existence
quite recently and may be so still. He took particular pleasure
showing me from time to time a drawing he made of me while
I was bathing and supposed he was engaged in sketching the
surrounding scenery.

After leaving Vossevangen we went by way of the Nerodal,
famous for its beautiful white labradorite felspar rocks, and
Gudvangen to Loerdal on the Sogne fjord, and thence crossed
from Skj olden into the Jotunheim, to see something of the great
alpine lakes and to climb Galdhopig, the highest peak in Norway.
R^dsheim, from which we made the ascent, is one of the most
delightful of Norwegian stations, where, at that time at all events,
Norwegian life could be seen in all its native simplicity, little if
at all spoiled by any contact with the outer world. R^dsheim, —
in Norway as in Scotland the proprietor is often known by the
name of his farm or estate, — found us a guide in Knut Volo, the
village shoemaker. We were in no way equipped for an alpine
climb, but Volo, after inspecting our boots professionally, and
strengthening them with some nails, undertook to go up the
mountain with us. The greater part of the ascent consisted of
a long walk, which presented no kind of difficulty until we came
to the great glacier which had several ugly crevasses to be crossed.
The upper part of the mountain was covered with a sheet of
frozen snow, over which we had to cut every step we took. We
astonished our guide by bathing in a small tarn high up on the
mountain. Large masses of ice were floating about in the water,
which was of course bitterly cold. Volo evidently thought we
were stark mad, the feeling which I am afraid our doings and
the doings of many other Englishmen abroad often arouse in the
foreigner. It was a foolish proceeding, and had we not been in
first rate physical condition at the time might have cost us dear.

On emerging from the Jotunheim, we crossed into Gudbrandsdal,
and from Domaas made the ascent of Snehaetta, the second
highest mountain in the Dovrefjeld. This was one of the least

AT THE UNIVERSITY 61

interesting of our excursions, nothing but a long 14 hours' tramp
over moor and barren hill side, and I only mention it as another
illustration of Ramsay's powers of endurance in the seventies.
We next descended the Romsdal, and after a day or two spent
at Molde went on to Throndhjem, from which we returned by
rail to Christiania.

At Christiania we again met Holland, who showed us over the
city and initiated us into the mysteries of Scandinavian politics.
We learned then for the first time of the cleavage between Swedes
and Norwegians. We had met few Swedes in the course of our
trip and had often been struck by this. Even then the movement
which subsequently led to the separation of the two countries
was in progress. The Norwegian flag, in which the Swedish
colours were quartered with those of Norway, was always referred
to as the ' dirty ' flag and we were assured that the Norwegian
people would never rest satisfied tttl it was cleansed — an aspira-
tion which was satisfied sure enough but not till many years
afterwards. Holland himself was closely identified with the
young Norway party and introduced us to several of the nota-
bilities in politics and literature at the University club.

We left Norway after a six weeks' tour with the pleasantest
memories of the country and its people. We both returned
repeatedly but never again in company. Our passage back was
very rough. R-amsay was a good sailor and I a bad one, but I
think that was the only advantage he had over me as a traveller.

After Ramsay's removal to Bristol he continued to visit
Glasgow periodically so long as his father and mother were alive,
but of course I saw much less of him than formerly, and although
we continued to correspond, I have little to tell regarding the
period after 1880."

It has not been thought advisable to interrupt the
interesting story told by Sir James Dobbie, but one or
two incidents not referred to in these notes are recalled

62 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

by letters which have been preserved, some addressed to
his parents and some by the same friend. In 1876 the
British Association met in Glasgow, and Ramsay's name
appears for the first time in the list as an annual sub-
scriber, but no communication from him is recorded.
The following year he attended a meeting of the Associ-
ation Frangaise pour PAvaneement des Sciences at
Havre. The following letter to his friend Dobbie gives
an account of his doings :

"LE HAVRE,
Monday, the Something or other August, 1877.

MY DEAR DOBBIE,

Some fool of a Frenchman has stolen all the paper
belonging to the French Association, and has left only this half
sheet with Le Havre at the top. From the preceding sentence
you will have already guessed that the French Ass. is capering
around Havre at present, that I form one of the distinguished
foreign members, and that all is going as merrily as a marriage
bell. Voici 5 jours that I find myself here. I went to Paris
with three spirits more wicked than myself, lawyers — a fearful
compound 3 lawyers l and a chemist, — just like NC13 for all the
world, liable to explode at any moment. Their names were
Mr. Smith from London and two others with less aristocratic
designations. I shall sum up all our exploits shortly thus —
Sleep, grub and amusement, — such was the programme. I
called on Wurtz, Schutzenberger, Silva and others and heard
that there would be no chance of my doing anything in Paris,
and that all the chemists would be absent at Havre. So as I
was a fortnight too soon I accompanied my friends to Havre,

1 These were H. B. Fyfe, Guthrie Smith and Charles MacLean. See-
Mr. Fyfe's notes, Chapter 1. p. 22.

AT THE UNIVERSITY 6»

secured rooms, took a walking tour in Normandy and Brittany
for a fortnight, and behold me at length here since last Wednesday r
taking part in the Ass.

It is the best thing I could have done, for I have made the
acquaintance with a whole lot of chemists, Dutch and French,
and have found an old Dutchman named Gunning ravished to
find someone who shares his ideas about matter, chemical com-
bination, etc. We excurted together yesterday the whole day
and talked French and German alternately all the time. When
we wanted to be particularly distinct precise French was all the
go. For energy and strong denunciation German came of use.
You can't say ' Potz-teufel ! ' in French or ' Donnerwetter
potztausend Sacramento ! '

An old cove, also a Dutchman, De Vrij, with bowly legs and a
visage like this [sketch profile] is also a very nice old boy. The
nose is the chief feature of resemblance in the annexed repre-
sentation. Wurtz and Schiitzenberger are both Alsatians and
of course are much more gemuthlich than the echter Franzose,
but on the whole the fellows I have got to know are very pleasant.
Some of the younger lot and I kneipe every evening. Then we
bathe every day too in fine stormy water.

Eh bien, what is there to say of more ? I am going straight
back to Glasgow on Wednesday by the special steamer to Glasgow.
My money is about done, so I must bolt. I have done with
holidays this year and am as a giant awakened. Do come back
before the session commences, and let us get some work done.
By the way I forgot to tell you that I had the cheek to read a
communication on picoline, in French, which was received with
loud applause. There were some remarks made afterwards very
favorable, tho' I say it as shouldn't say it. Adoo. Write to-
Glasgow and tell me Wie's geht.

Yours very sincerely,

W. RAMSAY."

€4 SIE WILLIAM RAMSAY

The next year he attended the British Association
meeting in Dublin and communicated two papers, " A
Summary of Investigations on the Pyridine Series " and
on " Some of the Derivatives of Furfurol," beside
showing Victor Meyer's apparatus for taking vapour
densities of substances with high boiling points.

In a letter to his friend Dobbie he remarks : " By
the way the British Ass. is going to Bray this
year."

This letter was written from Wales, where apparently
he had been staying with his uncle's family, " dolce-
farnienteing in a delightful manner. Lawn-tennis, bath-
ing, mild (and harmless) spooning, hill-climbing, etc.
(Etc. being all the other vices practised at a place border-
ing on hills and sea), have been the sole aim and object
of existence since I came to Wales."

In 1879 the promotion for which he had so long been
hoping came at last. He was appointed Professor in
University College, Bristol, and took up his new work
early in the new year. The following extract from a
letter speaks for itself :

" UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL.

12th March, 1880.
MY DEAR DOBBIE,

This letter must be written en Jingle. Arrived
safe — Monday night — fair lodgings — change with Marsden when
he goes next Monday — like the place — Lab. in confusion but
good — Fifteen students in Lab. 40 at lectures — Nicol lecturing
till end of term — Marsden nice fellow — going to Germany at

AT THE UNIVEKSITY 65

It is interesting to note that the last meeting he ever
attended was also at Havre in August 1914, which broke
up disastrously at the outbreak of war. A letter de-
scribing what happened on that occasion will be found
on a later page.

CHAPTER III

THE BRISTOL PERIOD

THE years following 1870 saw the beginning of that
great national movement which has resulted in planting
new universities and colleges connected with universities
over the United Kingdom. Up to that time institutions
which gave higher education and instruction corre-
sponding to that which was provided by the ancient
universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland were only
to be found in Manchester and London. In the former
city the college which bears his name was founded by
John Owens in 1851. In London there were three
colleges, namely University College (the original Uni-
versity of London) founded in 1826, King's College
founded in 1829, and Bedford College for Women
founded in 1849. For nearly twenty years these in-
stitutions struggled, with somewhat indifferent success,
against mid- Victorian prejudice and nervousness, as
indicated by the sensation produced by the publication
of Essays and Reviews and the storm aroused by Darwin's
Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. But in 1871
the first step toward a new state of things was repre-

66

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 67

sented by the foundation of the Armstrong College at
Newcastle-on-Tyne. This was quickly followed by the
establishment of the University College of Wales at
Aberystwyth in 1872 and the Yorkshire College at
Leeds in 1874. On the llth June, 1874, a public
meeting was held in the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, Bristol,
with the object of promoting the establishment of a
college of science and literature for the West of England
and South Wales. The movement thus initiated was
supported by the influence and financial aid of the two
great Oxford colleges, Balliol and New College. Among
its most ardent promoters were the Master of Balliol
(the Rev. Dr. Jowett), the Headmaster of Clifton Col-
lege (the Rev. Dr. Percival, afterwards Bishop of Here-
ford), Mr. Lewis Fry, M.P., and Mr. Albert Fry, who
afterwards became the very active Chairman of Council,
together with several other Bristol citizens, among whom
may be mentioned William Killigrew Wait, who became
Vice-Chairman, and William Proctor Baker, who acted
as Treasurer. A second meeting was held the following
year, on the occasion of the meeting of the British
Association in Bristol, and in 1876 the College was
opened. The premises first occupied were situated in
Park Row, near the top of Park Street, and consisted of
a very old and dilapidated house where the classes
were carried on and a chemical laboratory fitted up
while the permanent buildings were in process of erection.
The first Professor of Chemistry was Dr. E. A. Letts,
who left at the end of 1879 on being appointed to the

68 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Chair of Chemistry at Belfast, then vacated by Dr.
Thomas Andrews, P.R.S. Ramsay had also been a
candidate for this post, but luckily for Bristol he was
not selected, and in February 1880 he was chosen to
succeed Letts. Conditions in reference to teaching
appointments have been ameliorated since that day.
but it is interesting to place on record the stipend and
duties of a professor of chemistry in a university college
forty years ago :

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL.
CHAIR OF CHEMISTEY.

The Stipend will be £300 per annum, with two-thirds of
Lecture fees and one-third of Laboratory fees. The Council
guarantee a minimum emolument of £400 per annum.

The Laboratory expenses will be borne entirely by the College.
The Laboratory student's fee will be £18 18s. Od. per session
(with reductions for shorter periods).

The session will commence at the end of the first week in
October, and continue until the end of June. (In after years
the Professor may be required to give instruction in Practical
Chemistry during July to medical students.)

The Professor will be required to give three lectures per week
for the first two terms, say 60 lectures, together with class in-
struction in connection therewith (student's fee for this course,
£3 3s. Od.), and a short course of lectures in the third term.
He will also be required to superintend the Laboratory during
the whole session, and to give evening lectures once a week
during the first two terms, together with class instruction in
connection therewith (Evening-Class fee, 10s.).

A competent assistant will be provided.

The scheme of the College contemplates the possibility of

THE BKISTOL PERIOD 69

occasional lectures being delivered in neighbouring towns by
the Professor or his Assistant.

In connection with the Cloth-working Industry, special in-
struction in dyeing, etc., may be required under an arrangement
not yet concluded with the Worshipful the Cloth-workers' Com-
pany of London.

It will be observed that no mention is made of research,
and the number of lectures is somewhat indefinite,
though appreciably less than the number introduced
into the programme of other colleges established about
this time.

The state of things at Bristol is illustrated by the
following extracts from a letter of Ramsay's, dated
4th March, 1881 :

" I have been very hard worked and am still. The beastly
Trowbridge lectures take it out of one so much, both in the loss
of a whole day, as well as in preparation. I haven't done a
stroke of original work this term, for all my time has been absorbed
in learning how to dye. . . . Otherwise I have eight lectures a
week, which means a lot of time. I long for summer with three
lectures a week and nothing else but laboratory. . . . Otherwise
things here are very quiet. I have no time to go out to dinner,
etc., and have consistently refused. All I keep up is the singing
club on alternate Fridays, but that even I have missed for the
last two meetings. I'm going to-night."

The first Principal of the College was Alfred Marshall,
afterwards Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge.
He resigned in 1881, and in September of that year
Ramsay was appointed Principal in his place.

The following letter from Professor Marshall to

70 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Lady Ramsay on 24th July, 1916, explains the cir-
cumstances :

"You will be overwhelmed with letters from far and near,
which speak with better knowledge than mine of the terrible
loss that has befallen the world's science : my only claim to
speak of him is that he rendered me the greatest of all services.
In the autumn of 1880 I was rapidly dwindling. I knew that
each month of my stay at Bristol materially lessened my chance
of living to do any considerable part of the work on which I had
set my heart. The Council of University College, Bristol, de-
clared that the condition of their finances prohibited their adver-
tising for a new Principal. The new Professor of Chemistry
began his work in late September, by the middle of November
I knew I was free. For a true strong MAN had come to the
College, and young as he was I knew that the destinies of the
College were safe in his hands. They turned out to be much
more than safe."

The following extract from a letter sent by the Council
of the College to Professor Ramsay, 28th September,
1881, shows the conditions of the appointment :

" That Professor Ramsay be appointed Principal of the College,
and that he receive as Principal, in addition to his present remun-
eration as Professor, one-eighth of all the fees, other than entrance
fees, with a guarantee that his share of such fees shall not be
less than Two Hundred and Fifty Pounds per annum (£250),
and that the engagement be terminable by either party on three
months' written notice."

To a young man under thirty years of age, and just
married, the temptation of a substantial increase of
income was no doubt irresistible. But it can easily
be understood that the additional burden of duties

PROFESSOR RAMSAY IN 1881.

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 71

might reasonably be expected to curtail seriously the
time available for study and the continuance of experi-
mental research. This, however, does not seem to
have interrupted the output of results from Ramsay's
laboratory, for in the years 1881 and 1882 five papers
were communicated to the Chemical Society, one being
the joint production of the Professor and the Demon-
strator David Orme Masson, who later became Professor
of Chemistry in the University of Melbourne.

Ramsay was fortunate in having a succession of able
assistants in the teaching work. Masson left the College
in 1881 and was succeeded by Dr. Adrian Blaikie (who
died a few years after leaving Bristol in 1882), and for
a very short time Mr. W. L. Goodwin occupied the post.
He was succeeded by Dr. Sydney Young in 1882, who
remained in association with Ramsay till the departure
of the latter five years later for University College,
London. Young was then appointed to the vacant
chair. When Dr. Young went to Bristol in 1882 he
found Ramsay engaged in two investigations : the first
on the specific volumes of liquids at their boiling points,
and the second the determination of the vapour pres-
sures and critical constants of benzene and ether.

The supposed phenomenon of " hot ice " had also
just previously occupied a good deal of attention, and
in the investigation of all these subjects Ramsay invited
Young to join him. The result was a series of papers
on the thermal properties of solids and liquids and on
the relation of evaporation to dissociation, which extended

72 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

over and beyond the whole of the five years in which
the authors were associated together. This period is so
full of scientific interest that Professor Young, at the
request of the writer, has been good enough to prepare
a resume of the whole of the results of their joint work,
and has added a complete list of the papers in which it
originally appeared. The list of papers will be found at
the end of the chapter.
Professor Young's notes are as follows :

" I was one of the Secretaries of the Owens College Students
Chemical Society at the time of the discovery by Carnelley that
ice, when heated under very low pressures, cannot be melted.
This discovery aroused great interest, and Sir Henry Boscoe
asked me to show the experiment to the Chemical Society. On
considering the matter I came to the conclusion that the volati-
lising point of ice, like the boiling point of water, probably depends
on the pressure. If Carnelley's opinion that the temperature of
ice rises above 0° C. (strictly speaking 0*007°) was incorrect, it
would probably be found that the vapour pressure curve for ice
is identical with the volatilising point curve, just as the vapour
pressure curve for water is identical with the boiling point curve.
If, on the other hand, the ice really becomes hot, there must be
a new curve, as yet undetermined. I gave this explanation
when showing the experiment at the meeting of the Chemical
Society, and it was at once accepted by Bohuslav Brauner, then
a Fellow of Owens College (now Professor at Prag), who advised
me to publish the paper at once. Sir Henry Roscoe, however,
was less confident and dissuaded me from sending in the paper.
Afterwards there was much discussion in Nature and other
journals, and after Pettersson had given a somewhat similar but
partly incorrect explanation, I wrote a letter to Nature stating
the facts and giving my explanation. [Nature, 24, 239 (1881).]

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 73

I then spent a year at the Strassburg University and, while
there, took lessons in glass-blowing from a professional glass-
blower. In Bristol, after making a Wollaston's cryophorus for
my evening lectures, it occurred to me that by altering the size
of one bulb and fusing in a glass rod ending below in a knob about
the centre of the smaller bulb, one might get a block of ice sus-
pended in this bulb and Carnelley's experiment might be much
more easily carried out than by his rather cumbrous method.

The result was quite satisfactory and I showed the experiment
to the Owens College Chemical Society, and described the
apparatus in the Chemical News, 47, 104 (1883), mentioning at
the same time that Prof. Ramsay and I proposed to investigate
the question of the temperature of the ice by inserting a thermo-
meter in each bulb. The thermometer in each case was passed
through a tube of suitable size, a wired indiarubber tube serving
to keep the thermometer in position and to make the cryophorus
airtight. With this apparatus we were able to prove that the
ice does not become hot even when the temperature to which
it is subjected is very high, and also that the temperature of the
ice falls when the pressure is lowered by cooling the larger bulb
by means of a freezing mixture. A fair estimate of the pressure
was afforded by the temperature in the interior of the cooled
bulb, knowing the vapour pressures of ice. A narrow side hole,
provided with an indiarubber tube and a screw-clip, was added,
and through this air could be admitted so as to raise the pressure
very slightly.

The results obtained were very encouraging, and the next step
was to make direct measurements of pressure by connecting
the cryophorus with an air-pump and manometer ; and it after-
wards occurred to us that the method might be used for liquids
by covering the bulb of the thermometer with cotton-wool and
admitting fresh liquid, as required, to moisten the cotton-wool
by means of a vertical tube provided above with a stopcock (or
indiarubber tube and clip) and reservoir, and drawn out sideways

74 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

at the bottom into a jet impinging on the thermometer just
above the wool. We found that this worked very well, and that
in the case of water, benzene, etc., the liquid on the cotton- wool
could be frozen, so that both boiling points and volatilising points
could be determined with the same apparatus. [Phil. Trans.
175, 37 (1884).]

In the case of water we used an apparatus with two vertical
tubes provided with thermometers, etc., so that we could have
ice on one thermometer and supercooled water on the other,
the pressure being necessarily the same in both cases. We were
thus enabled to verify Prof. James Thomson's theory of the
vapour pressures of solid and liquid in the case of water, ben-
zene, acetic acid and camphor. But to make the proof complete,
it was advisable to ascertain definitely whether the statical
(barometer tube) and dynamical (boiling or volatilising point)
methods gave the same results. Accordingly determinations of
vapour pressure were made with a barometer tube of a form
specially adapted for the complete removal of air either dissolved
in the liquid or adhering to the walls of the barometer tube.
[Phil Trans. 175, 461 (1884), also Phil. Mag. 23, 61 (1887).]

The barometer tube was heated by the vapour of a pure liquid
boiling under known reduced pressures. From these pressures
the temperatures were ascertained from tables of vapour pressure
previously compiled.

In order to have at our disposal a wide range of temperature,
we required to know the vapour pressures of a series of stable
liquids, easily obtainable in a pure state. The substances we
adopted were carbon bisulphide, ethyl alcohol, chlorobenzene,
bromobenzene, aniline, methyl salicylate, bromonaphthalene
and mercury. [Trans. Chem. Soc. 47, 640 (1885).] Regnault
had already determined the vapour pressures of carbon
bisulphide, ethyl alcohol and mercury, and we accepted his
values, though it was found subsequently that considerable
corrections were required in the case of mercury. We had to

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 75

determine the vapour pressures of the other substances ourselves,
and for this purpose we employed our new method already
described [see also Trans. Chem. Soc. 47, 42 (1885)], and we also
made a few determinations with an air thermometer to obtain
fixed air-temperature points on our scale.

The pressures were plotted in each case against the temperature
and were then read off for each degree over rather a wider range
than that actually required. I undertook to smooth these pres-
sures by the method of differences, and in doing this I noticed :

(1) That in the case of chlorobenzene and bromobenzene the

value of -JT-. T at any given pressure was the same for both
substances, and that with the other substances, excepting per-
haps ethyl alcohol, the values of -J* • T at any given pressure

showed only moderate differences. I found also that the relative
values were about the same whatever the pressure chosen.

(2) The ratio of the absolute temperature of bromobenzene
to that of chlorobenzene was the same at all pressures, taking
always the same pressure for both substances, and I found after-
wards that this is the case also for other pairs of chemically
closely related substances; or R'=R, where R' is the ratio of
the absolute temperatures at a pressure p' and R is the ratio at
a pressure p.

I had at this time secured a copy of Regnault's complete
researches, and I made a thorough study of his determinations
of vapour pressure and thus obtained confirmation of the above
generalisations. In a joint paper, read before the British Associ-
ation in 1885 at Aberdeen, Eamsay gave an account of the closely

allied generalisation, = constant (approximate) at the same

vi~vz

pressure, and I described the above generalisations (1) and (2).

For less closely related substances the simple relation R' =R
does not usually hold, but I found the equation R' =R + c (tr - 1)

76 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

to hold accurately, where c is a very small constant, and tr and t
are the temperatures of one of the two substances at the two
pressures p' and p.

The first generalisation is closely connected with the formula
of Clausius and Clapeyron,

L =dp_T

v: - v2 dt J '

Ramsay had previously studied the first term of the formula,
— - — > chiefly at atmospheric pressure, and had communicated
his results to the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society
of Glasgow in 1877, but the generalisation in the form — ^~

= constant at atmospheric pressure for different substances was
first actually published by Trouton [Phil. Mag. 18, 54 (1884)],
and is known as Trout on' s law.

Finally these and another allied generalisation were published
by us in a series of five papers termed ' Some Thermodynamical
Relations/ Pts. I. to V., Phil Mag. 20, 515 (1885) ; 21, 33
and 135, 22 ; 32 and 37 (1886).

I found that Regnault's vapour pressures of mercury below
the boiling point, when compared with those of one of the other
substances, gave results which did not agree with the formula
R'=R+ c(tf -t), and on reading all his papers bearing on this
subject I found that Regnault at an early date had made rough
determinations of the vapour pressures of mercury below the
boiling point and that, at a considerably later date, when he made
his complete investigation over a wide range of temperature, he
evidently forgot that his early experiments made no claim to
great accuracy, and he adopted them without further verification.
We therefore found it necessary to redetermine these vapour
pressures, and we carried out experiments with special apparatus
between 220° and the boiling point of sulphur. We employed
the equation R'=R -fc(£'-t), taking water as the standard

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 77

substance, for interpolation and for extrapolation below 220°,
and we found that below this temperature Regnault's pressures
were much too high and that the formula R' =R +c(t' -t) was
applicable to our results between 220° and 440°, though not to
Regnault's. [Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 37 (1886).]

The two generalisations were found not to be applicable, as
a rule, to dissociating substances, nor, for a very wide range of
pressure, to compounds containing a hydroxyl group, such as
water, the alcohols and the fatty acids. For moderate ranges
of pressure, however, the deviations are hardly noticeable in the
case of the hydroxyl compounds, so that no serious harm has been
done by choosing water as the standard substance.

Landolt's vapour pressures of the lower fatty acids were also
found to be inaccurate by means of the same formula and Dr.
Arthur Richardson afterwards redetermined these pressures in
the Bristol laboratory.

I may mention that Regnault's boiling point of sulphur was
subsequently found by Callendar and Griffiths to be too high,
and the vapour pressures of mercury had therefore to be again
corrected. [Young, Trans. Chem. Soc. 59, 629 (1891).] Ramsay
accepted my recalculations.

Our investigations of the vapour pressures and volatilising
and boiling points of solids and liquids were extended to dis-
sociating substances [' Evaporation and Dissociation/ Pt. I.,
Phil. Trans. 177, 71 (1886)], of which we examined a considerable
number — chloral hydrate, butyl-chloral hydrate, chloral methyl-
alcoholate chloral ethyl-alcoholate, ammonium carbamate, am-
monium chloride, phthalic acid, succinic acid, aldehyde ammonia
and nitrogen peroxide. A special form of apparatus was required
for nitrogen peroxide on account of its action on mercury, and a
special method of calculation for ammonium chloride which acts
on mercury at high temperatures. Vapour density determina-
tions were also carried out.

In the case of nitrogen peroxide and ammonium chloride —

78 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

and also acetic acid — the curves were of the usual form and the
statical and dynamical methods gave the same (or with ammon-
ium chloride nearly the same) results. With aldehyde ammonia
both curves were of the usual form, but were quite distinct, the
temperatures being much higher on the volatilising point
curve. For the other substances the volatilising point curves
and in some cases the vapour pressure curves were quite
different in form, in fact with the chloral compounds and am-
monium carbamate there was no simple relation between volati-
lising point and pressure. A possible explanation of the peculiar
form of some of the vapour pressure curves was given, and it
was pointed out that the dissociating substances might be divided
into two classes : (a) that including such substances as chloral
hydrate, in which there is deep-seated chemical change on dis-
sociation, and (b) that including nitrogen peroxide and acetic
acid and, possibly, ammonium chloride, in which the chemical
change is much simpler

Our researches on vapour pressures, volatilising points and
boiling points included also an investigation of bromine, iodine
and iodine monochloride. [Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 453 (1886).]

A separate paper [Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 685 (1886)] contained
an account of determinations of the vapour densities of chloral
ethyl-alcoholate at a series of temperatures and pressures. For
this purpose a Hofmann's apparatus was modified in such a
manner that pressure, volume and temperature could all be
altered at will. The apparatus is described in the Phil. Trans.
178, 57 (1887). We were also led into a controversy with Kahl-
baum, who contended that the statical and dynamical methods
of determining vapour pressure gave different results. [Berichte,
1885, 2855 ; 1886, 69 and 2107.]

Ramsay had already made determinations of the vapour
pressures, specific volumes and critical constants of benzene
and ether, a copper block being used for heating the substance.
[Proc. Roy. Soc. 31, 194 (1880).] Ramsay arrived at the con-

THE BKISTOL PEKIOD 79

elusion that the molecules of a liquid are more complex than
those of the same substance in the gaseous state, and that even
above the critical temperature there is a mixture of the two
kinds of molecules. The method of heating must, however,
have been unsatisfactory, for the observed critical temperature
and pressure of benzene were far too high. (Observed 291*7° C. ;
60*3 to 60'5 atm., instead of 288'5°C., and 47 '9 atm.) The
pressure does not appear to have been corrected for the deviation
of air (in the manometer) from Boyle's law, but even when this
correction is introduced the critical pressure is only lowered to
59 '2 to 59*4 atm, (It is possible, of course, that the benzene
contained some more volatile impurity which would raise the
critical pressure.)

Ramsay invited me to join him in a continuation of these
researches. He had employed a vapour bath in his work on
specific volumes, the liquid in a small bulb being heated by the
vapour of the same substance, boiling under atmospheric pressure.
The method of heating in a vapour bath was found to be very
satisfactory and was evidently capable of wide application. We
decided to adopt it, making use of a series of pure liquids, as
already mentioned, and altering the pressure, as required, to
give a range of temperature for each substance. The experi-
mental tube could now be placed in a vertical position and the
reading of volume was thereby rendered easier and more accurate.
The method of filling the experimental tube with liquid in such a
manner as to expel the last traces of air was also improved, and
curves were drawn from Amagat's data for the correction of
pressure for the deviation of air from Boyle's law.

It was perhaps unfortunate that, with the exception of ether,
the substances we selected for investigation were hydroxyl
compounds — alcohols, acetic acid and, later, water — for these
substances are now known to behave abnormally in many respects.
Still, the comparison of their properties with those of a large
number of normal substances which I afterwards examined has

80 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

led to interesting conclusions, and even at that time the results
with acetic acid proved to be of considerable interest, especially
as a comparison with the data obtained by Natanson with nitro-
gen peroxide was possible. These two substances, acetic acid and
nitrogen peroxide, .were found to behave so similarly as regards
their vapour densities and, as our own results showed, as regards
their vapour pressures and boiling points, that we felt entitled
to conclude that the kind of dissociation they undergo must be
very similar.

The liquids investigated were methyl, ethyl and propyl alcohol,
ether, acetic acid and water. The experimental work was carried
out conjointly in Bristol in the case of methyl and ethyl alcohol,
ether and acetic acid. The work on propyl alcohol had just
been started when Ramsay was appointed Professor of Chemistry
at University College, London, and I did the greater part of this
work afterwards by myself in Bristol. I also carried out a
number of experiments on the mixture of propyl alcohol and
water of constant boiling point. The experiments with water
were carried out by Ramsay in London, with the exception of
those on the vapour densities under low pressures with the
modified Hofmann's apparatus, which I made in Bristol.

I may mention in passing that the experiments with propyl
alcohol and water led us to the conclusion that the so-called
" hydrate of propyl alcohol," described by Chancel, has no
existence, and we read a paper on the subject before the Chemical
Society in London. Our conclusions, however, were received
with scepticism, and the paper was not published in the Trans-
actions (Proc. Chem. Soc. 1888). Nine years later Thorpe (Trans.
Chem. Soc. 71, 920) brought forward evidence against the existence
of any of the four ' hydrates of isopropyl alcohol,' described by
different observers. Finally, in 1902, a careful study of mixtures
of the lower alcohols with water was carried out by Miss E. 0.
Fortey and myself, and our results, taken in conjunction with
those of Konowalow, afford strong evidence that no hydrate of

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 81

any alcohol is formed, at any rate at temperatures above 0° C.,
and in the case of normal propyl alcohol even at - 40°.

The most important results were those with ether, and with
this substance, as also with acetic acid and some of the others,
Ramsay and I made a large series of vapour density determina-
tions under low pressures with the modified Hofmann's apparatus,
to which reference has already been made. The experimental
data for ether were published in the Trans. Roy. Soc. 178, 57
(1887), and the conclusions derived from the investigations as a
whole were given in a series of papers :

1. In a letter to the Phil. Mag., June 1887, also Phil. Mag.
23, 129 (1887), we stated our belief that there is normally no
distinction, as regards molecular aggregation, between liquid and
vapour either above or below the critical temperature. Ramsay's
original views on this matter, recently restated by Wroblewski,
were thus abandoned, and we found no reason afterwards to
change our opinion. [Acetic acid and dissociating substances
generally are, of course, exceptional in this respect.]

2. Phil. Mag. 23, 435 ; 24, 196 (1887) ; also Proc. Roy. Soc.
42, 3 (1887). In these papers we announced the discovery that
at constant volume the relation between pressure and tempera-
ture in the case of ether, both as gas and liquid, is expressed by
the simple formula, p=bT-a, where b and a are constants,
depending on the volume. We gave the values of b and a for
a large number of volumes. We also showed that the data
obtained by Andrews for carbon dioxide are in agreement with
this formula. Barus had independently come to the same
conclusion as far as liquids are concerned.

I afterwards found that for iso- and normal pentane the
formula is very nearly but not quite true, except at very large
volumes and at or near the critical volume.

We also drew the theoretical portions of the isotherms in the
region where liquid and vapour ordinarily coexist. We showed
how the vapour pressure of a substance (liquid and vapour

82 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

coexistent) could be ascertained from the theoretical isotherm
(continuous passage from liquid to vapour), and we found that,
near the critical temperature at any rate, the theoretical values
for ether agreed remarkably well with those observed.

Finally, a comparison of the isochors for nitrogen peroxide
and acetic acid with those for ether indicated very clearly
the changes N204 ^ 2N02 and (C2H402)2 ^ 2C2H402.

The difference in behaviour between acetic acid and the other
substances was also clearly shown by the curves representing :

(a) The relation between the densities of saturated vapour and
the temperature (or pressure) ;

(b) The relation between the heats of vaporisation and the
temperature.

As regards the first relation, the density of the saturated vapour
of ether (taking the density of hydrogen as unity) diminishes
with fall of temperature until it becomes normal or very nearly
so. This is true also for the alcohols, but the density of the
saturated vapour of acetic acid reaches a minimum between 140°
and 150°, increasing again at lower temperatures ; it was
approaching the double value at the lowest temperature at
which observations were made.

The heats of vaporisation were calculated from the formula

T dm T

- =~r • -j- The values for ether, methyl alcohol and propyl

alcohol were found to increase with fall of temperature and
showed no sign of becoming constant. With acetic acid a maxi-
mum was reached at about 110°, the heats of vaporisation
falling steadily at lower temperatures. For ethyl alcohol no
maximum was observed, although from 20° to 0° the values
appear to remain practically constant.

The behaviour of acetic acid was explained by us by the fact
that there is molecular association both in the liquid state and
in that of vapour : the rapid increase in the density of saturated
vapour, due to association, at low temperatures accounts for the

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 83

fall in the heat of vaporisation. There is no indication of such
molecular association in the vapour of any of the alcohols. [Phil.
Mag. 23, 129 (1887).]

An investigation on similar lines of a mixture of ethyl alcohol
and ether led to results of some interest, but a method of bringing
about the thorough admixture of two liquids in a tube of narrow
bore by means of an electromagnetic stirrer was afterwards
devised by Kuenen, and his results are of far greater value and
importance."

In those days experimental scientific research received
practically no encouragement at the hands of governing
bodies. If a professor chose to engage in work of this
kind, it would be done almost surreptitiously in such
time as he could snatch from the lecturing and teaching
which formed the whole of the official duties connected
with his chair. The consequence of this state of opinion,
supported as it was by the utterances of public men
and the conservative attitude of the older British
universities, has been until quite recent years almost
total inactivity in regard to research and the higher
instruction which is dependent on research in the majority
of the universities and colleges in this country. Here
and there a man of genius has appeared endowed with
sufficient energy to enable him to push onward in spite
of such obstacles. Kamsay was one of these, and the
record of his work and example has contributed in no
small degree toward promoting the change in public
feeling in reference to research, which is now almost
feverishly manifested.

At Bristol in the early days of the College there were

84 SIK WILLIAM RAMSAY

but few advanced students capable of taking part in
research. Among these Miss K. I. Williams, whose
death took place in January 1917, deserves to be
mentioned. Ramsay suggested to her an investigation
into the composition of various foodstuffs, cooked and
uncooked, and this enquiry occupied her continued
attention till the close of her life thirty-five years later.
Her results have been collected into the form of a book,
which it is expected will be published very soon.
James Tudor Cundall, Colonel H. C. Reynolds, R.E.,
and Franklin P. Evans also worked at research under
Ramsay's direction.

The establishment of the University College brought
in the persons of the professors a very welcome accession
to the intellectual society of Clifton. Among Ramsay's
colleagues were several men who afterwards reached
great eminence in their several departments of science.
His own immediate colleague, the Lecturer in Chemistry
— Dr. Sydney Young — succeeded to the chair when he
went to London and afterwards became Professor in the
University of Dublin. The Professor of Physics was
Silvanus P. Thompson whose fame as a popular lecturer
rivalled that of Tyndall at the Royal Institution. A
few years later he became Principal and Professor at
the City and Guilds of London Technical College,
Finsbury. Then there was W. J. Sollas as Professor
of Geology and Zoology, now Professor of Geology
in the University of Oxford. Engineering was repre-
sented by H. S. Hele Shaw, who subsequently occupied

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 85

a chair in the Liverpool University and served for
some time as Principal of the University College in
the Transvaal.

Among the professors on the Arts side were Reginald
Fanshaw from New College, Oxford, and James Rowley,
Professor of Modern History and English Literature.

The Bristol Medical School of far older foundation,
though academically connected with the University
College, held for many years a position of finan-
cial independence. The names of Greig Smith and
Edward Long Fox may be mentioned as of more
than local reputation. Dr. John Beddoe, F.R.S., the
well-known anthropologist, was also resident in Clifton
at this time and is mentioned in several letters of
Ramsay's.

Throughout the early years of the new institution the
friendly intercourse which existed between the members
of the staff and the masters of Clifton College helped to
give unity of aim in the higher education of Bristol and
to keep touch with men from the older universities.
Opportunities of close acquaintance with such men as
T. E. Brown, the poet, with Sidney Irwin, W. A. Shen-
stone, G. H. Wollaston and A. M. Worthington and
others were much appreciated by Ramsay1 and his small

1 A letter (dated 17th March, 1884) of Ramsay's to his friend Bobbie
contains the following passage referring to Worthington : "I sincerely
hope that Worthington will be appointed. You will like each other
very much. W. is a remarkably nice fellow — in fact an Israelite without
guile — as all round as you could wish and really a distinguished physicist
in his own line — capillary attraction. His papers have drawn a great
deal of attraction — not capillary — at the R.S. and he is bringing out a

86 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

staff. Through the members of the College Council also
the advantage of intercourse with some of the leading
men of business in Bristol was secured to the professorial
staff. The great majority of the leading citizens had
their residences on the high ground of Clifton and the
neighbourhood of the Downs, and thus the best elements
in the society of the place were brought by the physical
circumstances of the locality near together. The social
charm of Kamsay and his wife helped not a little to
increase the friendliness pervading the place. A little
Browning Society, which had been started by some of
the masters at Clifton, afforded opportunities for meeting
them and joining them in grappling with the obscurities
of Paracelsus and Sordello. Longer lived and possessed
of greater vitality was the Scientific Club, which arose
out of a previously existing Society meeting at the
Museum. Kamsay and Shenstone were the chief pro-
moters of the Club, which met four or five times in
the session, and after an informal dinner some member
would speak rather than read a paper on any subject
which he had made his own. One of these communica-
tions from Ramsay was probably the paper " On Smell "
printed in Nature for 1882. The Bristol Society of
Naturalists, of which Ramsay was at one time President,

book on the subject. He is one of my chums here, and I shall be very
sorry if he goes. He is at present at Clifton College."

This appears to refer to the Professorship of Physics at Bangor University
College, for which, however, Worthington was not chosen. In 1887 he was
appointed Professor in the Dockyard School, Portsmouth, and afterwards
transferred to the Royal Naval Engineering College, Devonport and
Greenwich. He died at the end of 1916.

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 87

was the recipient of another paper of his " On Brownian
or Pedetic Motion," a subject on which ten years later
he communicated his more mature views to the Chemical
Society (Clem. Soc. Proc. 1892, p. 17).

Many years later, on the twenty-first anniversary of the
foundation of the Club, Ramsay was present as a guest
and spoke pleasantly and brightly of episodes in its
early days. With that kindly twinkle of the eye which
with him so often heralded some whimsical touch or
paradox, he attributed such success as he had achieved
to the great advantage of a bad memory for anything
merely read or heard of, and the necessity, in his case,
of actual contact with experimental evidence as the
window through which the truths of science could alone
be perceived. We have the testimony of one who was
present on this and other occasions how cordially those
who had known him as Principal of University College
welcomed him back to Bristol, and a few years later
how pleasant it was to join in the ovation given him
when he received the Honorary Doctorate of the Uni-
versity, which in large measure owes its existence to
what he had done for education in Bristol a quarter of
a century before the Charter was granted.

In the early days of the College, writes Professor
Lloyd Morgan,

" degrees were only obtainable by sending our students to
London University or some other external examining body.
But what characterised much of the work of University College
was academic teaching on what I regard, I hope without undue

88 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

prejudice, as a remarkably high level specially adapted to those,
and there were many such at that time, who valued the teaching
for its own sake and quite independently of the hall-mark of a
degree. I have frequently had occasion to refer to the notes I
took of Professor Fanshawe's lectures on Spinoza, to a mere
handful of keenly interested students. I question whether a
better and more inspiring course of lectures on philosophy was
given in any class-room in the United Kingdom. One realised
in after-days in what high estimation such teaching was held
and how the University College had been regarded as a centre
of intellectual atmosphere, for example, if I may cite a case, by
the gifted ladies who wrote under the name of ' Michael Field.'
In a letter from Sidney Irwin of Clifton College he speaks of
Rowley's lectures as bearing the academic stamp of distinction.
In all departments such work was encouraged and enlisted
Ramsay's sympathy. * Remember/ he said to me when he was
called away to University College, London, ' we are working
for the future. We are now a University College, but some day
— I hope you may be here to see it — we shall have a University
in Bristol. To this end a high level is necessary all round, in
Arts no less than in Science/ It was partly through the spirit
Ramsay helped to infuse into his colleagues that the prosecution
of research was steadily encouraged."

Ramsay frequently visited London either for the pur-
pose of reading his papers before the Royal or the
Chemical Society or in connection with social gatherings.
On the 23rd of April, 1884, a dinner to Perkin, the dis-
coverer of the first " aniline dye," was given in London
under the chairmanship of Hofmann, who had come
over from Berlin for the occasion. Many distinguished
chemists were present, among them the famous Russian
Mendeleeff, of whom the following account by Ramsay,

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 89

in a letter to Dr. Blaikie, dated 4th May, 1884, is inter-
esting and characteristic of both :

" I was very early at the dinner and was putting off time,
looking at the names of people to be present, when a peculiar
foreigner, every hair of whose head acted in independence of
every other, came up bowing. I said, ' We are to have a good
attendance I think.' He said, ' I do not spik English.5 I said,
' Vielleicht sprechen Sie Deutsch ? ' He replied, ' Ja, ein wenig.
Ich bin Mendeleeff.' I did not say, ' Ich bin Ramsay,' but ' Ich
heisse Ramsay,' which was perhaps more modest. His method
reminded me of ' the only Jones.' Well, we had twenty minutes
or so before anyone else turned up and we talked our mutual
subject fairly out. He is a nice sort of fellow, but his German
is not perfect. He said he was raised in East Siberia and knew
no Russian even till he was 17 years old. I suppose he is a
Kalmuck, or one of these outlandish creatures."

The origin and early history of University College,
Bristol, and other provincial colleges was sketched very
briefly at the beginning of the chapter. In a very few
years from their foundation most of these colleges found
themselves involved more or less in financial difficulties.
Their very success was in many cases a source of embar-
rassment, for not only was it necessary to replace appar-
atus or fittings which had become obsolete and to provide
libraries, but the increased number of students rendered
necessary additional teaching assistance. Moreover,
colleges which were dependent partly on annual dona-
tions and subscriptions found that some of these were
apt to silently vanish away, and so for one reason or
another nearly all these colleges found themselves face

90 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

to face with an annual deficit. This was the case at
Bristol, and in the report of the Annual Meeting in
November 1884 the treasurer announced that there
was a balance on the wrong side of the account amounting
to about £500 and that there was a prospect of similar
deficiency in the following year. By the year 1885 the
Council found it necessary to retrench, and in view of
the difficulties Ramsay offered to allow a reduction in
his salary as Principal. In the report presented on
17th November, 1886, it was announced that " The
Council have had under consideration a proposal that
Government should be memorialised for aid to Metro-
politan and Provincial Colleges." The history of this
movement is given briefly in the following pages. The
course of events was followed by Professor Hicks, F.R.S.,
who, as the former Principal of Firth College, Sheffield,
and subsequently Vice-Chancellor of that University,
played a leading part in the work necessitated by an
appeal for governmental assistance. To him the writer
is indebted for many facts which were essential to a
continuous record of events.

In 1884 the British Association for the first time met
outside the British Isles. Among the party returning
from Montreal in the Peruvian were the late Professor
J. Viriamu Jones, Principal of University College,
Cardiff ; Professor W. Ramsay, Principal of University
College, Bristol ; and Professor W. M. Hicks, Principal
of Firth College, Sheffield. The Welsh colleges had
recently obtained grants from Parliament of £4000 a

THE BKISTOL PEKIOD 91

year each, and naturally the question of the financial
position of their colleges was a subject of frequent
discussion among the fellow-travellers on the Peruvian.
By the end of the voyage it had been determined to
bring the matter up at the first meeting of principals,
which then arranged should be held in Cambridge
during the ensuing Christmas vacation. In a letter to
his father, dated 4th January. 1885, Ramsay thus
described what took place :

" I was at Cambridge yesterday and attended a dinner of the
Principals of all colleges like ours. There were present (begin-
ning from north and coming gradually south) Peterson of
Dundee, Garnett of Newcastle, Kendall of Liverpool, Bodington
of Leeds, Hicks of Sheffield, Jones of Cardiff, and myself. We
had a very pleasant dinner and discussed common subjects with
great interest till a very late hour. They put us all up in St.
John's College. As I started the idea, they put me in the chair,
but it wasn't the least formal, but quite social. The men are
queerly divided, for three are professors of physics, two of classics,
and myself a chemist, besides one of philosophy. We talk of
having it yearly and I think it will be carried out."

The question of Government aid was duly brought up
but had a hike-warm reception from some of the chief
provincial colleges and the matter dropped, but at the
next meeting at Christmas, 1885, it was again discussed.
In view, however, of the fact that the members included
representatives from the three Welsh colleges who
already received grants, and that the three important
colleges at Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds held aloof,
it was determined by the remainder to call a meeting

92 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

of Principals of the English colleges especially for the
purpose of considering the whole matter. This meeting
was held on 10th April, 1886, at King's College, London.
It was a small gathering of five, — Wace (King's College),
Tilden (Birmingham), Kamsay (Bristol), Garnett (New-
castle) and Hicks (Sheffield). Dr. Wace was voted to
the chair. It was resolved " that it is desirable that
steps be taken to obtain from the national exchequer
such pecuniary assistance, particularly towards the en-
dowment of chairs and contributions towards scholar-
ships in the existing University Colleges of England as
is already enjoyed by similar institutions in other parts
of the United Kingdom."

The persons present then formed themselves into a
committee to obtain information regarding the finances,
staff and students of the various colleges and appointed
Professors Hicks and Ramsay to act as honorary
secretaries and conveners.

A second meeting was held on 17th June at King's
College with the scheduled information before it. The
practical outcome of this meeting was the drafting
of a letter to be sent to the Councils of all the
English colleges enquiring whether they would be
disposed to join in an application to the Govern-
ment for aid, and, if so, to appoint representatives
to attend a meeting in London about October, at
which the best means of bringing these views before
the Government might be considered and definite steps
agreed on.

THE BEISTOL PERIOD 93

In response to this circular representatives were
appointed from Birmingham, Bristol, University and
King's Colleges, London, Newcastle, Nottingham, Shef-
field and Southampton. Manchester, Liverpool and
Leeds sent no representatives, and in fact took no
part in the campaign until the end when victory was in
sight. The proposed meeting of representatives was
held on 6th November, 1886, again at King's College,
with Dr. Wace in the chair. As it was felt that a stronger
body of public opinion was required, the following
resolution was adopted :

"That it is desirable that public meetings be held at the
several local centres with a view to a subsequent public
meeting in London to be held during the next session of par-
liament in support of government assistance in aid of higher
education."

The meeting definitely requested the governing bodies
of the colleges taking part to engage in public action in
support of the general principle. But it took some
little time to organise and lay the train. A pamphlet
was drawn up setting forth the chief facts, the aims of
the colleges, their importance for the nation, the necessity
for public assistance and specially drawing attention to
the fact that while large grants were made to corre-
sponding institutions in Scotland, Ireland and Wales
not a single grant was given to the English colleges.
Kamsay arranged with Dr. Jowett of Balliol and Sir
Henry Roscoe to open the ball by letters to The Times
and with the Times to back up these letters by a

94 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

leader. On 13th February, 1887, Ramsay wrote to
his mother:

" We have been going on in our usual way, except for the
excitement which I have been undergoing in getting people to
promise to come to the meeting in favour of Govt. support,
which is to be held here on March 2d. I have written to Mun-
della asking him to come down. I have had a letter from him
saying he would do what he could to help us. He can do a great
deal. I am sending, with the appeal for state aid, an appeal to
the Bristolians to help the college, on the ground that if they
don't they won't see much of the Govt. grant when it comes.
God helps those who help themselves. I am going to Bath
to-morrow to get the Bath people to help us."

Everything being ready the campaign, was opened on
3rd March, 1887, by a long and convincing letter from
Dr. Jowett and a warmly supporting leader in The
Times. The London evening papers of the same day
joined in a favouring chorus, and next day the pro-
vincial papers spread the cry all over the country.

Roscoe's letter followed and Mundella asked Mr.
Goschen (Chancellor of the Exchequer) whether he
would assist in the introduction of a measure for granting
pecuniary aid to the English colleges. A beginning was
thus made and Mundella returned to the charge again
on April 19th. Meantime several meetings had been
held at Bristol on March 2nd, Southampton March 10th,
Sheffield April 12th, and Birmingham May 26th. At
Bristol Ramsay was of course present and gave an
account of what had been accomplished at the College,
the number of students and their subsequent careers.

THE BEISTOL PERIOD 95

But he was busy in other ways, as shown by the following
extract from a letter to his mother, dated 24th April,
1887:

" You evidently think that I have been lodging in a den of
bishops and such loose characters. Well, the actual fact is that
I was asked to give an address on help to Univ. Colleges from
Government at a meeting at Oxford last Thursday, to an assembly
for promoting University Extension Lectures ; — i.e. lectures in
all the bigger towns in England on History, Pol. Economy, etc.,
etc. So Jowett asked me to stay with him at Balliol on Wed-
nesday night and Thursday. So thither I went on Wednesday
and met — who do you think ? Terrible nobs. Imprimis, the
Marquis of E-ipon, who was late Viceroy of India, and who, I
daresay you remember, was objected to on the score of his being
a Roman Catholic. He is a pursy little man very badly dressed,
with a single eyeglass and a fussy manner ; none of the hauteur
of the ' ancienne noblesse ' about him, but very chatty and affable.
Next, the Lord Bishop of London, ' t Lond.' as he signs his name.1
He is rather a slow, black-a-vised man in apron and gaiters, but
bless you, I am so used to Bishops now that they swarm about
me that I pay no attention to their peculiar garb. The prelate's
wife is like Mrs. Dods and the Bishop not unlike Marcus,2 but
not so pleasant looking. Then, as if a Catholic peer and an Angli-
can Bishop were not hotch-potchy enough, we had a real Jew, a
Mr. Mocatta, who spoke feelingly of ' my people ' and their amis
and needs. Minor lights were a Durham Canon and Canoness
and a school inspector. My object, duty and pleasure was
to convince these people that immediate help was needed
for University Colleges, which I am glad to say I did. On

1 The Rev. Frederick Temple, previously headmaster of Rugby and
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

2 Minister in the Free Church of Scotland and afterwards Free Church
Professor of New Testament Theology, Edinburgh.

96 SIE WILLIAM EAMSAY

Wednesday eveg. we had an introductory meeting and on
Thursday the Conference took place, followed by a lunch. I
spoke at the Conference for about a quarter of an hour, I think
pretty decently."

At this time Ramsay was a candidate for the Chemistry
Chair at University College, London, about to become
vacant by reason of the retirement of Dr. Williamson.
To this post Ramsay was appointed at the end of May.
He did not, however, slacken his efforts in the cause of
the colleges, but rather took advantage of the more
frequent opportunities afforded by residence in London
of meeting members of parliament and other influential
people.

The meeting in Birmingham held on 26th May, 1887,
was presided over by the Mayor, Sir Thomas Martineau,
and there was a very large attendance. Professor
Tilden officiating as secretary read among many others
a letter from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain expressing very
deep sympathy with the movement. The first resolu-
tion was moved by the famous nonconformist minister,
the Rev. Dr. Dale, and seconded by Professor Tilden.
One point which was brought out in the speeches was
the fact that in consequence of the assistance given to
the Welsh colleges they were able to reduce their fees
to such a low figure that students from Birmingham were
attracted away from the college in their own town. It
was also shown that the annual deficit on the accounts
of the college amounted to about £1500, which included
about £500 paid in rates. The college at that time

THE BKISTOL PERIOD 97

received no assistance from the municipality, notwith-
standing the example of Nottingham, where the college
was locally aided from this source.

The letters, discussions and meetings had by this
time brought the university question fully to the notice
of the public. Consequently at a meeting of the repre-
sentatives on 21st May, held at King's College, it was
resolved (1) to ask Mr. Goschen to receive a deputation
and (2) to ask Sir John Lubbock l to move a resolution
in the House of Commons. The result was that Mr.
Goschen consented to receive a deputation on 30th June.
A very strong party of practically all the leading men
interested in education outside the Government was got
together, and constituted with the representatives of the
colleges " a very formidable body," as Mr. Goschen
said on receiving it. The deputation was introduced
by Sir John Lubbock and the chief speakers were Mr.
Chamberlain and Mr. Mundella, followed by Sir Lyon
Playfair, Sir Bernard Samuelson, Mr. Burt, Professor
Tilden, Dr. Percival and Sir George Young. Mr.
Goschen, while stating that it would be impossible to
deal with the matter by supplementary estimates that
year, made it clear that he was interested and that the
appeal had his sympathy.

Ramsay, writing to his mother on llth May, 1887,
and referring to what was going on, added : "I feel a
little cocky about it, seeing I have engineered it all ;
but perhaps it is too soon to be cocky yet till we have

1 Afterwards Lord Avebury.

98 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

got the grant." On the 13th June he wrote again,
after he had been appointed to University College, and
in the course of the letter tells his mother that he has to
be in London on the 29th to make final arrangements
for the deputation to Mr. Goschen. But it was not
till 9th March, 1889, that he was able to write to
his mother :

" Do you see that the Government Grant has come at last ?
It is only £15,000 among all the colleges. It will be in the budget.
I don't know how they will divide it, but I hope Bristol will get
a good slice. Even £1000 a year would be an infinite relief to
them. It would mean comparative affluence. I am also curious
to know what our share will amount to."

The communications had been all carried on through
Ramsay, and a statement as to the constitution, revenue
and students of the colleges concerned had been sent to
Sir W. Hart Dyke at the Board of Education. On
llth March, 1888, the National Association for the
Promotion of Technical Education had sent a deputation
to Viscount Cranbrook, Lord President of the Council,
who received it sympathetically, but notwithstanding
the favourable auspices nothing further was done that
session. But early in February 1889 confidential
information was received that a small grant was to be
placed on the estimates, and a few days later a committee
was appointed by the Treasury to enquire into the best
way of apportioning the grant among the colleges. On
1st July, 1889, the Treasury practically adopted the
recommendations of the committee and the battle was

THE BEISTOL PERIOD 99

won. The grant was almost absurdly small, but a great
point was gained in the recognition of the principle of
state aid for the university colleges. The local prestige
thus gained by the college was almost as important as
the money value of the grant, and to obtain an increase
appeared only a matter of time. In fact, before two
years were over the agitation for an increase began. In
this further movement Ramsay, though no longer
Principal of a college, took a very active part, and the
influence which he exerted throughout must be counted
among his great services to science. The present position
of the new universities, which have developed from the
colleges, is a result of the recognition of the principles for
which he fought.

LIST OF PAPERS BY RAMSAY AND YOUNG.

1. Trans. Chem. Soc. 45, 88 (1884). The Decomposition of

Ammonia by Heat.

2. Trans. Roy. Soc. 175, 37 (1884). The Influence of Pressure

on the Temperature of Volatilisation of Solids.

3. Trans. Roy. Soc. 175, 461 (1884). Influence of Change of

Condition from the Liquid to the Solid State on Vapour-
pressure.

4. Trans. Chem. Soc. 47, 42 (1885). On a New Method of

Determining the Vapour-pressures of Solids and Liquids,
and on the Vapour Pressure of Acetic Acid.

5. Trans. Chem. Soc. 47, 640 (1885). A Method for obtaining

Constant Temperatures.

6. Berichte, 18, 2855 (1885). Ueber die sogenannte " Speci-

fische Remission von Kahlbaum."

100 SIB WILLIAM EAMSAY

7. Berichte, 19, 69 (1886). Ergeben die statische und die

dynamische Methode der Dampfspannkrafts-messungen
verschiedene Resultate ?

8. Berichte, 19, 2107 (1886). Ueber die statische und dyna-

mische Methode der Dampfdruck-messungen.

9. Brit. Assoc. Report, 1885 (Aberdeen). Some Thermo-

dynamical Belations.

10-14. Phil. Mag., Series V., 20, 515 (1885) ; 21, 33 and 135 ;
22, 32 and 37 (1886). Some Thermodynamical Relations.

15. Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 37 (1886). On the Vapour-pressures

of Mercury.

16. Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 453 (1886). On the Vapour-pressures

of Bromine and Iodine and on Iodine Monochloride.

17. Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 685 (1886). Note on the Vapour

Densities of Chloral Ethyl-alcoholate.

18. Journ. Soc. Chem. Industry, 5, 232 (1886). Decomposition

of Chloroform at Red Heat.

19. Trans. Roy. Soc. 177, 71 (1886). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. I.

20. Trans. Roy. Soc. 177, 123 (1886). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. II. A Study of the Thermal Properties
of Alcohol.

21. Trans. Roy. Soc. 178, 57 (1887). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. III. A Study of the Thermal Properties
of Ethyl Oxide.

22. Trans. Chem. Soc. 49, 790 (1886). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. IV. A Study of the Thermal Properties
of Acetic Acid.

23. Trans. Roy. Soc. 178, 313 (1887). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. V. A Study of the Thermal Properties of
Methyl Alcohol.

24. Phil. Mag., Series V., 23, 61 (1887). Influence of Change of

Condition from the Liquid to the Solid State on Vapour-
pressure.

THE BRISTOL PERIOD 101

25. Phil. Mag., Series V., 23, 129 (1887). On the Nature of

Liquids, as shown by a Study of the Thermal Properties of
Stable and Dissociable Bodies.

26. Phil. Mag., Series V., 23, 547 (1887). On the Gaseous and

Liquid States of Matter.

27. Proc. Eoy. Soc. 42, 3 (1887). Note on the Continuity of the

Gaseous and Liquid States of Matter.

28 and 29. Phil. Mag., Series V., 23, 435 ; 24, 196. On Evapora-
tion and Dissociation, Pt. VI. On the Continuous Transi-
tion from the Liquid to the Gaseous State of Matter at all
Temperatures.

30. Trans. Chem. Soc. 51, 755 (1887). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. VII. A Study of the Thermal Properties
of a Mixture of Ethyl Alcohol and Ethyl Oxide.

31. Zeitschr. fur physik. Chemie, 1, 237 (1887). Studien iiber

Verdampfung und Dissociation.

32. Trans. Roy. Soc. 180, 137 (1889). On Evaporation and

Dissociation, Pt. VIII. A Study of the Thermal Properties
of Propyl Alcohol.

33. Proc. Chem. Soc. 1888. Note on the Mixture of Propyl

Alcohol and Water of Constant Boiling-point.

34. Trans. Boy. Soc. 183, 107 (1892). On Some of the Properties

of Water and of Steam.

35. Trans. Roy. Soc. 186, 257 (1895). On the Vapour-pressures

of Argon.

CHAPTEE IV

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 1887 TO 1894

IT is unnecessary in these pages to relate the history of
the college and university to which, in 1887, Ramsay
was called. But it is necessary to recall the fact that
the chair of chemistry in University College had been
occupied from the first by professors of the highest
rank and of world-wide reputation. The first occupant
of the chair was Edward Turner, F.R.S., the author of
a work, The Elements of Chemistry, which in its day was
regarded as authoritative. He died in 1837 and was
succeeded by Thomas Graham. Graham's name is
famous in the history of chemistry, for until quite
recent times existing knowledge of gaseous and liquid
diffusion and the phenomena connected with the ab-
sorption of gases by colloids and by metals was derived
entirely from Graham's experimental researches. Graham
was the first President of the Chemical Society, which
was founded in 1841. In 1855 his connection with the
College came to an end, as he was appointed to succeed
Sir John Herschel as Master of the Mint. But a few

years earlier, while continuing his lectures, the practical

102

UNIVEKSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 103

chemistry instruction in the laboratory was relinquished
by him and was placed under the direction of George
Fownes, F.K.S., then Professor of Chemistry to the
Pharmaceutical Society. Fownes did a good deal of
interesting experimental research, but the work by
which he was known to many generations of students was
his familiar Manual of Chemistry, which in one volume
provided all the instruction in physics, as well as inorganic
and organic chemistry, which in those days was regarded
as sufficient for the majority. Fownes died in 1849 and
was succeeded by Alexander Williamson, who six years
later was appointed to the chair of chemistry on the
resignation of Graham. Williamson was known per-
sonally to many of the present generation, and there are
still among us a not inconsiderable numberof his students.
Williamson, like Graham, was a philosophical chemist,
whose mind was occupied with deep and broad views
concerning the constitution of matter and the nature of
chemical action. Williamson's most famous experi-
mental research related to the constitution of the ethers
and involved his favourite ideas concerning atomic
movement. The theory of types has long since gone
the way of all theories, but in its day the introduction
of the water type by Williamson was an event of first-
rate importance, which facilitated the classification of
many compounds and reactions. It was immediately
adopted into use by the most active of the contemporary
chemists, of whom Gerhardt, Odling and Kekule were
among the most distinguished. Williamson's influence

104 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

as a teacher was considerable, but his activity in con-
nection with the establishment of science degrees in the
University, and in administrative work both within and
without the College during the later years of his tenure
of the chair, led to the practical abandonment of
experimental research and the personal supervision of
the laboratory instruction.

One other name must be mentioned, that of Charles
Graham, who, after working for a time as assistant
under Williamson, was in 1878 appointed Professor of
Chemical Technology in University College. He
achieved a considerable reputation in connection with
the science and technology of brewing and malting.
He retired in 1889, and subsequently carried on for
about ten years a private consulting practice chiefly in
connection with fermentation industries.

The chair to which Ramsay succeeded was therefore
furnished with traditions. The successive occupants
had always been among the leaders of scientific pro-
gress, and the responsibilities connected with the post
might have been ground for anxiety. But the new
professor had already won his spurs, and was confident
in his own powers. Almost immediately after entering
on his new duties (in 1888) he was chosen one of the
fifteen for the F.R.S. We shall see later how the
anticipations of his friends were fulfilled, though no one
could have expected the discoveries which followed so
rapidly a few years later.

Work at University College was begun under peculiar

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 105

and somewhat disagreeable circumstances, for Ramsay
found in the laboratories the accumulated residues of
forty years. Professor Williamson seems never to have
allowed anything to be thrown away, and the remains
of, for example, the preparation of chlorine had been
stored in dozens of jars and bottles with what object
no one can now explain. There were also hundreds
of paper packages covered with dust and without
labels, all of which, amounting to several cart-loads,
had to be, examined and cleared away by the new
professor and the new assistant whom he had invited
to join him.1

The students were chiefly medical, and very large
classes were preparing for the examination of the Con-
joint Board. In the general laboratory there were
only about half-a-dozen, but there was another labora-
tory, the Birkbeck Laboratory 2 for Chemical Techno-
logy, occupied by Dr. Graham. This occupation, how-
ever, came to an end two years later when Dr. Graham
retired and the laboratory was then devoted to the use
of pathology and botany. Mr. Watson Smith was then
appointed to succeed Graham, merely as Lecturer in
Chemical Technology. This lectureship was abolished
in 1894.

1 J. Norman Collie had been engaged in teaching chemistry at the
Ladies College, Cheltenham. He came up to University College in October
1887, and, with the exception of six years (from 1896 to 1902) as Professor
to the Pharmaceutical Society, he has remained ever since. Since 190£
Dr. Collie has been University Professor of Organic Chemistry.

2 Founded in memory of Dr. Birkbeck.

106 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

When Ramsay first came to University College the
number of lectures to be given was very great, as women,
medical students and others had separate lecture courses,
and consequently the same preliminary lectures had to
be given three times over in the session. At this time
the Assistant Professor of Chemistry (apart from Tech-
nology) was Dr. Richard T. Plimpton. Ramsay was
fortunate in having such a man as Dr. Plimpton as
chief assistant when he first came. Plimpton was a
first-rate teacher, and many of the students of those
early days owe a great debt to him for the excellent
grounding he gave them in analytical chemistry.1

After Ramsay's first session at University College the
women students, for whom separate instruction in
chemistry had previously been given, were admitted to
the same lectures as the men. This was quite in accord-
ance with Ramsay's views about the position of women
in relation to science. And a few years later, when a
somewhat acute controversy arose in the Chemical
Society on the subject of admitting women, Ramsay was
of the party which would have opened the door to women
as well as men on precisely equal terms.

The two assistants at University College in 1887 were
Dr. Samuel Rideal and Dr. J. N. Collie. An additional
assistant was not appointed till 1891, when Mr. C. F.
Baker, B.Sc., was chosen. He was succeeded in 1892
by Mr. H. W. Picton, B.Sc., and both were replaced

1 In 1894 Plimpton was appointed Lecturer on Chemistry at the Middle-
sex Hospital Medical School. He died suddenly on 21st December, 1899.

UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 107

the following year by Dr. James Walker and Mr. Alex-
ander Kellas, B.Sc. In 1894 Mr. Morris Travers became
assistant in place of Dr. Walker.

In the early days Ramsay was perpetually in the
general laboratory and knew all about every student
there. Often while talking to a student he would
suggest to him to make experiments for himself in order
to solve difficulties. This was not always acceptable
to the assistants who, with the fear of the examinations
before their eyes, were anxious for the students to stick
to their systematic work. Ramsay always encouraged
students to practice glass-blowing as much as possible.
One learned professor, coming into the laboratory,
remarked to Ramsay, " Do you allow your students
to waste their time over that sort of thing ? It can be
done far better by the professional glass-blower."

Ramsay was very popular with the students. Every
year, at the end of the first term, a dinner was arranged
by the laboratory students and the practice has been
kept up ever since. At these dinners Ramsay was the
moving spirit, making speeches, singing songs, whistling
and joking with everyone. Students, after leaving,
often came back to these gatherings whenever they had
a chance, and at the last dinner before the war there
were present men who had left University College as
much as twenty-five years previously.

As soon as laboratories for instruction in practical
chemistry were erected, the methods of instruction to
be employed had to be considered and reduced to some

108 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

kind of system. The first laboratory opened for this
purpose was at Bloomsbury Square on the premises
still occupied by the Pharmaceutical Society. Almost
immediately after this, in 1845, the Royal College of
Chemistry was founded and A. W. Hofmann was the
first professor. At the former institution the first
operations in which the student was engaged consisted
in preparing and crystallising a number of metallic salts
and other compounds. In a few weeks or months he
was instructed in qualitative and simple quantitative
analysis. At the College of Chemistry, on the other
hand, the whole of the first year was occupied with
qualitative analysis. The second year was devoted to
quantitative analysis and the student was then allowed
for the first time to engage in making preparations, which
business was always associated with some kind of
research. This was the order usually adopted in the
great majority of laboratories on the continent as well
as in this country during the next thirty years or more,
and was probably the system practically at work in the
chemical laboratories at University College when Wil-
liamson resigned and Ramsay succeeded him. Other
teachers have advocated the introduction of the student
to methods of research from the outset, but as science
has progressed very far since the middle of the nineteenth
century there are not only the transformations and
extensions of theory to be considered, but the material,
apparatus and methods used in the modern laboratory
are far more complicated than those of fifty years ago.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 109

Hence if a student is engaged too soon in attempts to
find out some new thing, he is perpetually finding obstacles
in the way of progress owing to want of knowledge or
of skill. As to the degree of preparation necessary for
success in research, there will always be some difference
of opinion.

Ramsay was face to face with the necessity for deter-
mining on the method he would use in the teaching of
chemistry so soon as he obtained his first independent
appointment and that was at Bristol in 1880. The
method he contrived was set forth in a little book,
published in 1884, under the title Experimental Proofs
of Chemical Theory for Beginners. The following ex-
tracts from the Preface sufficiently describe its scope
and object:

" The experiments described in this little book have formed
the preliminary work of all students beginning chemistry in my
laboratory for the last two years. I am convinced that such a
course has the advantage of familiarising the student with the
subjects treated in the first term of an ordinary course of lectures ;
of giving him practice in the construction of apparatus ; and of
making him perform calculations with a definite object, instead
of as merely theoretical problems.

I have not found any difficulty in getting students to construct
their own apparatus ; after a few preliminary lessons in cork-
boring, bending glass tubes, etc., the demonstrator is put to
little trouble. . . . The accuracy of the results obtained by
these comparatively rough methods is surprising ; the density
of gases is found usually within three of four per cent, of the
truth ; and results of analysis seldom show an error of one per
cent. Of course good results are obtained only by careful workers,

110 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

and I make it a rule that each experiment shall be repeated until
a satisfactory result is obtained. The whole course occupies a
term of ten weeks, the student working three whole days a
week."

Longer experience, however, does not appear to have
confirmed the efficacy of this system, for on commencing
work at University College, London, the book fell into
disuse. We have it on the evidence of one of his students
at this time, Mr. E. C. C. Baly, who remained at the
College for twenty-two years and became one of the
assistant professors, that the students were " thoroughly
grounded in qualitative analysis first of all, and this was
followed by an admirable course in quantitative work."
" Eamsay was a strong believer in the value of analysis,
qualitative and quantitative as a method of training.
He gave the proofs of theory in lectures which were
very remarkable for their wealth of experiments, well
conceived and admirably discussed."

The days when the habits and manners of Mr. Bob
Sawyer represented those of medical students in general
have long since passed away. But down to a very late
period in the nineteenth century disorder was rather
prevalent in many classes of medical students, especially
in connection with purely scientific subjects such as
chemistry. While this was in some cases due to want of
firmness on the part of the teachers, it was chiefly attri-
butable to the laxity of the several medical examination
Boards in reference to chemistry. When Eamsay came
to University College the general chemical lectures were

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 111

the scene of the usual " bear-garden." By the end of
the first term, however, he reduced the class to order
and never afterwards had further trouble.

With regard to the purely chemical students Ramsay
was always anxious to encourage original investigation
and in many cases allowed them to enter on research
before they had secured the Bachelor degree. This
naturally interfered with their general reading, and as
candidates at the degree examination they sometimes
did badly. But the following extract from a letter to
Professor Worthington, dated 12th November, 1888,
shows what was Ramsay's own state of mind : " My
classes are in good order and work well. I am therefore
happy so far as they go. We have just had five men
through the B.Sc. Of these four are going in for honours
next week, and when they have been sufficiently tortured,
they will begin research. So now we are in a fair way
to get a ' school.' " This letter was dated from " 12
Arundel Gardens, W.," which was to be the home of
the Ramsays, with their two children, for some fifteen
years.

The following year Worthington was Professor of
Physics in the Royal Naval Engineering College, Devon-
port, and negotiations were started with the object of
joint holiday arrangements between the two families.
On 30th June, 1889, Ramsay wrote :

" The order of nature should have been so adjusted that our
holidays might fall contemporaneously. You must get them to
alter. Ours are like the holidays of the Medes and Persians. By

112 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

the way, did the Ancients ever have holidays ? I imagine not. I
think they merely took things easier all round.

Anyhow I am now an instructor of medical youth, and so
have to keep their terms, which means that I go on till July 20th
and then stop till October 1st, when I again repeat the wondrous
tale. They are an unsatisfactory style of people, having regard
to their exams, more than their instruction. It is as if one paid
more attention to the ejecta than the injecta ; as if all the
pleasure were in having a tooth drawn not in making use of a
sound molar. However, our nation is being radically corrupted.
The natural mind is enmity against wisdom, knowledge and all
instruction. It occurs to me that I quote in a mangled form
from Proverbs. It might not be a bad thing to begin one's
lectures with a few homilies on the sayings of Solomon. He was
pretty well up in human nature, that old wiseacre, and has left
on record many quaint and pithy sayings mrginibus puerisque.
. . . What are your results with the breaking strain of liquids ?
I have just got rid of the molecular weights of metals and am
glad to be done with it. I am now preparing for an onslaught
on vacua and am having my private-room fitted up as a
laboratory."

The research mentioned was embodied in a paper on
" The Molecular Weights of the Metals," published in
the Transactions of the Chemical Society for 1889 (p. 521).
The method adopted was the estimation of the depression
of the vapour pressure of mercury by dissolution in it
of a known quantity of the metal. The results obtained
led to the somewhat unexpected conclusion that in
solution as a rule the molecules of metals are composed
of single atoms. This, however, agrees with the usual
view as to the constitution of those metals of which
the vapour densities have been determined, namely

UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 113

mercury, cadmium and zinc, and these are all un-
doubtedly monatomic.

Before leaving Bristol Ramsay had occupied himself
in conjunction with Mr. J. Tudor Cundall with a study
of the oxides of nitrogen, and more particularly with
the singularly elusive substance supposed to consist of
the trioxide. Apart from the desirability of ascer-
taining definitely the physical and chemical properties
of both the peroxide and the trioxide the part played
by the gaseous oxides of nitrogen in the reactions
which go on in the production of sulphuric acid in the
lead chamber was and is still sufficiently mysterious to
render further research very desirable. The first paper
by Ramsay and Cundall is in the Transactions of ike
Chemical Society for 1885 (p. 187). It seems chiefly to
bring out the fact that the blue or green liquids supposed
to contain the trioxide consist of mixtures of N204 and
N203 both in a partially dissociated state and that the
passage of nitric oxide, NO, into this liquid fails to con-
vert it wholly into N203, while the addition of excess of
oxygen similarly fails to convert it completely into the
peroxide.

This communication elicited two papers from Dr. G.
Lunge, whose great experience in the manufacture of
sulphuric acid entitles an expression of his views to
respect. In these papers he endeavoured to prove by
argument and by some experiments that nitrous an-
hydride, that is nitrogen trioxide, is capable of existing
in the gaseous state. In a second paper (p. 672 in the

114 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

same volume) Ramsay and Cundall proved by ingenious
experiments that gaseous nitric peroxide does not com-
bine at ordinary temperatures with nitric oxide, also
that the density of the gas produced when blue liquid
nitrogen trioxide is allowed to evaporate was found to
be 22 '35 at ordinary atmospheric conditions. This
corresponds to the calculated density of a mixture of
N02 and N204 with NO and renders the assumption of
the presence of N203 highly improbable.

Ramsay returned to the question three years later.
The method of estimating molecular weights by obser-
ving the depression of the freezing point introduced by
Professor Raoult of Grenoble had recently attracted
deservedly increased attention.

In a paper in the Transactions of the Chemical Society
for 1888 (p. 621) Ramsay showed by this method, using
acetic acid as the solvent, that nitric peroxide in the
liquid state is represented by the formula N204. The
trioxide was found to be unmanageable owing to its
instability. But Ramsay took up the question again,
and another paper appears in the Transactions for 1890
(p. 590), in which a fuller account is given of both these
oxides of nitrogen, and the probability that the trioxide
in the liquid state is correctly expressed by N203 is con-
verted into certainty. It appears to undergo dissocia-
tion to some extent even at — 90®. With regard to a
mixture of the oxides of nitrogen in the gaseous state it
seemb to have been shown by Dixon and Peterkin some
years later that a small quantity of N2O3 may exist in

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 115

such a mixture in an undissociated condition (Trans-
actions Chem. Soc. 1899, p. 613). This is quite consistent
with the results of Ramsay and Cundall.

In 1890 the British Association met at Leeds, and the
proceedings of the Chemical Section were enriched by a
discussion in which the supporters of the older views as
to the nature of solutions and of the newer doctrines
were both present and took part. The reader may be
reminded that up to quite recent times the nature
of the process involved, when a soluble substance
such as common salt or sugar dissolves in water,
had not been studied systematically and it had been
very generally assumed that when a solid substance
dissolves in a liquid a weak kind of chemical combina-
tion occurs between the solid and the liquid. This
was usually referred to broadly as the hydrate theory of
solution, and there can be no doubt of the existence of
many hydrates in salt solutions and of compounds of
the solute in the solvent in other cases in which liquids
other than water are concerned. But the electrolytic
and other properties of solutions cannot be accounted
for by the hydrate theory, and it was not till 1887 that
the new view of the constitution of solutions was intro-
duced, by which many difficulties were explained. In
that year the Dutch Professor Van't Hoff published in
the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie a theory based
on the analogy between the state of substances when
in solution and the same when in the state of gas. The
dissolved substance exercises a pressure, called osmotic

116 SIE WILLIAM KAMSAY

pressure, which leads to the assumption that the mole-
cules of the dissolved substance subsist in the liquid in
the same number in unit volume and exert the same
pressure as they would if they were capable of assuming
the state of gas at the same temperature. This paper was
immediately afterwards translated by Ramsay and pub-
lished in the Philosophical Magazine. This theory of
Van't HofFs was found not to be equally applicable to
substances like common sugar on the one hand, and on
the other to salts and compounds of saline constitution,
such as acids, all of which are electrolytes. And the
next step was represented by the hypothesis of Arrhenius,
published in 1888, as to the dissociation of such com-
pounds into their chemically interchangeable parts or
ions. This hypothesis to the supporters of the older
doctrine seemed to be contrary to fact and common
sense. It may readily be imagined therefore with
what animation the discussion proceeded in the joint
meetings of Sections A and B. A report of the several
speeches was published in the Chemical News and in
the Abstracts issued by the Chemical Society, But as
so often remarked, the discussions which take place in
public on such occasions are often equalled or surpassed
in practical effect by the more intimate and informal
talk which goes on over the dinner-table or perhaps in
the garden or over a pipe at night. One such sym-
posium occurred at Leeds in the house of Professor
Smithells, who has kindly supplied the following note
recording his recollections of what took place :

UNIVEKSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 117

" The Leeds Meeting of the British Association in 1890 is
memorable as marking the first Ionic invasion of England in
the persons of van't Hoff and Ostwald. It was, of course,
in the early days of the ionic theory of solution and I
remember Ostwald remarking that the united ages of him-
self, van't Hoff and Arrhenius were then less than a hundred
years.

Ramsay and Ostwald met for the first time as fellow-guests
in my house, which became accordingly a sort of cyclonic centre
of the polemical storm that raged during the whole week. No
meeting within my experience has more fully illustrated the fact
that the most interesting and stimulating proceedings of the British
Association are those which occur outside the section rooms.
The discussion was, as I have said, incessant. I remember
conducting a party to Fountains Abbey on the Saturday and
hearing nothing but talk of the ionic theory amid the beauties
of Studley Royal. The climax, however, was reached the next
day — Sunday. The discussion began at luncheon when Fitz-
gerald raised the question of the molecular integrity of the salt
in the soup and walked round the table with a diagram to con-
found van't Hoff and Ostwald. After luncheon the party
adjourned to the garden and was gradually increased by the
arrival of strolling philosophers until it assumed quite large
proportions. I regret that at this distance of time I cannot
recall the names, but I believe it included, in addition to Ramsay
and those named, Lodge, Armstrong, Pickering, Otto Pettersson,
and there were others.

The discussion continued throughout the afternoon with
alternating vehemence and hilarity. I have a particular recol-
lection of Fitzgerald walking restlessly about with his hand
clasped on his brow and declaring in his rich Irish brogue, ' I
can't see where the energy comes from.' Ramsay, as you can
imagine, was no silent spectator. Being a convinced ionist, he
was eager in helping out the expositions of Ostwald, whose

118 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

English at that time was imperfect and explosive, and his wit
and humour played over the whole proceedings. I wish I could
do more justice to him and to the occasion. I believe it effected
a good deal towards forming friendships, promoting good will
and removing misunderstandings, and certainly it was the begin-
ning of relations of great mutual sympathy and regard between
Ramsay and Ostwald, which lasted till they were divided by
their respective national sympathies at the unhappy outbreak
of war."

So long as nearly forty years ago the subject of
Brownian or pedetic motion attracted Ramsay's notice,
and in 1882 he communicated to the Bristol Society of
Naturalists a short paper on the subject. This curious
phenomenon was first described by the botanist Robert
Brown (b. 1773 — d. 1858) in the course of his observa-
tions on the pollen of plants and was at first attributed
to life in the moving mass. When a muddy solution
or an emulsion like milk is examined under the micro-
scope the suspended particles, if small enough, are seen
to be in motion constantly but irregularly both as to
direction and speed. The motion is not related to the
composition of the particles, but only to their size and
specific gravity and the nature of the liquid. The
motion cannot be attributed to currents in the liquid,
for no two particles move in the same direction or with
the same velocity. In 1892 Ramsay brought the sub-
ject before the Chemical Society. By this time some
important experimental work had been done especially
by Messrs. Linder and Pic ton at University College,
who had shown that they are apparently charged

UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 119

electrically, for they are attracted or repelled, according
to their nature, from one or other of the electrodes con-
verging a current into the liquid in which the particles
are suspended. During the twenty-five years which
have elapsed since 1892 much has been done by various
observers and especially by Professor Jean Perrin of
the Sorbonne. and it is now pretty generally the custom
to attribute these movements to the motion of the
molecules of the liquid in which the particles are sus-
pended. In 1 882 Ramsay, in considering this hypothesis,
appeared to think that single molecules could have no
effect on masses so many million times larger than them-
selves, as the moving particles are, and that to produce
an effect many molecules must coalesce and move as a
whole. In 1892 he seems to have retained practically
the same view and supposed that the effect of adding
an electrolyte to a liquid in stopping pedesis is due to
the breaking up of these molecular aggregates by the
presence of ions.

From the first, on coming to London, Kamsay busied
himself with the idea of a Teaching University for
London, and to his exertions some of the changes
which were afterwards introduced into the method
of conducting the examinations of the Univer-
sity, so as to give the teachers a larger share in
determining the places of the candidates, were doubt-
less in part due. On June 8th and 9th, 1892, two
articles from his pen were printed in The Times
under the heading " Universities Abroad," and from

120 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

these the following introductory remarks may be quoted
here :

" The last 10 or 15 years have witnessed great changes in the
attitude of the English people towards education. Elementary
education has been made first compulsory, then free ; the
endowments and efficiency of grammar schools have been sub-
jected to close scrutiny ; it has been decided that a sum of no
less than £538,600 shall be yearly spent on technical instruction
in England alone ; local University colleges have sprung up
in almost all the large cities of the kingdom ; three of these
— Owens College (of older foundation), University College,
Liverpool, and the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds — have
acquired status as the Victoria University ; a sum of £15,000
a year is granted by Government for the partial maintenance
of the metropolitan and local colleges, with prospect of material
increase at no distant date ; a Royal Commission has recently
issued recommendations involving a radical change in the con-
stitution of the Scottish Universities ; and lastly, and latest in
order of events, a scheme has been approved by the Privy Coun-
cil for the establishment of a Teaching University in London.
The ' Gresham Charter,' however, having failed to command
the concurrence of the House of Commons, a New Royal Com-
mission is at present deliberating on the best means of uniting
under one head the institutions in London which give education
of University standard.

In other European countries there is at present no such educa-
tional turmoil. The systems of primary and secondary education
have long ago been elaborated ; and the Universities pursue the
smooth paths of increasing knowledge by research and by the
training of students.

Recent correspondence and articles which have appeared in
the public Press show that there are in England many concep-
tions of what a University should be. Many of the writers
appear to consider a college as necessarily a hall of residence,

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 121

as in Oxford or Cambridge ; many suppose the primary function
of a University to consist in bestowing degrees after a certain
course of study ; while others advocate the claims of a ' Univer-
sity for the People/ where weekly evening lectures should lead
to recognition of the students as eligible for an associateship or
for a degree. There are yet others who imply that the function
of a University consists in examination only, and who uphold
the University of London as an ideal institution.

In this state of public opinion it is well to cast our eyes abroad,
and to enquire what conception of a University is held by the
nations of the Continent. Before beginning an experiment it
is advisable to study the literature of the subject, for thus only
can errors be avoided and a reasonable prospect of a successful
issue secured. This is the invariable prelude in these days to all
scientific inquiry, and surely the most important of all is — How
can knowledge best be increased ? "

Ramsay was less interested in questions relating to
University organisation and government than in the
regulations under which degrees are obtained. These
are the questions which affect most directly the system
of teaching and which have probably had as much to
do with the tendency on the part of English and Ameri-
can students to seek admission to continental univer-
sities as the eminent reputation of the professors in the
majority of these institutions.

Though these articles were written twenty-five years
ago they still represent the constitution and operation
of the universities referred to in all respects which may
be regarded as fundamental, though in some details
there have been modifications.

The continental universities agree in their conditions

122 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

for granting degrees in several points, in which, they
differ from English universities generally. \

Thus the preparation of a Thesis or Dissertation is the
essential qualification for a degree and is not replaceable
by any examination or series of examinations. The
thesis embodies the results of work done by the candi-
date and always professes to be based on research,
experimental, historical or literary, etc. As a matter
of practice the subject is always selected, or at least
approved, by the professor under whose direction the
student works. After the dissertation has been pre-
sented and accepted by the Faculty, an examination,
sometimes written but usually oral, follows on the
subject of the dissertation and other subjects cognate
to it. The examiners are the teachers of the candidate
associated with other members of the Faculty.

Something of this kind was what Ramsay desired to
see introduced generally into the universities of this
country. " How can knowledge best be increased ? "
was the question ever before his mind, and in his own
ardour for research into the unknown he seems to have
attached less importance to those other functions of
universities which are connected with preparation for
professions and for the everyday life of the world. Pro-
bably his view would have been that initiation into the
methods of scientific research is the best preparation
for successful investigation of the problems which come
before the physician, the engineer, the agriculturist, the
teacher, the man of business no less than the man who

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 123

takes up natural science as a pursuit to be followed
through a lifetime. And his distrust of examinations
and their results as a means of discovering capacity or
rewarding merit often brought him into conflict with
those who rely more confidently on the utility of examin-
ations as an educational instrument. This is a large
question of far-reaching importance upon which unani-
mity can never be expected. Even in Germany there
is great difference of opinion among the professors in
the universities as to the desirability of increasing the
number and the stringency of examinations leading to
the doctor's degree.1

Men of genius like Ramsay are apt to forget, if they
become teachers, that the average quality of mind
among students is very different from their own, and
attempts to apply indiscriminately methods which
appeal to their own mental activity and resource are
certain to meet with disappointment in the great majority
of cases. It is, in fact, too often forgotten not only by
teachers but by parents and others that though a
natural faculty may be improved by education, it can
never be created by any process in those cases where
the natural faculty does not already exist. Poets,
mathematicians, researchers are born, not made, and
all that education can do in any case is to educe, train
and strengthen qualities already existent which might
otherwise run to waste and produce merely mischief.

Bailey Saunders, Notes addressed to the U.L. Commissioners, Jan.
1899.

CHAPTER V
THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE

THE last twenty years of the nineteenth century wit-
nessed two discoveries in physical science, namely the
observation of X rays and the isolation of the argon
series of gases, which equal, if they do not surpass, in
significance and interest the discoveries of any previous
period. Of the two the latter must be regarded as the
most surprising, because it was not only unexpected,
but the existing evidence would have appeared con-
clusive against the possibility of such a discovery as
that of a new unheard-of constituent of our atmosphere.
It is, however, an interesting illustration of a statement
made by Lord Kelvin in his Presidential Address to the
British Association in 1871 : " Accurate and minute
measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination a
less lofty and dignified work than looking for something
new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science
have been but the rewards of accurate measurement
and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting
of numerical results." For the discovery originated in
the laborious and accurate determination by Lord Ray

124

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 125

leigh of the relative densities of the principal gases, an
investigation which extended over some twelve years,
commencing in 1882. In that year Rayleigh had called
.attention to the statement which had so long passed
under the name of Front's Law. According to this
statement the atomic weights and hence the densities !
of the simple gases stand in a simple numerical relation-
ship to the atomic weight and density of hydrogen. The '
first result of this investigation was the demonstration
that the atomic weight of oxygen is approximately 15*8
and therefore less than the whole number 16 required
by Prout's "law," which was thus shown to be illusory.

Unexpected difficulties were encountered in dealing
with nitrogen gas, but the upshot of the numerous
experiments undertaken was the discovery that the
gas left when oxygen, water vapour and carbon dioxide
were completely removed from atmospheric air was
appreciably heavier than nitrogen prepared from am-
monia by passing a mixture of this gas with air or
oxygen over a surface of heated copper.

With reference to this anomaly Lord Rayleigh
addressed a letter to Nature on 29th Sept., 1892, in
which the following passage occurs :

" I am much puzzled by some recent results as to the density
of nitrogen and shall be obliged if any of your chemical readers
-can offer suggestions as to the cause. According to two methods
of preparation I obtain quite distinct values. The relative
xlifference, amounting to about TT5Vfr part, is small in itself; but
it lies entirely outside the errors of experiment, and can only be
^attributed to a variation in the character of the gas."

126 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The ammonia method of preparation had been sug-
gested to him by Professor Ramsay.

A paper on the subject, under the title " An Anomaly
encountered in the Determinations of the Density of
Nitrogen Gas," by Lord Rayleigh, was published in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society in April 1894. In this
paper the author discussed the difficult question as to
the possible impurities in atmospheric nitrogen which
would account for its apparent greater density, and, on
the other hand, the impurities lighter than nitrogen
which conceivably might be present in the gas derived
from chemical sources.

As to the gas obtained from air it was shown con-
clusively that the superior density could not be attri-
buted to the presence of unabsorbed oxygen.

Of the gases lighter than nitrogen the presence of
water vapour or ammonia could be dismissed from
consideration at once, in view of the conditions under
which the experiments were conducted. The only gas
which required special attention was hydrogen, but this
and such light hydrocarbons as marsh gas would be
removed by the hot copper oxide over which the gas is
made to travel. An experiment in which hydrogen was
purposely introduced proved in fact that it was com-
pletely burnt out by this treatment.

Other experiments followed in which nitrogen obtained
by removing oxygen from the oxides of nitrogen by
means of heated iron was compared with nitrogen
derived from air by the absorption of oxygen by means

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE 127

of hot iron or in the cold by means of ferrous hydrate.
The same difference of density was again observed.
Storage of the chemically prepared nitrogen for many
months or exposing it to the effect of the silent electric
discharge produced no effect on the density of chemical
nitrogen and the hypothesis that such nitrogen might
be in a condition in which some of its molecules, N2,
were dissociated into atoms had to be abandoned.

Early in 1894 the position was therefore as follows :
it had been abundantly proved that nitrogen derived
from the air by absorption and removal of the other
known constituents of air is heavier by about ^^ than
nitrogen obtained by the decomposition of chemical
compounds. It had also been shown that the apparent
lightness of the latter was not due to the presence of
lighter impurities nor to dissociation. The only pos-
sible hypothesis remaining was that atmospheric nitrogen
was mixed with a small quantity of a heavier gas, the
nature of which was unknown. ,

About this time Lord Rayleigh's attention was drawn 1
to the work of Cavendish described -in his " Experiments
on Air " in the Philosophical Transactions for 1785. By

1 In a lecture on Argon at the Royal Infirmary in 1895 Lord Rayleigh
mentions that he derived this suggestion from Professor Dewar. On
the other hand, a letter from Eamsay to Lord Eayleigh (28th November,
1898), reminds the latter that he had suggested Cavendish " at an early
date before 1894 — certainly before our conversation at which I asked
your permission to look into atmospheric nitrogen." He also possessed a
copy of Cavendish's paper with a marginal note, "Look into this," written
probably about 1896. The point is not of great importance as to who
suggested Cavendish ; that Lord Eayleigh practically attacked the question
is the essential fact.

128 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

passing electric sparks through a mixture of " dephlo-
gisticated air " (oxygen) and common air in contact
with a solution of caustic potash Cavendish proved that
the greater part of the " phlogisticated air " (nitrogen)
was identical with the constituent of nitrates. The
residue, which was too small to be submitted to further
treatment, was " certainly not more than T^ of the bulk
of the phlogisticated air let up into the tube ; so that if
there is any part of the phlogisticated air of our atmo-
sphere which differs from the rest and cannot be reduced
to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not
more than i^th part of the whole."

In the earliest attempts to isolate the suspected gas
by the method of Cavendish, a Rhumkorff coil actuated
by five Grove's cells was used. This was later replaced
by an alternate current discharge by which an electric
flame is produced, as already shown by Mr. Crookes,
and the alkaline liquid for absorption was used in the
form of a fountain maintained continuously within the
globular vessel containing the mixed gases.1

Lord Rayleigh having already, in 1892, taken the
chemical world into his confidence, it was inevitable
that this essentially chemical problem should attract
the attention of chemists, but it does not appear that
anyone except Professor Ramsay had attempted to
attack the question experimentally.

Ramsay's account of what followed was related in
1898 in a lecture given to the Pharmaceutical Society

1 Trans. Chem. Soc. 1897, p. 184.

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE 129

on the " Gases present in the Atmosphere," but the
progress of his work can be traced by the aid of passages
in letters to Lord Rayleigh and to his wife, which have
been preserved. Thus he wrote to the latter on 23rd
April, 1894 :

" By the way curiously I am at work on nitrogen, but not
from the commercial point of view, or rather Williams is. Nitro-
gen of air is heavier than nitrogen from ammonia in the ratio of
251 to 250. That would correspond with the addition of some
light gas to the heavy one, or of some heavy gas to the light one.
If the light gas were hydrogen, it would need 7 parts in 2000 to
make it so much lighter. Now no one has ever taken all the
nitrogen out of the air, or rather, after all oxygen has been
removed from air, no one has combined all the nitrogen. It
is quite possible that there is some inert gas in nitrogen which
has escaped notice. So Williams is at it now combining the
nitrogen of the air with magnesium, and seeing if there is any-
thing over, — anything not nitrogen. We may discover a new
element."

After several previous letters to Lord Rayleigh he
wrote as follows on 24th May, 1894 :

" I intended to ask you to-day, what is probably quite un-
necessary, not to say anything about the gas which I think I
have got. It may turn out a mare's nest and it would be well
that no one should know of its existence. Another thing occurs
to me. I have got a large amount of nitride of magnesium,
which when treated with water gives ammonia. I can easily
get the nitrogen out of this ammonia, and I shall be glad to give
you it, if it can be conveyed to you by any way ; or what might
perhaps be better, I could give you the ammonia as chloride of
ammonium and you could liberate the ammonia and pass it,
mixed with oxygen, over red-hot copper. I find on making a

130 SIE WILLIAM RAMSAY

rough calculation that on adding my 60 c.c. of gas of sp. gr. 16
to the nitrogen from which it was obtained it would amount to
3 p.c. of the total, and that such a mixture of N = 4 with X= 16
would give a gas of the density you find. This is so far encour-
aging, but I must try to further purify the gas. I think that it
still contains some nitrogen, and moreover it will be none the
worse of another treatment with hot magnesium.

Has it occurred to you that there is room for gaseous elements
at the end of the first column of the periodic table ? Thus,

Li Be B C N 0 F
jj jj >j 01

Mn Fe Co Ni
» » » Br

? Pd Ru Rh
etc.

Such elements should have the density 20 or thereabouts, and
0'8 p.c. ( = THhrkh about) of the nitrogen of the air would so
raise the density of nitrogen that it would stand to pure nitrogen
in the ratio 230 : 231."

Later on, 4th August, iiH4; the letter is headed
Private :

" I have isolated the gas. Its density is 19'075 and it is not
absorbed by magnesium. The last passage of the gas mixed
with nitrogen over red-hot magnesium eight or ten times yielded
only 3 milligrams of ammonium chloride from the magnesium
nitride formed. I think that there is some 1 p.c. in the nitrogen
of the air. . . . The nitrogen prepared from magnesium nitride
is chemical nitrogen, i.e. it has a density 1/230 below that from
air (your experiments). The value of the chemical N2 is identical
with yours. I have been watching the density of X creep up as
absorption proceeds ; so you see this is no chance determination
with a possible source of error."

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEKE 131

Some remarks about the spectrum of the gas follow,
and on the 7th August, in reply to Lord Rayleigh, he
wrote again as follows :

" To take the last part of your letter first, I think that joint
publication would be the best course, and I am much obliged to
you for suggesting it, for I feel that a lucky chance has made me
able to get Q in quantity (there are two other Xs, so let us call it
Q or Quid ?)

I have written out my results in a provisional way as far as
they go, verified all my calculations, which were only approxi-
mate ones, done in the press of work in the laboratory. It
may interest you to have a synopsis which will be a sort of
record, and put you at home in all I have done."

The rest of the letter, occupying two sheets, contains
an account of his experiments and their results. It
winds up as follows :

" The gas Q is now filled into a critical point tube and to-day
I shall see if I can liquefy it. I shall also try sparking it with
chlorine and also its action on potassium. That is all I can get
through. I shall tell you on Wednesday or Thursday what the
results are. Until Oxford therefore."

The results of the two methods of dealing with atmo-
spheric nitrogen, namely sparking with excess of oxygen
in the presence of caustic potash as practised by Lord
Rayleigh, and contact with hot magnesium in Ramsay's
circulating apparatus, were embodied into a joint paper
which was communicated to the British Association
meeting in August at Oxford. A little later the question
arose as to the identity of the gases obtained by the two
methods, and this had to be settled.

132 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

It is perhaps not surprising that, during several
months following the announcement of the new gas,
the feeling generally prevalent in this country was one
of curiosity mingled with incredulity. This, however,
cannot be considered to justify such remarks as those of
the President of the Chemical Society at a meeting of
the Society on 6th December :

" He ventured to say that Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay
now could not hope to keep so remarkable a discovery to them-
selves much longer. After having been told so much chemists
could not be expected to remain quiet under the imputation that
they had been eyeless during a whole century, and they would
undoubtedly enquire into the matter. Although no one would
seek to take the discovery out of the hands of those who had
announced it, chemists unquestionably had the right, not only
to exercise entire freedom of judgment, but also to critically
examine the statements which had been made."

It may be safely asserted that an exhibition of such
impatience did not represent the feeling of the scientific
world in general. The discovery was accepted almost
immediately on the other side of the Atlantic, and the
Hodgkin Prize given by the Smithsonian Institution at
Washington was awarded to the authors before the end
of the year.

In the meantime both Rayleigh and Ramsay were
hard at work on the numerous problems arising out of
the discovery and especially the remarkable properties
of the new gas. Lord Rayleigh had also collected a
quantity of the gas from the Bath springs, and already,
in October, they were discussing the date at which the

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 133

paper could be read to the Royal Society. No time was
being lost.

On the 14th November Ramsay wrote to his wife :

" To-day I tried platinum black on the gas, but no result as
usual. Yesterday sodium dioxide, again fruitlessly. To-morrow
Lord R-ayleigh is coming to see me in the morning and I am going
to show him the circulation. I also tried to liquefy the gas to-day ;
but the barometer is very low and it is difficult to make liquid
nitrous oxide. . . . However, there was no sign of liquefaction."

On the 16th November :

" I had Lord Rayleigh with me from 11 to 3 yesterday and to
lunch. He was much interested, and saw that my plan beats
his hollow. I showed him an absorption going on. To-morrow
I am going to show it to my class. I believe there is to be a
crowd. That is not publishing, and I think that one's students
deserve the first of anything."

On the 17th November :

" The gas is lying quiet just now. I am recirculating my
whole stock and working up a new lot. To-day I made it at the
lecture, about 70 c.cs., say a small wine-glassful. That too has
joined the common stock. Matthews has stayed all afternoon
looking after it. By Monday it will be pure. And then there is
a lot to do with it."

The letters which passed between the two experi-
menters, often more frequently than once a week, show
how anxiously and assiduously they were following up
the investigation. The spectra of many samples of the
gas were also being examined by Mr. Crookes and
Professor Schuster, and the behaviour of the gas at low

134 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

temperatures was being investigated by Professor C.
Olszewski of Cracow, to whom a supply of the gas had
been sent. Towards the end of November the prepara-
tion of M.S. began, and by this time it appears that the
name argon had been adopted, in reference to the
chemical inactivity of the new element.

The story was communicated to the Royal Society on
31st January, 1895, and in anticipation of the large
attendance of Fellows and visitors a special meeting
was arranged in the theatre of the London University
in Burlington Gardens. The President, Lord Kelvin,
was in the chair, and no one who was present on the
occasion will be likely to forget the excitement with
which the large audience received from Lord Rayleigh
and Professor. Ramsay the details of their joint work
and an account of the strange properties of the new gas.
As everyone now knows, argon is a gas having a density
represented by 20 1 when that of oxygen is 16, hydrogen
being the unit. It refuses to enter into combination or
to exhibit any chemical change, when heated to the
highest temperatures in contact with the most active
elements such as sodium, phosphorus, oxygen, or fluorine
and therefore differs from every previously known sub-
stance. It liquefies under pressure and cold, yielding a
colourless liquid which boils at about — 187° C. and
solidifies to a crystalline mass resembling ice. From
the velocity of sound in the gas it is inferred that the
molecules of argon, like those of mercury, consist of one

1 Strictly 19-94.

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 135

atom, and its molecular weight is therefore the same as
its atomic weight, namely 19*94 x 2 or 39 '88. Accord-
ingly the symbol A or A! is given to the element.

The chemical inactivity of v argon was the feature of the
element which attracted most attention, and naturally
great efforts were repeatedly made to get evidence of
the formation of a compound by the gas. The announce-
ment by Berthelot of the production of a peculiar viscous
compound by exposing benzene vapour and argon to the
action of a silent electrical discharge turned out to be a
mistake, and there was no reason to suppose that the
small quantity of argon absorbed was held in any way
except mechanically. Ramsay held the view that " if
argon forms a compound it must be with some rare
element. It would have been discovered years ago if
it had formed one with any of the commoner elements."
On the day following the meeting at the Royal Society
he received from Mr. H. A. Miers (afterwards Sir Henry),
Keeper of the Mineral Department of the British Museum,
-a letter drawing his attention to the work of Hillebrand
{American Journal of Science (1890), xi. 384), who
reported the frequent presence of what he supposed to
be nitrogen in the natural uranates. Both Miers and
Ramsay believed that the mineral cleveite, one of the
uranates, would be found to contain a compound of argon.
On the 17th March, 1895, in a letter to Mr. Buchanan,
Ramsay refers to the gas from cleveite as follows :

" Crookes thinks its spectrum is new, and I don't see from the
method of treatment how it can be anything old, except argon,

136 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

and that it certainly is not. We are making more of it and in a
few days I hope we shall have collected enough to do a density.
I suppose it is the sought for krypton, an element which should
accompany argon. . . . We have settled the question of argon
in the animal economy : there is absolutely no trace of argon in
peas or in mice. And I have done a good deal as regards density,
specific heat and expansion, a paper on which I shall send in to
the R.S. for next Thursday."

The presentation of the paper referred to had to be
postponed, for within the week the new gas had been
identified.

The surprise and delight of Ramsay may be conceived
when he found that the gas which he obtained from this
mineral contained not only argon, but a gas which from
its highly characteristic spectrum was recognised as the
hypothetical solar element to which the name helium
had been given by Lockyer many years before.

On 24th March he wrote as follows to his wife :

" Let's take the biggest piece of news first. I bottled the new
gas in a vacuum tube, and arranged so that I could see its spec-
trum and that of argon in the same spectroscope at the same
time. There is argon in the gas ; but there was a magnificent
yellow line, brilliantly bright, not coincident with but very close
to the sodium yellow line. I was puzzled, but began to smell
a rat. I told Crookes, and on Saturday morning when Harley,
Shields and I were looking at the spectrum in the dark room a
telegram came from Crookes. He had sent a copy here 1 and I
enclose that copy. You may wonder what it means. Helium is
the name given to a line in the solar spectrum, known to belong
to an element, but that element has hitherto been unknown on

1 12 Arundel Gardens, their home.

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 137

the earth. Krypton was what I called the gas I gave Crookes,
knowing the spectrum to point to something new. 587*49 is
the wave-length of the brilliant line. It is quite overwhelming
and beats argon. I telegraphed to Berthelot at once yesterday — •
' Gas obtenu par moi clevite melange argon helium. Crookes
identifie spectre. Faites communication Academic lundi — Ram-
say/ ... I have written Lord Rayleigh and I'll send a note to
the R.S. to-morrow, but it will be merely a claim for priority,
for there will be no meeting for a month."

On the 27th March the Annual Meeting of the Chemical
Society, only two months after the great meeting of the
Eoyal Society, provided a fitting opportunity for com-
municating this remarkable discovery to English
chemists. The Faraday medal was first presented to
Lord Eayleigh and the usual course of proceedings
was then interrupted to allow Ramsay to make his
communication, which can only be described as start-
ling in its effect on the minds of all present. The Trans-
actions of the Society contain the following record of the
words spoken by Ramsay on this occasion :

" In seeking a clue to compounds of argon I was led to repeat
experiments of Hillebrand on cleveite, which, as is well known,
when boiled with weak sulphuric acid, gives off a gas hitherto
supposed to be nitrogen. This gas proved to be almost free
from nitrogen ; its spectrum in a Pliicker tube showed all the
prominent argon lines, and in addition a brilliant line close to,
but not coinciding with, the D lines of sodium. There are,
moreover, a number of other lines, of which one in the green
blue is especially prominent. Atmospheric argon shows, besides,
three lines in the violet which are not to be seen, or if present,
are excessively feeble in the spectrum of the gas from cleveite.

138 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

This suggests that atmospheric argon contains, besides argon,
some other gas which has as yet not been separated and which
may possibly account for the anomalous position of argon in its
numerical relations with other elements.

Not having a spectroscope with which accurate measurements
could be made, I sent a tube of the gas to Mr. Crookes, who has
identified the yellow line with that of the solar element to which
the name ' helium ' has been given. He has kindly undertaken
to make an exhaustive study of its spectrum.

I have obtained a considerable quantity of this mixture and
hope soon to be able to report concerning its properties. A
determination of its density promises to be of great interest."

It is scarcely necessary to remark that at that time
no one expected to make a close acquaintance with
helium as a terrestrial element. The line D3 charac-
teristic of the element supposed by Lockyer to exist
in the sun had been measured many years previously by
Angstrom and by Cornu and their estimates were now
confirmed by the work of Crookes, who gave the wave-
length as 587'45.

, The mineral cleveite is a variety of uraninite, and
•minerals containing the element uranium were found
very generally to yield more or less helium together
with hydrogen, nitrogen and other gases. Helium was
found to be like argon, chemically inert. Its density
is a little less than twice that of. hydrogen, namely T99
and it is composed of monatomic molecules, like those
of argon. Its molecular weight is therefore approxi-
mately 4 and the symbol is He. It may be added here
that all attempts to liquefy helium remained for many

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 139

years fruitless and that the liquefaction was accom-
plished in 1908 by Professor Kamerlingh-Onnes of
Leiden. The boiling point of the liquid is the lowest
known, as it is approximately 4*5° absolute or 268°
to 269° below zero Centigrade.

Immediately after the meeting of the Chemical
Society in London Ramsay and his wife went to Paris
in fulfilment of an engagement to lecture on argon to
the Societe Chimique de Paris. Before leaving home
he received through M. le Chatelier an urgent request
that he would give a demonstration on the same sub-
ject to the 500 students of the feole Poly technique.
This he consented to do, and in a letter to his children,
dated; Paris 31st March, 1895, he gave them an account
of the proceedings on both occasions. Needless to say,
the lectures were received with enthusiastic applause.

This period, so full of interest and excitement, must
have been very exhausting to Ramsay, for it must not
be forgotten that the teaching at University College
made considerable demands on his time and energy.
At the end of the session he wisely sought a holiday
under conditions which would make him secure of
uninterrupted relief, and in company with his colleague,
Professor W. P. Ker, he started in August for Iceland.
Some account of this excursion will be found later on.
Some bottles of gas were collected at the hot springs
near Reykjavik, but they appear to have contained no
helium but only a notable quantity of argon. (Kellas
and Ramsay, Proc. Roy. Soc., Nov. 1895.)

140 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The following spring Ramsay visited Cauterets in the
Pyrenees accompanied by Dr. Morris Travers. They
started from the Thames and went by sea to Bordeaux
and on by train to Pan. Thence they travelled to
Pierrefitte, visiting Lourdes on the way, and reached
Cauterets in a snowstorm. An interesting letter to his
wife, giving an account of the visit to the springs, is
dated 2nd April, 1896. The Proceedings of the Royal
Society, 4th Feb., 1897, contain an account of the
examination of the gas from Cauterets, which was found
to contain both argon and helium.

A difficulty which presented itself in connection with
these new elements was the impossibility of finding
for them a suitable place in the periodic scheme of
Mendeleeff, which had already been accepted by the
chemical world for the classification of all the previously
known elements. This difficulty was discussed in the
latter part of the paper by Ramsay, Collie and Travers
on the sources and properties of helium, published in
the Transactions of the Chemical Society for June 1895.
Here it was pointed out that " if argon possesses the
atomic weight 40, there is no place for it in the periodic
table of the elements." At the anniversary meeting of
the Royal Society on November 30th in that year, the
Davy Medal was awarded to Ramsay on grounds which
are set forth in the following passage in the President's
Address. After referring to his earlier work, chiefly in
connection with problems in physical chemistry, it
proceeds :

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 141

" But the researches on which the award of the Davy Medal
to Professor Eamsay is chiefly founded are, firstly, those which
he has carried on, in conjunction with Lord Rayleigh, in the
investigation of the properties of argon, and in the discovery of
improved and rapid methods of getting it from the atmosphere ;
and, secondly, the discovery in certain rare minerals of a new
elementary gas which appears to be identical with the hitherto
hypothetical solar element, to which Mr. Lockyer many years
ago gave the name of ' helium.' . . .

The conferring of the Davy Medal on Professor Ramsay is a
crowning act of recognition of his work on argon and helium
which has already been recognised as worthy of honour by
scientific societies in other countries. For his discoveries on
these gases he has already been awarded the Foreign Member-
ship of the Societe Philosophique de Geneve and of the Leyden
Philosophical Society. He has had the Barnard Medal of the
Columbia College awarded to him by the American Academy
of Sciences, and within the last few weeks he has been
elected a Foreign Correspondent of the French Academic des
Sciences."

The novel characters of the gases, helium and argon,
led to great activity in the scientific world, and for a
time the journals were filled with speculations as to
their origin, their atomic constitution, their recognition
in the earth's atmosphere and in the heavenly bodies,
and their position in the scheme of known elements.
The excitement extended beyond scientific circles, and
all sorts of amateur physicists plunged into extravagant
hypotheses as to the functions of argon in nature. Even
young students were infected with the epidemic, and the
answers to examination questions showed that oxygen
as a constituent of our air was almost forgotten in the

142 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

anxiety on the part of the candidate to show that he or
she knew all about argon.

The actual state of knowledge concerning the new
gases in 1897 will best be described in Ramsay's own
words, and fortunately an excellent summary is given
at the end of a paper which he communicated to the
Annales de Ckimie et de Physique and which appeared
in April 1898. The following is a slightly abbreviated
translation of this summary :

" Without attempting to mention the numerous theories and
hypotheses which have been published with reference to argon
and helium, we will confine ourselves to positive facts.

The densities of helium and argon are respectively 1'98 and
19'94. The relation between the specific heats at constant
volume and constant pressure for each gas is 1*65. This relation
can only be consistent with the simplest molecular structure.
The molecules must be incapable of motion of any kind except
that in virtue of which they traverse space. If there is any
other kind of motion, it can only be exceedingly small. The
imaginary atoms of Boscovich could alone strictly comply with
this condition, and since these gases give well-defined spectra
it follows that they are not entirely without internal movement.
All that can be stated therefore is that the vibration which
produces the spectrum cannot be considerable enough to have
an appreciable influence on the ratio of their specific heats.

We may recall the fact that mercury, an element which for
other reasons is regarded as mono-atomic, exhibits the same
relation. It seems that the conclusion is inevitable that the
molecules of helium and argon are each formed of one atom.
Hence it follows that the atomic weight is double the density
or 3*96 for helium and 39 '88 for argon.

If these gases, however, are not homogeneous, if they consist

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE 143

of mixtures of mono-atomic elements, these atomic weights
would be merely the mean atomic weights of the elements con-
tained in such mixtures taken in the proportions in which they
are present. "We must ask therefore what evidence there is
that they are mixtures. Considering helium first, MM. Runge
and Paschen, Mr. Lockyer and others have maintained that
spectral analysis shows helium to be in reality a mixture of two
elements. It is sufficient to remind the two German savants
that they have expressed the view that the evidence of com-
plexity of helium applies also to the case of oxygen. No one
hitherto has suspected oxygen of being a mixture. Our repeated
efforts to effect a separation of helium into two elements, by
means of diffusion, have only succeeded in showing that the
helium from minerals may contain a small quantity of argon.
If there were two elements they must have the same density.
As to the hypothesis of Mr. Lockyer, who bases his idea on the
fact that the stars do not exhibit all the lines of helium, it must
not be forgotten that greater or less pressure, and temperature
more or less elevated, produce considerable differences in the
spectrum of helium in the relative intensity of the lines and even
in their existence. Our knowledge of the conditions prevailing
in the stars is so incomplete that it may well happen that certain
lines are missing and we can draw no conclusion therefrom.

I cannot answer for the homogeneity of argon with the same
assurance. Diffusion experiments gave two portions of gas, the
one having the density 19'93, the other less diffusible 20'01. If,
however, there is any foreign gas present, it must be in very
minute quantity, and would have no considerable effect on the
atomic weight.

The mono-atomicity of helium is connected with its other
physical properties. Having an atomic weight nearly four times
that of hydrogen, it ought to have a higher boiling point. How-
ever, Professor Olszewski has been unable to liquefy it at a
temperature much lower than that at which hydrogen becomes

144

SIB, WILLIAM EAMSAY

liquid. This leads to the supposition that its structure must be
simpler than that of hydrogen. We are accustomed to believe
that the polymerisation of a substance raises its boiling point,
and accordingly since hydrogen gas is the polymer of the unknown
atomic hydrogen, its liquefaction is possible.

In support of the hypothesis of the mono-atomicity of helium
may also be cited its extraordinary conductivity for electricity, its
feeble refractivity for light and its unexpected rapidity of diffusion.
As it possesses exceptional properties, we are led to conclude that
its molecular constitution is different from that of other gases.

With regard to the position of argon in the periodic scheme
it is sufficient to indicate that if it possesses an atomic weight
higher than that of the element which succeeds it in the table,
namely potassium, it is not alone in this peculiarity, for the atomic
weight of tellurium is undoubtedly above that of iodine, its suc-
cessor in the table.

Admitting then that the atomic weight of helium is about 4,
and that the atomic weight of argon is about 40, the difference
between these two figures is 36. Now this is just the difference
observable among the members of the following series :

Fluorine 19

16*5

Chlorine 35'5

19-5

Manganese 55

Oxygen
Sulphur
Chromium

16

16
32

20-3
52-3

Carbon 12 Boron 11

16-3 16

Silicon 28*3 Aluminium 27

19'8 17-1

Titanium 48' 1 Scandium 44' 1

Nitrogen

14

17

Phosphorus

31

20-4

Vanadium

51-4

Glucinum

9-1

15-2

Magnesium

24-3

15-8

Calcium

40-1

Lithium
Sodium

16

23

16-1
Potassium 39*1

Helium

Argon

16

20

20

40

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHEEE 145

The differences between the extremes are as follows :

Manganese — Fluorine - - 36

Chromium — Oxygen - 36 '3

Vanadium — Nitrogen ! -; - 37*4

Titanium — Carbon - - 36*1

Scandium — Boron - - 33*1

Calcium — Glucinum - 31

Potassium — Lithium " - - 32 '1

Argon — Helium - - 36

These differences are not very far from 36.

I believe therefore that an element hitherto unknown should
find a place between helium and argon. We have looked for
this element in vain. However, we have not given up the
search, and if we succeed the discovery would throw much light
on the nature of helium and argon."

In September 1897 the meeting of the British Associ-
ation took place at Toronto in Canada, and Ramsay was
President of the Chemical Section. The customary
address was occupied chiefly with an exposition of the
relations of helium and argon very nearly on the lines
of the summary just given.

With these considerations as a guide the discovery of
an elementary gas, having a density 10 and atomic
weight 20, was foretold. This prophecy, however, was
not realised till a year later, when Ramsay and Travers
announced in June 1898 the discovery of a new gas in
the least volatile portion of a large quantity of liquid
air. This gas they named krypton (hidden). A fort-
night later they discovered another gas called neon (new),
which was found to possess the density required for the

146

SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

element predicted for the position between helium and
argon. A gas named metargon, announced at the same
time, proved afterwards to be a mixture containing
carbonic oxide. By allowing a large quantity of liquid
air to evaporate quietly, and removing oxygen and
nitrogen from the residue, a mixture of argon and krypton
was obtained, in which was detected yet another gas in
small quantity, to which the name xenon (the stranger)
was given. All these gases agree with argon in chemical
inactivity and in consisting of monatomic molecules.
Their densities, boiling points, critical temperatures and
pressures, refractivities and spectra have been examined
and recorded, and the " Companions of Argon " form a
complete series running parallel with the halogen
elements on the one side and with the alkali metals on
the other, as shown below :

Hydrogen
1

Helium
4

Lithium

7

Glucinum
9

Fluorine
19

Neon
20

Sodium
23

Magnesium
24

Chlorine
35-5

Argon
40

Potassium
39

Calcium
40

Bromine
80

Krypton

82

Rubidium
85

Strontium
87

Iodine

Xenon

Caesium

Barium

127

128

133

137

Here the atomic weights are given in round numbers,
but when the most accurate determinations of the
atomic weight of argon are compared with those of
potassium, the figure for the former element is still too
great Taking the atomic weights given in the most

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE 147

recent Table of the International Committee (1916),
namely A = 39*9, K = 39*l, the value for argon is too
high. It looks therefore as though this was an anomaly
similar to that which has for so many years been a
subject of repeated investigation, namely the relation
of tellurium (Te = 127'5) to iodine (I=126'92).

As Ramsay remarks at the end of one of his papers
(Proc. Roy. Soc. 67, 333), "the conundrum of the
periodic table has yet to be solved."

Of the companions of argon, neon, krypton and xenon
are found with it among the constituents of our atmo-
sphere. Helium, however, the lightest of them all, was
not at first detected in the air. notwithstanding repeated
experiments made by Lord Rayleigh and by Ramsay
with this object. It is, however, curious that helium
is found in connection with certain sources of hot
mineral waters, though not in all. Thus the water of
the geysers in Iceland contain not a trace, neither do
the waters of Harrogate and Strathpeffer, while the
springs at Wildbad, in the Black Forest, are said to
contain small quantities, and it has also been found in
the waters of Bath and Cauterets (Basses Pyrenees).

Helium was recognised in the air much later by Baly
and others (Nature, October 1898).

The late Dr. Johnstone Stoney, in discussing the
atmospheres of planets and satellites (Trans. Roy.
Dublin Society, 1897), expressed the view that the com-
position of the atmosphere composed of a mixture of
gases depends on the velocity of translation of the

148 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

molecules and the mass of the central body. The
composition of the earth's atmosphere, the absence of
atmosphere around the moon and the composition of
the solar atmosphere, which contains hydrogen and
helium mixed with heavier gases, are thus explained,
and it appears that a gas of lower density than ammonia
would sooner or later disappear from the earth. Hence
any helium in our atmosphere would escape sooner or
later.

The annual meeting of the Chemical Society was this
(1897) year marked by two events, both of which testify
to the position Ramsay occupied in the esteem of the
chemists of his own country. The presentation of the
LongstafE Medal, " for the discovery of helium and for
his share in the investigation of argon," represented
only another unit in the long series of prizes and dis-
tinctions which had fallen to his lot, and being available
only once in three years, this was the first opportunity
for the award of the medal by the Council. This year,
however, was the unprecedented occasion of a division
in the Chemical Society in regard to the nomination of
President. In accordance with custom the new presi-
dent was nominated by the Council for election at the
annual meeting. A considerable number of the Fellows,
however, being desirous of seeing Ramsay in the chair,
proposed him formally in opposition to the official
nominee. That this was done without his knowledge
is shown by a passage in a letter to his friend Fyfe,
dated the 21st March, ten days before the anniversary,

THE GASES OF THE ATMOSPHERE 149

which runs as follows : " Last Thursday I wasn't at
the meeting, for Fitzgerald was arriving that evening,
and next morning I heard to my horror and surprise
that 116 of the Fellows had nominated me." The
matter being pushed to a conclusion, the scrutators
reported, after a recount, 152 votes in his favour against
166 for the Council's nominee. But happily the ferment
settled down, and ten years later Ramsay became Presi-
dent of the Chemical Society.

The history of these remarkable discoveries would not
be complete without some reference to the attacks made
from time to time on Ramsay, in which it was alleged
that he had endeavoured to appropriate a larger share
of credit in connection with the work than his due.
The correspondence which has been preserved shows
that no feeling of this kind existed on the part of Lord
Rayleigh. Very wisely neither of the co-discoverers
replied to these attacks. Twenty years have passed
since that time, and Ramsay's reputation not only for
scientific insight, and experimental skill, but for manly
straightforwardness and honesty of purpose combined
with enthusiasm, has long since been established beyond
the reach of jealousy and detraction.

At the end of the year 1898 Ramsay was in Berlin,
and on 19th December he gave a lecture on the gases
to the German Chemical Society, and a report was
printed in the Berichte (p. 3111). The following day,
at the request of the Empress, he gave an account of
their chief properties to the court, and the Emperor and

150 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Empress accompanied by Sir Frank Lascelles, British
Ambassador, came to the Chemical Institute. On the
21st he lectured in German to a very large audience at
the Urania, the Berlin popular institute of sciences.

APPENDIX I TO CHAPTER V

IT has already been mentioned that Ramsay was Presi-
dent of the Chemical Section of the British Association
meeting at Toronto, and a short summary of his address
has been given. The story of the journey with his
family to Canada and back cannot be told better than
in his own words in a letter, dated 10th October, to
Mr. Fyfe on his return home.

" When we started on the Parisian I think I knew 70 of our
fellow-passengers, not including many wives ; so there was no
lack of company. We took our meals next old Turner of Edin-
burgh,1 who was a very pleasant and talkative neighbour. He
keeps his eyes on people's skulls. By the way Mag had the
broadest on board ; but Elska and Willie had the more dolicho-
cephalic than even I. We had the usual carryings on — concerts,
lectures — one excellent evening of tales from Selous concerning
his chase of elephants and lions, and also concerning him in the
role of the hunted ; the last was exceedingly dramatic. ... I
stood his sponsor on admitting him into the Red Lion Club later
on at Toronto. I pled two excuses on his behalf ; first that he
had been known to run away from a lion ; second that he had
once missed a lion ; and promised on his behalf that while in

1 The late Sir William Turner, Professor of Anatomy, afterwards
Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University. He died in 1916 at an
advanced age.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V 151

America he would never kill a lion. Donald MacAlister, who
was the " Lion-King," bestowed on him the degree of L.L.D. —
4 Leo Leonum Destructor.' Sir George l Robertson of Chitral
was also one of our fellow-passengers, and he and Selous capped
one another's stories and made us much joy. It was not a
* sick transit ' and the ' gloria mundi ' was unabated. We went
straight into Montreal by the Parisian and took up our quarters
with Mr. Russell Baldwin, who was a most exemplary host.
The section pursued its usual course, and we had a good attendance
of U.S. chemists, among others a number of my old friends.
Remsen was there, also Clarke from Washington, and a lot of
others whom you never heard of. The usual round of garden
parties and receptions was given, and Lord and Lady Aberdeen
graced the show. At a final dinner given to us by the munici-
pality, he being in the chair, he shouted out ' Is the Bishop of
Ontario present ? ' No reply. ' Is the Reverend Augustus
Thomson present ? ' No reply. ' Then thank God for these and
all His mercies.' 2

. . . From Toronto we went straight west on the Canadian
Pacific Ry. We took the lake route and spent ten days on
Huron and Superior. Then by train to Winnipeg, considerably
grown but not so much altered as I expected after 13 years, and
on to Glacier, crossing the Rockies and the Selkirks. One fine
morning, at 6 o'clock, on approaching the Rockies, Elska and I
were on the end platform of our carriage, which was the end of
the train. We were jogging along at the customary 20 miles
an hour. Suddenly a band of Indians dressed in coloured blan-
kets and with eagles' feathers on their heads galloped out from
behind a small wood and drew up, reining in their horses on their
haunches, quite close to us. We waved to them and they to us,
and we steamed slowly ahead. It was a romantic sight and

1 This must be a mistake for Brig. -Gen. William Robert Robertson.

2 This is a sort of personal parody of the query by C. V. L. in Charles
Lamb's " Grace before meat."

152 SIB WILLIAM EAMSAY

reminded us of the old Fenimore Cooper days. Most of these
people look like very decayed gentlemen, grave and sedate, but
very seedy. The Rockies are rocky and bare, the Selkirks like
the Alps ; — all covered with snow and with pine trees on the
lower slopes.

Then we came back. Most of our friends went on to Van-
couver and Victoria ; but we wanted to spend as long a time as
possible with Pat Buchanan. So we turned at Medicine Hat —
the oddest of a lot of odd names along this route — and took a
narrow gauge line south to Montana. At Great Falls, on the
Missouri, we found Pat, and were introduced to his numerous
acquaintances there. It is a pretty town and perfectly civilised.
By the way, in all American towns the electric car is the chief
feature. There are overhead wires and cars like our tram cars,
run at a prodigious rate, careless of life apparently, yet there
are very few accidents. I suppose the fittest, i.e. those who
don't get killed, survive. They are delightful as a form of motion
and almost rival the bicycle. That creature, too, has penetrated
everywhere, and is used even over the prairie. We drove out to
Pat's ranche, and stayed there for 11 days. It is a fine place.
He and his partner must possess at least 20 miles square of
territory, — as much say as Stirlingshire. It is not all theirs,
but they hold all the water, and the rest of the land is useless
to anyone else. They lead an Arcadian life, have a comfortable
house and many helps, — men, horses and cows and innumer-
able sheep. They are doing first rate now that the wool is
looking up.

To cut a long story short, we came back via Niagara and stayed
three days at Springfield, Mass., with South worth, Bemsen's
brother-in-law, very pleasantly ; caught the steamer at Quebec,
and after a good passage got home last Monday. It seems as
if I had never been away. Such is the perversity of human
nature."

APPENDIX II TO CHAPTER V 153

APPENDIX II TO CHAPTER V

APPARATUS used by Rayleigh and Ramsay for isolating argon
on a large scale from the air.

FIGURE 1 — MAGNESIUM METHOD.

A is the circulator. It consists of a sort of Sprengel's pump (a),
to which a supply of mercury is admitted from a small reservoir
(6). This mercury is delivered into a gas-separator (c), and
the mercury overflows into the reservoir (d). When its level
rises so that it blocks the tube (/) it ascends in pellets or pistons
into (e), a reservoir which is connected through (g) with a water-
pump. The mercury falls into (6) and again passes down the
Sprengel tube (a). No attention is therefore required, for the
apparatus works quite automatically.

The gas is drawn from the gasholder B, and passes through a
tube C, which is heated to redness by a long flame burner and
which contains in one half metallic copper and in the other half
copper oxide. This precaution is taken in order to remove any
oxygen which may possibly be present (in the atmospheric
" nitrogen " used), and also any hydrogen or hydrocarbon. In
practice it was never found that the copper became oxidised,
or the oxide reduced. The gas next traversed a drying tube D,
the anterior portion containing ignited soda lime and the posterior
portion phosphoric anhydride. From this it passed to a reser-
voir D', from which it could be transferred, when all absorption
had ceased, into the small gasholder. It then passed through E,
a piece of combustion-tube, drawn out at both ends, filled with
magnesium turnings and heated by a long flame burner to red-
ness. Passing through a small bulb, provided with electrodes,
it again entered the fall-tube.

After the magnesium tube E had done its work, the stopcocks
were all closed, and the gas was turned down, so that the burners

154

SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

APPENDIX II TO CHAPTER V 155

might cool. The mixture of argon and nitrogen remaining in
the system was pumped out through a Sprengel pump through
F, collected in a large test-tube and re-introduced into the gas-
holder B through the side tube G, which requires no description.
The magnesium tube was then replaced by a fresh one ; the
system of tubes was exhausted of air ; argon and nitrogen were
admitted from the gasholder B ; the copper tube and the mag-
nesium tube were again heated ; and the operation was repeated
till absorption ceased. It was easy to decide when this point
had been reached, by making use of the graduated cylinder H,
from which water entered the gasholder B. It was found
advisable to keep all the water employed in these operations,
for it became saturated with argon. If gas was withdrawn
from the gasholder, its place was taken by this saturated water.
By means of magnesium about 7 litres of nitrogen can be absorbed
in an hour. The changing of the tubes of magnesium, however,
takes some time ; consequently the largest amount absorbed in
one day was nearly 30 litres.

From the result of a special quantitative experiment it may
be concluded, with probability, that argon forms approximately
1 per cent, of the atmospheric nitrogen.

FIGURE 2 — OXYGEN METHOD.

The vessel A is a large globe of about 6 litres capacity and
stands in an inclined position. It is about half-filled with a
solution of caustic soda. The neck is fitted with a rubber stopper
By provided with four perforations. Two of these are fitted
with tubes (7, Z), suitable for the supply of withdrawal of gas or
liquid. The other two allow the passage of the stout glass
tubes E, F, which contain the electrodes. For greater security
against leakage the interior of these tubes is charged with water
held in place by small corks, and the outer ends are cemented
up. The electrodes are formed of stout iron wires, terminated
by thick platinums G, H, triply folded together and welded at

156

SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

APPENDIX II TO CHAPTER V 157

the ends. The upper part of the flask is cooled by water, which
is enclosed by a lead wall partially shown at I. For greater
security the india-rubber cork is also drowned in water, held in
place with the aid of sheet-lead. The lower part of the globe
is occupied by about 3 litres of a 5 per cent, solution of caustic
soda, the solution rising to within about half-an-inch of the
platinum terminals. In a successful experiment 9250 c.c. of
air were used and 10,820 c.c. of oxygen were consumed, the
proportion of oxygen being to nitrogen as 1'75 to 1*0, that is,
more than sufficient to convert the nitrogen into nitrous acid,
in which form it is absorbed. The argon ultimately left after
absorption of the excess of oxygen amounted to 75 c.c., or a little
more than 1 per cent, of the atmospheric " nitrogen " used.
(Phil Trans, vol. 186, part I A, p. 212 to p. 219.)

CHAPTER VI

WOKK ON RADIUM

IN 1902 radium salts were isolated by Madame Curie,
and naturally the physical and chemical properties of
these remarkable substances attracted a large number
of investigators. Ramsay desired to examine the spec-
trum of the " emanation " which is evolved from radium,
and with the co-operation of Dr. Frederick Soddy, who
had come to work in his laboratory in the autumn of
1903, experiments were begun with this object. Ramsay
was a skilled manipulator of small quantities of gas,
having determined the physical properties of xenon with
less than 4 cubic centimetres, but in the case of the
emanation where it was a matter of cubic millimetres
special apparatus had to be devised. After some pre-
liminary attempts, vacuum tubes were made out of
thermometer tubing, and the emanation being admitted
the experimenters were surprised to find helium present.
Subsequently the volume of emanation evolved in a
given time from a given weight of radium bromide,
and the quantity of helium disengaged from a known
volume of emanation were approximately measured.

158

WORK ON RADIUM 159

The emanation was recognised as possessing the pro-
perties of a true gas obeying Boyle's law like other gases.
It had been previously shown by Rutherford and Soddy
to be chemically inert like argon. This production of
helium from the emanation Ramsay speaks of as the
first observed case of " transmutation," for radium and
its emanation as well as helium must be counted among
the substances known as " elements." This idea de-
veloped later into the conviction that radio-active
change might be made use of to effect the transmutation
of the common elements. This subject will be referred
to later.

The important discovery just described gives the clue
to the sources of helium in natural spring waters which
evidently rise through or from radiferous rocks. As to
the homologues of heKum, namely argon and the rest,
no corresponding source is known. But if analogy may
be relied on it seems probable that argon, neon, krypton
and xenon are, like helium, products of radio-active
change occurring in substances similar in constitution
to radium but having much higher atomic weight and
a far more unstable constitution. These have long since
disappeared from among the known mineral constituents
of this earth's crust. Ramsay does not seem to have
occupied himself with this point of view, which obviously
cannot be put to the test of experiment.1 Some years
later he seems to have thought it possible that neon and

1 This speculation is discussed in the pages of a little book, The Elements,
by Sir W. A. Tilden (Harpers).

160 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

argon result from partial degradation of the radium
emanation (Trans. Chem. Soc. 1907, p. 1605).

The search which Ramsay undertook later (Proc. Roy.
Soc. 81, p. 178) concerning the existence in the atmos-
phere of possible new members of the inactive series of
gases led to a negative result. With the aid of Mr. H. E.
Watson, who photographed the spectrum of the lighter
constituents of the air, and of Professor Richard B.
Moore, who investigated the less volatile portions of no
less than 120 tons of liquid air, no new constituent of
the atmosphere could be detected. But Ramsay
pointed out that there are gaps in the periodic table
which conceivably might be fitted by elements of the
inactive series having a higher atomic weight than that
of xenon. From the known gradation of properties
passing from helium to xenon it was certain that the
missing elements must be gases, and it was almost
equally certain that they would form no compounds.

Three gases were known which are as inactive chemi-
cally as those of the argon group, but they disintegrate
during the process of separation. These were the eman-
ations from radium, thorium and actinium. Various
attempts to determine the atomic or molecular weights
of the emanations of radium and thorium led only to
an estimate for the emanation of radium as about 175.
Ramsay was, however, dissatisfied with the condition
of uncertainty *ifL which this interesting problem was
left in 1908. And soon afterwards he began a series
of experiments, with the assistance of Dr. Whytlaw Gray,

WOEK ON KADIUM 161

on the direct estimation of the density of the radium
emanation.

This research must be regarded as one of the most
wonderful ever recorded in the annals of experiment.
Remembering the exceedingly small volume of the eman-
ation obtainable from a relatively large weight of
radium, it is not surprising that other experimenters
using methods based on the measurements of the rate
of diffusion or of effusion had arrived at widely divergent
values for the density of the gas. The majority of the
numbers obtained pointed to an atomic weight either
176 or 222, and these are the tabular atomic weights of
the two next terms following xenon in the periodic table,
thus :

Helium Neon Argon Krypton Xenon I II

4 20 40 83 130 176 222

The problem, then, to be attacked was the deter-
mination of the weight of emanation evolved in a given
time from a known weight of radium. The volume being
already known from the experiments of Rutherford in
1903, those of Debierne in 1909, and confirmed shortly
afterwards by Gray and Ramsay. As shown in the
paper communicated to the Royal Society in December
1910 (Proc. Roy. Soc. 84 A, p. 536), the total volume of
the gas obtainable for weighing scarcely exceeded ^
cubic millimetre, a scarcely visible bubble, and if the
atomic weight is assumed to be 222 the weight is less
than T^Vo milligram. It is evident therefore that in

162 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

order to weigh this minute quantity of gas with sufficient
exactness a balance turning with a load not greater
than TO 60 oo milligram was a necessity. Such a balance
has been constructed and described by Dr. B. D. Steele
and Mr. Grant, of the University of Melbourne, and
they showed that a sensibility of -gsoooo milligram could
be attained. It would be impossible to convey in these
pages any clear idea of the operations involved in the
construction of the balance, the collection of the gas to
be weighed and the manipulation during the process of
weighing. Every student of chemistry and physics
should read carefully the description of the work set
forth in the paper referred to. All that need be added
is the result of the five concordant experiments recorded
in the paper, and the mean of them, namely

227 226 225 220 218 Mean 223

The density, and hence the atomic weight, of the gas
were therefore settled. In view of the character of the
emanation, which is a gas belonging to the argon series
of inactive elements, Ramsay assigned to it the name
niton, with the symbol Nt.< The concluding words of
the memoir express very clearly the importance of the
result.

" The research, of which the foregoing is an account, yields a
further proof, if such were necessary, of the beautiful theory of
the disintegration of the radio-active elements originally advanced
by Rutherford and Soddy in 1902. The determination of the
density of a gas, even with approximate exactness, has always
been regarded as establishing its molecular weight, the accurate

WORK ON RADIUM 163

value of which may have been derived from other considera-
tions. In the present case these considerations are the result
of the disintegration theory. Determinations by Madame Curie
and by Thorpe of the atomic weight of radium show beyond all
doubt that it differs little from 226*4. That four atoms of helium
separate from one atom of radium is rendered almost certain
from the work of Dewar and from experiments by Rutherford
and by Ramsay and Soddy. That three atoms of helium are
lost by niton on decay has been shown in the preceding pages.
It follows that one helium atom must escape when radium
changes into its emanation ; hence the true atomic weight of
the emanation must be 222*4. This number hardly differs from
the mean of the atomic weight determinations given in this
paper ; and the disintegration theory receives a further con-
firmation."

Ramsay's views as to the utilisation of radio-active
change to effect chemical decomposition and even
" transmutation " of elements, have already been re-
ferred to. His study of the emanation of radium, or
niton as he called it, led him to consider this problem
seriously and to make experiments; the results of which
are recorded in two papers * communicated to the
Chemical Society in 1907. The first of these commences
with the following remarks :

" The emanation from radium is one of the most potent, if not
thejnost potent chemical agent which exists in nature. Of all
known substances it is endowed with the greatest content of
potential energy ; for one cubic centimetre contains, and can
evolve, nearly three million times as much heat as an equal
volume of a mixture of two volumes of hydrogen with one of

1 Transactions (1907), p. 931, part i. ; Transactions (1907), p. 1593,
part ii. (Cameron and Ramsay).

164 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

oxygen. The spontaneous change which it undergoes, more-
over, is accompanied by the emission of an immense number of
corpuscles, expelled with a velocity approaching that of light
in magnitude and which have a remarkable influence on matter."

With the design of applying this immense and con-
centrated store of energy to the production of chemical
change, experiments were first made on the action of
radium bromide on water, then on the action of the
emanation on water and on a mixture of oxygen and
hydrogen. Giesel was the first to observe the fact of
the decomposition of water by radium salts, but Bod-
lander and later Ramsay and Soddy found that the
mixture of evolved gas contains an excess of hydrogen.
Ramsay now found that the action is reversible, but
that the velocity of decomposition of water by the
emanation is greater than that of the recombination
of the resulting gases. The rate at which water is
decomposed by the emanation presents a problem which
was found to be insoluble in the present state of
knowledge.

The second paper referred to contains an account of
the action of emanation on solutions of copper and lead.
The details concerning the apparatus and operations
involved are very complicated, and every precaution
seems to have been observed against the introduction of
impurity and the possibility of error. The conclusions,
however, are of such fundamental significance that no
amount of skill and labour would be wasted in their
verification. For these experiments lead to the sug-

WORK ON RADIUM 165

gestion that the elementary atoms of copper and lead
undergo a process of degradation, the former into
sodium and lithium, the latter into products not finally
identified. Thorium nitrate submitted to the same
action continually produces carbon dioxide. At the
same time the helium which is evolved when emanation
is left alone or in admixture with oxygen and hydrogen
gases is replaced by argon when a copper salt is simul-
taneously present in solution. Other suggestions are
made in this important paper, and letters to his friend
Worthington give evidence of the fermentation which
this interesting subject set up in his mind. Thus, the
following passage occurs (21st Nov., 1906) :

" I have the first proof that lead nitrate plus emanation gives
C02. I am, of course, repeating. Other things don't, so far as
I have tried them, except thorium nitrate. . . . The order of
events appears to be : radium emanation, which is obviously
an argon gas, gives, when it disintegrates besides Rutherford's
A, B, C, etc., about 7'5 p.c. of its weight of He. CuS04 . Aq
plus emanation gives LigSC^, and now Pb(N03)2 and Th(N03)4
give C02. I think that the pouring of such thundering amounts
of energy as come off the Ra emanation into these atoms (counting
these 7' 5 p.c. of the Ra emanation as also affected by the energy
given off by the odd 92*5 p.c. which disintegrates) brings them
down to their lowest members.

Thus Li is the lowest member of the Cu group.
j? .tie ,, ,, ,, A. ,,

„ C „ „ „ Pb and Th groups.

Other members may be formed simultaneously. I think that
Na is also formed from Cu. I can't tell whether A or Kr are
formed from Emn, or whether Si, Ti, etc., are formed from Pb

166 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

or Th. We will see. I have expts. on now to try whether Al,
In and Te give B ; and whether Bi gives N2. I think I can
detect these."

Again (25th July, 1907) we find :

" I am now trying to see whether the sodium one finds is real,
by using a silica bulb. ... I am pretty sure that Na must be
formed, for Na is a much commoner element than Li in nature,
and if copper is to be degraded it would more likely go to the
stable form of Na father than to the less common, and therefore
probably more unstable form of Li. Also I want to be dead
certain that argon is not derived from the atmosphere. . . . The
next shot would be to try some heavier metal, say gold, and see
if krypton will not be formed from the emanation. Gold, too,
should give alkali metals."

In a letter to Dr. Travers (20th May, 1907) Ramsay
says:

" I have got lithium from copper for the third time ; and
Cameron, one of our students, is repeating so as to give a final
check. It will be done in a month and a half, — say by the end
of June."

The uninitiated will be unable to appreciate the
enormous difficulties attending such investigations, the
extreme minuteness of the quantities to be dealt with in
the endeavour to recognise the products and the practical
impossibility of completely excluding impurities derived
from the air, the water employed and the surfaces of
the glass, silica or metallic vessels necessarily employed.
Ramsay himself knew all about this, no one better, and
in dealing with the emanation itself when using the

WORK ON RADIUM 167

microbalance as already mentioned he was troubled by
the condensation of air, and in a letter to Dr. Travers
he mentions (27th Nov., 1910) that " All water leaves a
weighable residue from a drop, and that introduces
fresh difficulties in working on a small scale." This
residue is doubtless derived from the atmosphere, if
the water has been in contact with ordinary air even for
an instant.

The position of these interesting speculations is still
unsettled. But it may be pointed out that hypothesis
has been lavished on the question as to the origin of
the known elements. It seems to be generally admitted
that they were formed by the condensation, under
suitable but probably varying conditions, of one or more
primary forms of matter, and that the comparatively
stable forms of the condensed material have ranged
themselves in groups and series which are summed up
in the periodic scheme of Mendeleeff or some modification
of it. There seems to be some evidence of the reverse
operation proceeding spontaneously in the disintegration
of the radio-active substances, and there is surely justi-
fication for an attempt to utilise the enormous energy
which becomes available in this process in the endeavour
to break down the atoms of those common elements
which are not appreciably radio-active and which are
apparently permanent under conditions now prevailing
in this part of the universe. It is true that other experi-
menters have not confirmed Ramsay's published state-
ments, but in such a field of work it is not surprising

168 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

that equally skilled operators should arrive at irrecon-
cilable results. All that we can now hope for is that
when peace once more allows the undisturbed pursuit
of experimental investigations, this great problem will
be resumed and brought to an incontestable issue.

This is not the place to describe with any detail the
manufacture or properties of radium and its salts, but
the general reader may be reminded that radium is
found in uraniferous minerals, of which the most
important is pitchblende, the oxide U808. The mineral
is, however, very complex, containing small quantities
of many metals. In the process of separating the minute
quantity of radium present in the mineral, advantage is
taken of the fact that the salts of radium closely resemble
the salts of barium, and that when a solution containing
both metals is mixed with sulphuric acid the precipitated
barium sulphate carries down with it the whole of the
radium also in the form of sulphate. Radium is sold
chiefly in the form of bromide, which is still very expen-
sive, owing to the demand for scientific and medical
purposes and the very limited supply.

It was Sir Lauder Brunton who first suggested the
use of radium emanation as a possible curative agent
in cases of cancer. Brunton was a very intimate friend
of Ramsay's, the acquaintance dating from early school
days. There was therefore a double interest which led
Ramsay to take steps in the hope of adding to the
limited quantity available for the use of the medical
profession in this country. When the emanation was

WORK ON RADIUM 169

first used all radium had to be procured from Austria.
But in 1910 a mine in Cornwall was found near St. Ives,
where there was a large heap of residues containing
pitchblende. Ramsay began with his private assistant,
Mr. Whitehouse, to work out a process, and, after trying
it on a small scale, the mining company started a small
factory in the east-end of London under the title " The
British Radium Corporation." Mr. Whitehouse was
appointed chemist, and Ramsay's only son, William
George Ramsay, assisted him in the work. Ramsay
himself was neither a director nor shareholder, but he
acted as chemical adviser, his duties being to visit the
works at intervals and test the products. On 7th
January, 1911, he was able to say in a letter to Dr.
Travers in India, " The radium work is in full swing and
turning out more radium than I fancy will easily sell.
Still they are getting £20 a mgm. for it. Whitehouse
has done it well. The concentration of the ore is the
chief problem." The manufacture went on for a year or
more, when larger works were taken on the south side
of the Thames, but about that time the quality of the
ore declined and the output was reduced. The company
was ultimately wound up.

At about the time that the corporation for the manu-
facture of radium commenced operations the Radium
Institute for the therapeutic use of radium was founded.
At first it was hoped that supplies might have been
obtained from British sources, but the corporation and
the Institute were entirely unconnected together, and it

170 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

was not found possible for the former to comply with
the requirements of the latter. Negotiations therefore
fell through and the Institute got its radium from
Austria.

A new mineral, having radio-active properties, had
been discovered in Ceylon in 1904. It contained a
large percentage of thorium oxide, and hence received
the name thorianite. On being heated or dissolved in
dilute sulphuric acid it gives off a considerable quantity
of gas consisting chiefly of helium. Ramsay secured
several hundred-weights of this mineral, and with the
aid of a chemical manufacturer proceeded to treat it
by the process used in the case of pitchblende for the
extraction of barium and radium.

This part of the product was investigated in Ramsay's
laboratory by Otto Hahn. It was found that in separat-
ing the radium salt from the barium, the radio-activity
became concentrated on the one hand into the least
soluble portion containing radium, and on the other
into the most soluble portion which was found to con-
tain a hitherto unrecognised radio-element to which
Ramsay gave the name radiothorium. The facts were
published both by Ramsay and Hahn in 1905. Hahn
then left London and went to work with Rutherford in
xmtreal, having evidently taken some of the same
aterial with him. He soon discovered mesoihorium,
he parent of radiothorium, and published an account
its radio-active properties while keeping the methods
of preparation and the chemical properties secret. Meso-

WORK ON EADIUM 171

thorium preparations, equal in activity to radium, were
soon put on the market in Germany. In 1910 the
question of the chemical properties of mesothorium was
investigated by Professor Soddy,1 who found that meso-
thorium was non-separable from radium. Consequently
the radium prepared from thorianite in Ramsay's experi-
ments contained the mesothorium. And as meso-
thorium gives rise in its radio-active change to radio-
thorium the latter becomes associated, in the process
of fractionation, with the thorium present from which
it is non-separable. The radio thorium obtained by
Ramsay and Hahn was therefore a new-born product
formed during the process of fractional crystallisation.

1 Transaction* of the Chemical Society, 1911, p. 72.

CHAPTER VII

LATER YEARS

WHEN a man is approaching the age of sixty years he
is often supposed to be looking forward with some
eagerness to the time when he can retire from active
life. In Ramsay's case, however, there was little sign
of relaxation so far as the fulfilment of public engage-
ments was concerned nor in the active pursuit of scien-
tific research. Nevertheless, there were times when he
had to acknowledge privately that the pace could not
be kept up much longer. He had been within a few
years President of the Society of Chemical Industry
(1904), President of the Chemical Society (1908 and
1909), President of the International Congress of Applied
Chemistry (1909), President of the Chemical Section of
the British Association (1897), and President of the
Association itself (1911), and each year of office required
a presidential address.

He had also been to India on official business (1900),
and with the Society of Chemical Industry to the St.
Louis Exhibition, with an address at the Congress of

Arts and Science at St. Louis (1904), to Norway to visit

172

LATER YEARS 173

a mine of radio-active mineral, to lecture in Vienna (1908)
at the Association Helvetique at Geneva, at the Associa-
tion Fran£aise (1908), and at the Sorbonne. He was a
member of the Sewage Commission also, which involved
many journeys of inspection beside laboratory work at
home. These and many other engagements were fulfilled
while continuing his teaching and research at University
College.

The Sewage Commission began operations in 1897
under the chairmanship of the Earl of Iddesleigh, the
other members, beside Ramsay, being Sir Richard
Thome Thome and General Phipps Carey (representing
the Local Government Board), Mr. C. P. Cotton (Irish
L.G.B.), Sir Michael Foster, F.R.S., Colonel T. W.
Harding (West Riding Rivers Board), Mr. P. W. Killick
(Mersey and Irwell Rivers Board), and Dr. J. B. Russell
(Scottish L.G.B.). The commission was at work up to
the time when its operations were suspended at the
outbreak of war in August 1914. On the death of Sir
Michael Foster in 1907, Ramsay, in a letter, reminds
his friend Dr. McGowan that no fewer than five members
of the Commission had already been removed by death ;
there were consequently a good many changes in the
course of its existence. The staff employed consisted
of Professor Sir R. Boyce (who died while the Com-
mission was sitting) and Dr. A. C. Houston as bacter-
iologists ; Dr. George McGowan and Mr. Colin C. Frye
as chemists ; with Mr. G. B. Kershaw as engineer. There
were also a good many assistants, bacteriological and

174 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

chemical, and some ten reports were drawn up. In
fairness it should be stated that one of the Appendices
contained an account of the work " On the Pollution of
Estuaries and Tidal Waters," by Dr. W. E. Adeney
and Professor Letts, and that Dr. Adeney's original
work, done before the Commission came into existence,
was of fundamental importance and was only extended
and amplified by the investigations made by the Com-
mission. Obviously the membership of such a body
could be no sinecure, and Ramsay in characteristic
manner took a very active part in all the pro-
ceedings, which spread, as already indicated, over the
long period of 16 to 17 years. He was greatly dis-
appointed that no permanent body was established
to continue enquiry, supply information, and make
regulations bearing on the many important questions
involved.

In 1904 Ramsay became President of the Society of
Chemical Industry, a body consisting of about 5000
members and having a section established in New York.
The opening session of the annual meeting was held on
this occasion in the Columbia University, New York,
commencing on September 8th, but the president and
a large number of members proceeded afterwards to
Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburg, St. Louis (where
they visited the exhibition), Chicago, Detroit, Niagara
and Buffalo, and finally Boston. On October 5th
Ramsay returned to England by the S.S. Baltic. Any
one who has had experience of American enthusiasm

LATEE YEAES 175

and hospitality, will feel his remark justified, when in
a letter he wrote, " I had a very hard time, amusing
enough, but at it from dawn till midnight, and often
two speeches a day of the after-dinner type to the same
audience for the most part. It was difficult to keep
cheerful and lively under the circumstances."

The subject of his address to the Society was the
" Education of a Chemist, and on some suggestions as to
methods and practices by which science and scientific
men may be made more serviceable to industry." With
regard to the training which should be provided for
young men who propose to become scientific or technical
chemists, he believed that what he called the inventive
spirit can be developed in most of them. That is to
say, the training in methods of research and the culti-
vation of this attitude of mind is best effected by example.
With this end in view every teacher from the senior
professor to the youngest assistant must be occupied in
research. Beginners, however, should be taught by
themselves and should not begin research practically
till after a preliminary year spent in analysis in making
preparations and in physical operations. Above all
there must not be too much teaching. The essence of
scientific progress is the well-worn method of trial and
failure. A little time is no doubt lost at first, but the
ultimate rate of progress is much more rapid. The
junior staff in a school or college ought to be encouraged
to do research, and their duties should be so arranged
as to afford time and facilities for such work. These

176 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

are the men who after a few years should readily find
employment as works chemists.

As to the professor, he should know what every man
in the laboratory is doing, and it is obvious therefore
that the number of workers he can supervise is limited ;
Ramsay put the number at 40 or 50. Of course there
is nothing to prevent his lecturing to a much larger
number. The greater part of his time should be given
to research, and this consideration leads to a review of
the methods of selecting among candidates for such
appointments, and generally to the government of
universities. He then proceeded to discuss the question

to whether graduates only should be made assistants.
''' The older I get the less I believe in university degrees
[as a test of capacity." This utterance is obviously
connected with his objection to examinations which are
here reiterated.

The address at St. Louis was entitled " Present
Problems of Inorganic Chemistry," and was printed in
full by the Smithsonian Institution. He therein
declares that

" the fundamental task of inorganic chemistry is still connected
with the classification of elements and compounds. . . . What-
ever changes in our views may be concealed in the lap of the
future, the great generalisation due to Newlands, Lothar Meyer
and Mendeleeff will always retain a place, perhaps the prominent
place, in chemical science.

Now it is certain that no attempt to reduce the irregular
regularity of the atomic weights to a mathematical expression
has succeeded ; and it is, in my opinion, very unlikely that any

LATER YEARS 177

such expression, of not insuperable complexity, and having a
basis of physical meaning, will ever be found. I have already,
in an address to the German Association at Cassel, given an
outline of the grand problem which awaits solution. It can be
shortly stated then : While the factors of kinetic and of gravita-
tional energy, velocity, and momentum on the one hand and force
and distance on the other are simply related to each other, the
capacity factors of other forms of energy — surface in the case
of surface energy ; volume in the case of volume energy ; en-
tropy for heat ; electric capacity when electric charges are being
conveyed by means of ions ; atomic weight when chemical
energy is being gained or lost — all these are simply connected
with the fundamental chemical capacity, atomic weight or mass.
The periodic arrangement is an attempt to bring the two sets
of capacity factors into a simple relation to each other, and
while the attempt is in so far a success, inasmuch as it is evident
that some law is indicated, the divergences are such as to show
that finality has not been attained. The central problem in
inorganic chemistry is to answer the question, Why this incom-
plete concordance ? "

This question still remains incompletely answered
notwithstanding the important advances which have
resulted from the observations, especially of Soddy,
Fajans, Fleck and Russell, on the existence and pro-
perties of isotropic elements, that is, of elements which
are not identical as to atomic weight though occupying
the same place in the periodic scheme and are not
separable by chemical means from one another. Two \
varieties of lead, for instance, exist in nature. The
skill of the best workers on atomic weights has thus
been severely tested.

There are many other questions raised in this address

178 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

of Ramsay's, some of which he would no doubt have
stated somewhat differently at a later date in view of
the extension of knowledge which has taken place in
the twelve years which have elapsed since the lecture
at St. Louis.

It was in the same year 1904 that Ramsay received
the Nobel prize for chemistry in the same year that
the Nobel prize for physics was awarded to Lord Ray-
leigh. It is perhaps appropriate to recall the fact that
names may be submitted to the Nobel Committee of
the Swedish Academy only by a strictly limited number
of persons, and a statement of the claims of the person
whose name is proposed involves the preparation of a
carefully considered document. There can be no impro-
priety now in mentioning that Ramsay's name was
proposed to the Swedish Committee by Lord Avebury,
as a member of the Swedish Academy, and the proposal
was supported by the signatures of the leading English
chemists. But it is probably not known generally in
this country that a separate and entirely independent
proposal was sent in to the Academy by Professor
B. Brauner, of Prague. The statement drawn up
by Professor Brauner occupied nine foolscap pages,
and gives evidence of the characteristic enthusiasm
of its author. Naturally he lays particular stress
on " the discovery of one whole missing group of
elements in the periodic system of Mendeleeff and
the production of helium from or through the radium
emanation."

LATER YEARS 179

A letter from Stockholm, dated 9th December, to
Mr. Fyfe gives an interesting account of the journey
thither.

" We left London the day before yesterday only, and it is as
if we had been away for months. The North Sea was mizzly,
grey, but calm. We saw the Dutch sabots and bunchy petti-
coats by lamplight as we reached Flushing : then we dined on
the train, took our sleeper and slept through Germany, getting
to Altona near Hamburg at 7.30 a.m. Then we ate and admired
a huge statue of two horse-men fighting for the possession of a
fish. Then to Kiel, which we reached in an hour and a half and
found in brilliant sunshine. There are huge ship-building yards
covered in with glass, and they are busy, evidently. We sailed
to Korsor in Denmark, a sail of about five hours. We counted
at once 28 German men-of-war, cruisers and torpedo boats, and
we saw at least another 20 in the harbour. There wasn't another
boat, not even a fishing boat, in sight. What is all this for ?
To guard commerce ? There wasn't a sign of it. But the
Baltic canal is now ready, and this is a nice little pond to man-
oeuvre in when there is nobody to look on. The ships were
evidently doing something, signalling with flags, putting about
and about and up to some game. But, of course, we couldn't
understand the game. Was it practising for a future meeting
with England ? We had brilliant weather, cold, but a warm
sun. About 3.30 we got into narrower waters and saw Denmark
on both sides. Then into the train at Korsor, and in two hours
we were in Copenhagen. In these parts it gets dark at about
4.30, so we saw little of Copenhagen during our drive — a long
one — to the next boat ; for we crossed to Malmo in Sweden in
the funniest boat I ever saw. It carried two lines of rails laden
with trucks. And we had a meal of sorts, the table loaded with
food but no waiters, and people crowded round, so that we had
to ask for all we wanted, — cold meat, cold fish and what they call

180 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Delicatessen in Germany, i.e. pickles, salt fish, jam, ham, sausages,
etc. We filled up, however, and stood on a gangway above the
trucks and looked at the lights of Malmo. Then a second night
in a sleeper, quite comfortable except that it was so warm that
we opened the window, and next morning, i.e. this morning (but
it looks a week ago), there was 6 inches of snow on the foot of
my bed ! We passed through very pretty country this morning,
broken and full of lakes, birch trees and red wooden houses.
The lakes were all frozen and people sledging on them. Then
at 9.30 Stockholm. M. made me invest in a lordly fur coat, and
it was welcome here, for the thermometer is a long way on the
wrong side of freezing. There was a deputation to meet us
and put us on our way to the hotel. . . . Here we found Lord
Rayleigh, who left the evening before we did ; and also another
prize-winner, a Russian physiologist named Pavloff, with his
wife. . . . We have been driven all over Stockholm to-day by
a celebrated mathematician, Mittag-Leffler, a great friend of
the Russian mathematical girl who made a great stir some years
ago. To-morrow the ceremony takes place. ... I believe we
get our prizes from the hand of the king, and that he is to be
at our dinner party to-morrow. It begins at 10.30 p.m. Good-
ness knows when it will end. However, it will be a thing to
remember."

From Stockholm the Ramsays went to Kandersteg
in Switzerland, and on 27th December he wrote to the
same friend as follows :

" We had a most gorgeous time for nearly a week, dining with
all the celebrities, including old King Oscar. The old gentleman
was very kindly and took Lord R. and me into his private room
and showed us all his curiosities, the portraits of his sons when
they were children and his reliques of Gustavus Adolphus and of
Charles XII. The Crown Prince told Mag that it was a difficult
job to be a king, thereby confirming the Swan of Avon. He said

• :: •: si s;u Trui; ACS

U

^/ " A. - —2—Zsfj^f) & ' .-/^sfa

^sLUZ^, ^7T^C r

<A*^ L£L

FACSIMILE or LETTER.

LATER YEARS 181

that whatever one supposed that a Norwegian would do he
invariably did the opposite. Indeed there was nearly a blood-
less revolution while we were there ; the Prime Minister of
Norway was there, and I believe the dilemma was only post-
poned."

In the Presidential Addresses to the Chemical Society
in 1908 and 1909 there are utterances on questions
which are somewhat cognate to the subject of the address
at St. Louis already quoted. In the former occur the
following passages :

" Like most other chemists and physicists I choose deliberately
the mechanical explanation of nature. We assume on what we
consider to be good grounds the existence of molecules and of
atoms. We believe on reasonable evidence that gases consist
of almost innumerable molecules which may, like argon and its
congeners, be single atoms, but which are usually groups of
atoms. We hold that, as a rule, liquids consist of molecules of
the same order of complexity as gases, but with smaller free path ;
the molecules of a liquid are more crowded than those of a gas.
Some few liquids — water, the alcohols, the acids, probably salts
and some others — may be regarded as mixtures of polymerides
of their gaseous molecules. Of the structure of solids we are
only beginning to have some crude notion.

We also believe that molecules at the ordinary temperature
are in enormously rapid motion ; that they are in frequent
collison with each other, and that chemical action is the occasional
result of such collisions, . . . but the process of combination is a
comparatively slow one, and it is curious to think that a collision
which is followed by a combination is a comparatively rare event.
. . . What is meant by chemical action ? We can represent it
as a loss or gain of energy, but we also regard it as the union or
junction of atoms, or it may be the dissolution of such union or
the readjustment of unions, so that bodies with new properties

182 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

are formed. We may next ask what mechanism can be devised
to give us a picture of the union of two atoms ? . . . Various
chemists have called the mechanism by which it is conceived
that atoms remain associated in a compound 'affinities' or
4 bonds,' and ' valency ' is a word used to express the number
of such ' bonds ' which an element can exercise in any particular
combination. I have to bring before you a suggestion which,
although not exactly new, admits of definite statement, and affords
a mental picture of what may conceivably take place. It is
not a ' theory ' ; I do not hope that it may be true ; it is rather
a hypothesis, a supposition that I expect to be useful ; it may be
a ' make-believe ' ; I trust that it will not be a ' mistake.'

The hypothesis admits of short statement. It is : electrons
are atoms of the chemical element electricity ; they possess
mass ; they form compounds with other elements ; they are
known in the free state, that is, as molecules ; they serve as
the ' bonds of union ' between atom and atom. The electron
may be assigned the symbol E."

Ramsay then proceeded to quote from the Faraday
lecture given before the society by Helmholtz in 1881
and a lecture by Nernst twenty years later. Both these
authorities supported the idea of the dual nature of
electricity. Ramsay, however, proposed to revert to
the " one fluid " idea of Benjamin Franklin which has
gained probability since the investigations of J. J.
Thomson and the discovery of radio-active bodies.

"It has been shown that electric corpuscles or electrons are
capable of detaching themselves from matter and inhabiting
space unattached to any object. . . . The electron may be
termed an atom of negative electricity. The atom which it
has left is generally, and by many supposed to be always, posi-
tively electrified. . . .

LATEK YEAKS 183

Now I would argue that in the light of modern knowledge we
must suppose that the terms ' positive ' and ' negative ' mean
merely ' minus electrons ' and ' plus electrons ' ; that the sodium
ion or ' sodion ' is an element, that the metal sodium is a com-
pound of the element ' sodion ' with an electron ; that the chlorine
ion is a compound of an electron (actually of more than one
electron) with an atom of chlorine."

With the use of the symbol E he then proceeded to
explain the constitution of common salt, which would
be written NaECl, and that of other compounds, and to
show in detail how chemical changes must be thought
of and how they may be represented.

The second address to the Chemical Society in 1909
treats of the problems connected with the possibility of
transmutation of elements into one another. The
various arguments are stated in the following words :

" 1. The subtraction from or addition to an atom of an element
of one or more electrons by virtue of which it is converted into
an ion completely changes the properties of that element.

2. The fact is incontestably proved that certain elements
termed radio-active are losing electrons, and are thereby being
converted into other forms of matter which in our present nomen-
clature have equal claim to be considered elementary.

3. The influence of ultraviolet light on many if not all elements
is manifested in causing them to emit electrons ; it is not, how-
ever, thereby proved that they yield other elementary forms of
matter.

4. The effect of chemical change is usually manifested in a
gain or loss of energy. There is reason to believe that change
from one elemental form of matter into another would be accom-
panied by an unusually large gain or loss of energy, for it is
known that the ' degradation ' of radium is coincident with the

184 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

loss of a relatively enormous amount of energy. This energy,
moreover, is in a highly concentrated form ; much energy is
contained in small volume or, what amounts to the same thing,
in small mass, using the word in the sense of quantity of matter.

5. It appears that the irregular regularity of the numbers
representing the atomic weights can be represented on the
hypothesis that the addition or subtraction of definite groups
of electrons is the cause of their divergence from a perfectly
regular series.

These arguments, however, can be regarded only as furnishing
strong ground for experimental investigation."

The rest of the address is occupied with an account
of what has been done. This part of the subject has
already been referred to at sufficient length in a
previous chapter.

In 1909 the International Congress of Applied Chem-
istry held its triennial meeting in London. Ramsay
was president, and a large part of the necessary pre-
liminary work fell on him and Lady Ramsay. The
congress opened on May 27th in the Albert Hall, with
the Prince of Wales (King George V.) in the chair.
On his left were the Princess of Wales, Dr. Wiley (chief
representative of the United States), then M. Armand
Gautier (representing France) and Professor E. Paternb
(representing Italy). On his right were Sir Henry
Roscoe (Honorary President), Ramsay (Acting Presi-
dent), Professor Otto N. Witt (Past President of the
Congress) representing Germany and Professor Svante
Arrhenius representing Sweden. On the platform were
many ambassadors and other distinguished men. After-

LATEK YEARS 185

a speech of welcome from the Prince, Roscoe addressed
a few words of welcome to the foreigners and of thanks
to the Prince and Princess. Ramsay followed, recalling
the fact that the first congress took place in Brussels in
1894. The last meeting was in Rome, where the King
of Italy was pleased to fill the position occupied by the
Prince that day. In the course of this speech he pointed
out that the industrial prosperity of a country can best
be advanced by a close association between the technical
and the scientific workers, between the university and
the factory, between pure and applied science. This
principle had been recognised and acted on much more
completely on the continent of Europe than in this
country or in America. He then addressed words of
friendly greeting to the foreign delegates in French,
German and Italian successively. The entertainment
afterwards given included a reception by the Lord Mayor
in the Guildhall and by the government at the Foreign
Office. There was a banquet to 2000 people in the
Crystal Palace, at which of course Ramsay had to pre-
side and which for so enormous a gathering was pro-
nounced a success. There was also a garden party in
the Botanical Gardens, Regent Park, given by the
committee of ladies organised by Lady Ramsay, who
also arranged for a body of girl guides speaking various
languages to conduct parties of the foreign ladies
present at the meeting to see the wonders of the town.1

1 A full report of the proceedings was given in the Chemical News, 4th
June, 1909.

186 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

When it was all over Ramsay naturally felt the effect
of the strain, and in the late autumn he was ordered off
for a voyage, and in November, accompanied by his old
friend Mr Fyfe, he went to Rio de Janeiro, returning
after only a few days' sojourn in Rio. In 1911 Ramsay
became President of the British Association. In a
letter to Mr. Fyfe, 19th July, he writes :

"I have finished my B.A. address this afternoon and now
holidays begin. I think I feel the difficulty of such work more
and more ; it is harder and harder to do more than one serious
thing at a time. My friend X complains of not being able to
do more than eight hours' work a day and asks me how to pass
his evening hours. He wants to know whether it would be
possible for him to learn to smoke ! Some folks find cards a
relief ; I don't. I find reading all that I want or need."

In the previous May Sir William and Lady Ramsay
had made an excursion to Algiers, which he described in
a letter to Mr. Fyfe as follows :

" We sailed from Southampton to Algiers in the Dutch boat.
On board were the Duke and Duchess of Wellington and their
daughter. You may remember that his grandfather got a grant
of land in Granada and a title after the peninsular war, and the
present Duke goes out every year to look after it. They left
us at Lisbon. Mag and I landed and went up to the fort on
the hill. A young soldier showed us round and we saw a good
deal. His Portuguese was a bit difficult to make out, but we
managed. Then we went to Belem and saw the church and the
school. The revolutionists have done a good deal of damage ;
a lot of buildings have been battered about. We spent a week
in Algeria. After three days in the town of Algiers we went
to Relizane, a little place south-west of Algiers, and then by motor

SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY ix 1912.

LATER YEARS 187

to see the oil-boring of the Algerian Oil Company. . . . The
country is curious ; low hills mostly cultivated by Arabs ; wheat
and vines. The water-courses wash away vegetation, so the
nullahs, I suppose one would call them, are muddy, but bright
with flowers. Very little green. The Arabs and the French
appear to hit it off perfectly. ... I was surprised to find Algiers
so French. Outside the actual Arab quarters it might be out-
skirts of Paris. Then we went to Marseilles and on to Paris,
where we spent ten days. Every day we lunched or dined out ;
it was very pleasant, but we had quite enough of it at the end."

The address at Portsmouth was naturally taken up
to a large extent with an exposition of current views as
to the nature of the chemical elements and the possi-
bility of transmutation. The latter part of the dis-
course, however, consisted of a vigorous and convincing
remonstrance against the national waste of energy in
the extravagant use of coal.

At the end of the summer session of 1912 at University
College Ramsay retired from the professorship. He was
still in search of a suitable house in the country, and it
was not till October in the following year that he could
announce to his friend Fyfe the purchase of the house
at Hazlemere, two miles from High Wycombe. As
borne alterations were necessary, a lodge and garage to
be built and the conversion of the stables into a labora-
tory, it was not expected that the place would be ready
for occupation before January. As a matter of fact it
was much later.

On his retirement a portrait, painted by Mr. Mark
Milbanke, was presented to University College by the

188 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

staff and students, who thoughtfully provided a replica,
which on the same occasion was presented to Lady
Ramsay. Another portrait, by Mr. Dick Peddie, was
a gift to the family by Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratan
Tata, sons of the founder of the Indian Institute at
Bangalore. It was painted in the winter of 1915-16.

In the previous summer (1913) Ramsay had been
to Birmingham to attend the meeting of the British
Association and afterwards for a week to Brussels,
where he presided over the International Association of
Chemical Societies. He wrote

" it was very hard work conducting affairs in three languages ;
but it went off all right, and we separated having done a good
deal of useful work."

A letter of 29th December shows that he had been
working at polonium and among other things

" I am grinding away at old Black's x letters ; I am going to
publish a book with Constable ; a short life ; an amplification of
the discourse I gave in 1 904.2 Some of the letters are very interest-
ing. Time doesn't hang hea^y on my hands ; to-day I had two
hours of proofs of a 2d edition of one of my books in German."

On the 19th July, 1914, he wrote, " we are now
fairly settled in and have some idea of how our new
life will pan out." Alas for the vanity of human wishes
and anticipations ! The same letter on another page
announces that

" We are going to Havre on Saturday. Do you remember I
went on there after the ever memorable visit of Smith, Marshall,

1 This was, of course, Joseph Black, Professor of Chemistry in the Uni
versity of Edinburgh, 1766 to 1797.

2 In Glasgow.

LATER YEARS 189

you and me to Paris in '77 ? The French Association meets
there, and it has asked those of the B.A. who haven't gone to
Australia to be their guests. I have to make a speech at the
opening meeting on Monday, which I have written out and will
read. They were very nice to me in '77 as a youngster ; I was
the only Englishman there, and at a dinner I got a highly honorable
place. After the F. A. we shall go to some little place on the coast
and have some bathing."

The next letter is dated c/o W. E. Langstaff, Havre,
till 27th July, 1914.

" We got here on Saturday morning after a stormy passage ;
but we all slept well. . . . To-day our proceedings commence
in the theatre at 2. There are to be speeches by the Maire, the
President (Gautier, an old friend of ours) and me. I have
written it out and will read it. It isn't long ; it treats of inter-
national amity, etc. I am afraid there isn't much promise of
an interesting meeting, judging by the programme. About
100 B.A. sen. people are here or to be here. . . . After we leave
the Langstaffs we are going to a little hotel — Des Bains et de la
Plage at Les Petites Dalles, Seine Inferieure, to try to get some
bathing."

The next communication to Mr. Fyfe was a card dated
2nd August, 1914 :

" I am afraid all plans for the present are at an end. We must
just ' wait and see.' I fancy we should have left Havre yester-
day, but we thought things would hang fire for a day or two. In
the meantime mobilisation is declared here, and we must cut and
run or else get a permis de stjour. The trains are all blocked
with soldiers going to the frontier, and I am afraid we shall be
detained here some days, We shall get back by Havre. There
are hardly any French here now ; only a few stranded English
families. The final meeting of the French Association took
place on Friday, and I thanked them for hospitality."

190 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The Ramsays were able to get home without serious
trouble, as narrated in a letter from home to Mr. Fyfe
on the llth August :

'' We had no hardships at all ; I commandeered the hotel
motor which had been away — caught by the army authorities —
for three days. The moment I saw it I bargained with the
chauffeur, and for the moderate sum of 120 francs he agreed to
put us and our luggage into Havre — about 60 miles. We started
off on Thursday morning at 6 a.m. We were stopped twice by
outposts, but we had a permis de sejour also a permis de voyage,
so they let us pass. We got to Havre at about 10.30, and Lang-
staff, who is agent for the L. & S.W. Ry. Co., told us to go straight
to the boat for it was sailing at 11.30 — the last chance. How-
ever, when we reached the boat, L. was there and he had a wire
to delay it till 10.30 p.m. So we had a day in, Havre. They
were expecting British troops over every minute ; the quays
were crowded, and they were singing the National Anthem and
the Marseillaise. Indeed before we reached Havre we were
told that 30,000 English soldiers had landed. All the Solent
is mined and we had a slow voyage up, arriving at 8 on Friday
morning."

Needless to say Ramsay immediately devoted himself
to work of national importance, the first step being to
assist, through the Synthetic Products Company, of
which he was a director, in the provision of acetone,
a solvent essential in the production of cordite for
which the country had been dependent on foreign
sources.

The letter concludes, " Well it is going to be a big
job. You and I never thought it would come in our
life time, did we ? "

LATER YEARS 191

Ramsay became a very active member of the Royal
Society Committee. By the middle of 1915 he had made
strong representations to the Government on the subject
of the large supplies of fats and cotton which were
finding their way to Germany through some of the
neutral nations. As, however, it did not appear to be
known in high official quarters that all fats are potential
sources of glycerine, and hence of nitro-glycerine, a very
powerful and extensively used explosive, and that cotton
is necessary for the production of ammunition, much
delay occurred with consequences which can be calculated
only in imagination.

In a letter to his friend Fyfe on 5th February he
writes :

" Last week I gave an address in Manchester at the annual
meeting of the Employers' Parliamentary Association and talked
to them about German trade methods. I will send you a copy.
I am trying to rouse people to see that they must reply to com-
mercial attack by combined defence ; and I am trying to get
America and France to join against Germany."

In May he paid a flying visit to his friends at Dun-
blane, but his letters about this time are full of matters
relating to the war, and complaints of the inactivity of
the Government and the stupidity of not making cotton
a contraband article.

So long ago as 1886 Ramsay had mentioned in a letter
to Mr. Worthington that he had discovered that the
discomfort from which he had been already suffering
was due to polypus in the right nostril, and that he had

192 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

undergone the necessary operation and was more com-
fortable. The trouble was, however, not permanently
removed, and recurrences had happened, as is usual in
such cases, in later years. It was probably this tendency
which concealed too long the malignant disorder which
just thirty years later put an end to his life.

On the 19th July, 1915, he reported to his friend
Fyfe that he had had several huge polypi extracted
from his left nostril. " I have stood them for years,
one gets into the habit of bearing discomforts, but it
is a great relief." This, however, was not to be the
end of the mischief. Late in the autumn, when the
Scientific Societies were resuming operations, his friends
expected to see Ramsay very often. They were, how-
ever, to be disappointed, and one who heard rumours
of a more serious kind of operation wrote to him and
received the following reply :

" I am sorry to say it is true. I was in the surgeon's hands
on Novr. 10th and again on the 13th, and lie did an operation
on my left antrum for a tumour, I believe very successfully.
Since then, last Monday, I was irradiated for 24 hours with
X rays, as a precaution against recurrence. Luckily it is of the
kind which can be stopped by radium. I have had a very
bad time."

The hopes of the surgeons and the anxious anticipa-
tions of his friends were, however, doomed to disappoint-
ment. The trouble became more aggravated, and after
many months of physical misery borne with a patience
and quiet dignity which filled with admiration the

LATER YEARS 193

sorrowing watchers by his bedside, he passed away
quietly in the early morning of 23rd July, 1916.

Ramsay's last communication to the scientific world
is dated 1st April, 1916, and is entitled " A Hypothesis
of Molecular Configuration in Three Dimensions of
Space." It is, however, the result of experiments made
some years previously. The paper is printed in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society, issued 1st July, 1916.

CHAPTER VIII

VIEWS ON EDUCATION

As already mentioned Ramsay's own early education
was obtained in a private school in Glasgow, and sub-
sequently in the Glasgow Academy and University.
His whole career thereafter was associated with univer-
sity life. It is therefore obvious that such direct
experience as he had of methods in education were
derived from the Scottish school system and the Univer-
sities of Glasgow and Tubingen, in which he was a
student. He was greatly and permanently impressed
with the advantages of the German system as applied
in his own case and that of his contemporaries. This
may be taken to explain to a large extent his attitude
as a university professor. His aim was throughout his
life the extension of knowledge, and any system which
did not seem to lend itself to this object had very little
sympathy or approval from him.

His views on the subject of elementary and secondary
school education may be gathered from an article
published in January 1916, the last year of his life, by
the Manchester Daily Dispatch. He says :

194

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 195

" Our present elementary school system dates from the passing
of the Education Act in the middle of last century.1 School
Boards were then instituted and all primary education was
made free. In the writer's opinion this was a fatal move. It
was doubtless regarded as a natural asset that every boy and girl
should learn to read and write and be acquainted with the elements
of arithmetic, but this Act was the first to differentiate between
the classes. In those piping days of peace the idea of a national
army was far from the thoughts of our statesmen ; yet it would
have been well had some return been demanded from those
on whom a benefit was being bestowed, and that return might
well have been some obligation on everyone receiving education
to serve his country. To bestow a privilege without requiring
a corresponding service is poor business ; it leads to pauperisation.

It was not long before ' payment by results ' was introduced ;
the remuneration of the teacher depended largely on the number
of children who could pass, during certain specified ages, ' stan-
dards,' their acquirements being tested by external examiners
appointed by the State.

No worse system could possibly have been adopted. It
fettered the originality of the teacher ; it placed before him the
almost impossible task of trying to equalise the attainments of
children of very different tendencies and capacities, and, developed
as it was by the pupil-teacher, it launched on the schools as
teachers a set of people moulded in one mould. Doubtless many
of these chafed under the rigid restrictions to which their teaching
was subjected, but there was no redress ; uniformity was the
order of the day.

Later the system broke down and had to be abandoned. The
children were no longer tested by external examiners ; the
inspectors were instructed to make general reports dealing with
the efficiency of the schools under their charge. This change

1 The first Elementary Education Act was passed in 1870 and was
amended in 1903.

196 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

for the better still persists, but the old regime has left its mark
on many of the teachers, and though many of the younger
masters and mistresses have been emancipated the process is
not yet complete.

An attempt was made to introduce science teaching into schools
by the institution of the Science and Art Department. Teachers
who so desired were able to obtain instruction in elementary
science — physics, chemistry and botany — and in the rudiments
of art by attendance at courses of instruction for a month or two
in the year, their expenses being paid. It was possible for them
to earn enhanced grants if they could impart to their pupils the
information they had received, so as to enable them to pass
certain prescribed examinations.

This system had something to recommend it, and in some
cases, doubtless, good was done. But there is no royal road to
learning, and with the best will in the world it is impossible to
imbue a heterogeneous assemblage of young men and women in
the course of a couple of months with more than a smattering
of rudimentary facts.

It was these facts, or probably in most cases a travesty of them,
which were imparted to the pupils by the teachers. Science is
essentially experimental ; its dry bones can be buried in books,
but when disinterred and swallowed they are poor nourishment.
Examination by examiners who have had no part in the instruc-
tion of the pupil, tests at the best a retentive memory and the
power of assimilating phrases.

So-called ' practical examinations ' do not help matters. They,
too, become systematised and consist only in testing the ability
of a pupil to remember some manual actions scarcely associated
with definite meaning. The only practical examination possible
is the daily examination of the pupil by the teacher, when all
signs of intelligence are noted and education becomes a ' drawing-
out ' of the child's mind. British elementary education there-
fore, for the past half-century and more, has followed wrong lines.

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 197

But it is worth enquiring here whether the German ideal
which requires the subject, in the words of the English Prayer
Book, ' to do his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased
God to call him/ without any hope of bettering his position; or
the British ideal, a democratic one, to make it possible for every
gifted boy and girl to climb the tree ; to make it possible for the
corporal to wield the marshal's baton, is the better of the two.

Although the methods employed have been lamentably defec-
tive, it must yet be acknowledged that the democratic ideal lay
at the bottom of English educational efforts. Even the attempt
at science teaching had its good side ; it rested on the assumption
that the children, at a later stage, would be able to utilise their
attainments for their own benefit and for that of the State.
On the other hand the German aim has been to create an efficient
machine, where knowledge was reserved for those with the power
to apply it and where the c hands ' were strictly and irrevocably
differentiated from the ' heads.5

We are learning now, by bitter experience, how efficient this
system is in war ; in German hands it bid fair to be equally
successful in commercial war. The socialistic movement, which
was strong in Germany, was a protest by the people against this
view of the organisation of a nation, the revolt of a people against
repression. But the German nation as a whole has not been
successful at rebellions ; the spirit of drill has penetrated too
deeply into the soul of the people, and for the most part the slaves
are content with their bondage. Whether a change is to be
looked for time alone will show.

Stated tersely the difference in the two ideals is that between
individualism and collectivism. In Britain the spirit of col-
lectivism exists ; it has taken the form of trade unions, where
compulsion holds sway and all individualistic effort is discouraged.
But on the whole the British nation is individualistic ; let every
man have his chance.

198 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Secondary education in Britain has always been chaotic, and
only of recent years have attempts been made to give it a sem-
blance of order. Teachers in secondary schools have, for the
most part, been untrained young men, whose only claim to enter
the profession of teaching has been a university degree. From
the grammar schools to the public schools the teaching has been
conducted largely by amateurs. Of course among them have
been some great schoolmasters, but though the result, on the
whole, has been to turn out a strong, healthy, moral youth, that
youth has been very ignorant of modern life and of scientific
thought.

The older universities have accentuated these evils. Brought
up in the shrine of classical learning, more attention has been
devoted to form than to reality. Of recent years a change for
the better has been taking place, but nothing is more difficult
than to dispel the superstitions of centuries. The classical
languages and literatures are in reality relics of a past state of
civilisation. While they are, of course, valuable subjects of
study and afford a certain kind of training, they are utterly out
of touch with modern ideas. Few, very few, boys, perhaps
not one in a hundred, attain sufficient proficiency in them to
gain pleasure from them in later years ; and many, like the
writer, who spent his school and college days from the age of 7
to 16 largely in studying the classics, retain a few tags, a few
lines of verse, and the power to decipher a Latin inscription
with difficulty and to guess at the meaning of most of the words
in a Greek phrase. It may be said that the training was good ;
perhaps it was. But the aim of training, namely the power of
concentration, the exercise of judgment, and most of all the
development of the inventive faculties, could have been attained
infinitely better by substitution of almost any other subject for
the classics.

We are reaping what we have sown. Our statesmen, with
very few exceptions, have not the remotest idea of science, and

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 199

the writer could adduce instances where the most incredible
assertions have lately been made and acted on, to the effect that
we have played into the hands of the enemy, and all because our
Government officials are not only ignorant, but have not even
the saving grace to know that they are ignorant and to seek in
the right quarters for scientific help."

Had he lived a few years longer, Eamsay would have
recognised the conciliatory spirit in which the problems
connected with education are now being envisaged.
Amid the miseries brought on this country by the war,
at least one benefit has emerged in the recognition, by
all but the most prejudiced among the representatives
of the long-established classical system in schools, that
some knowledge of the external world and of the dis-
coveries which have been made as to the relations of
the earth and sky, and as to the forms and conditions of
life on this globe, is indispensable to every educated man
and woman. It is only those who possess some of this
knowledge who are able to shake off superstition, to
understand something of their own relation to the rest
of the human inhabitants of the earth, and in fact to
form a true theory of life. Eamsay was probably right
in assuming that invention and discovery are the true
keys to progress, and though it is not given to every
one to add to the common stock of knowledge by under-
taking the special kind of studies requisite for systematic
investigation, discovery by others cannot fail to rouse
some interest in every mind but the dullest. What is
wanted is a reform in the attitude of the public mind
which is too apt to ignore or to despise all knowledge

200 SIE WILLIAM EAMSAY

which is not immediately applicable to utilitarian pur-
poses. The beauty and fascination of knowledge for
its own sake is a source of happiness at present enjoyed
by comparatively few.

Ramsay's views about education do not seem to have
undergone fundamental alteration in the course of his
life. The following extract from a letter addressed to
his friend Worthington on 29th April, 1886, shows what
he was thinking about at the age of thirty-four :

" I quite agree with you about the importance of spreading
scientific knowledge. There are so many reasons why it is
worth doing, as you say, for people's own sakes. But I think I
also agree with you that it is only to be done in schools. I think
popular lectures on science are mostly twaddle — or to speak
euphoniously — a high-class amusement. The only good they do,
so far as I have ever seen, is to induce some few to follow out the
subject. Perhaps they are worth doing for the sake of the few
righteous men. But have you realised that there is a special
bent of mind which eagerly sucks in everything relating to
external nature and another class which simply refuses, though
well able to assimilate ? For example, my wife and a great
friend of hers, a Miss Burns, who once attended lectures to ladies
I gave in Glasgow, and who came out easily first, having a clear
mind and a good memory and great power of application ; well
both these good people absolutely refuse to see anything interesting
in the matter. Both are interested in literary and philosophic
subjects — anything mental in fact ; but a physical fact does not
appeal to their interest. Most men, I think, are like this.
They pretend interest because they can't ignore the palpable
results of applying science, but the things in themselves are
absolutely without interest for them.

All the same I agree with you ; but I think that an attempt

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 201

should be made to cultivate tlie weak part of many minds when
young, and to get them to see the use of such things. When a
fellow can see the drift of what he learns, then he is eager to
learn what would otherwise be fearfully dry ; and I should
always try to begin with the application and then lead back to
the methods, even though the whole thing had to be gone over
again in reversed order, — methods first, then applications. I
think that idea is rapidly growing. I am sure that the right
plan is, to take an example, to teach geography by mapping a
garden with the assistance of the child, and extending from the
known to the unknown.

I remember that Martineau in an address lately said that he
had tried to learn the things he didn't take to naturally, so as
to balance his mind ; being convinced that what he liked he would
learn in odd times and almost without trying. I dare say a great
swell like Martineau might take such liberties with himself, but
I am doubtful if his method is generally applicable. My experi-
ence personally and of most others is that one has a dislike to
learn anything. Do you think that is general ? . . . I think a
looy when he is set to find out the properties of a metal, say silver,
through its salts takes leave of his sober senses and imagines he
is beginning a series of magical transformations. I said to a
fellow yesterday, 'Suppose you saw a sheep, how would you
recognise it as a sheep ? ' He grinned and described a sheep.
I then said, ' Now, suppose you saw its skeleton, how wd. you
tell it belonged to a sheep ? ' He named feet and teeth. I
then told him that he must learn to know exactly in the same
sort of way various properties of silver, so that if he came across
it he should recognise it again. I think he took me up. I often
wonder that a fellow who apparently conducts the ordinary
business of life sensibly should run amuck as soon as he tries a
slight extension of his every-day experiments. I think the first
thing to do is to eliminate the element of mystery which hangs
round these things and show a fellow that he is as great a fool.

202 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

when he makes a mistake of that sort as if he were to buy a hat
four sizes too small. I agree absolutely about physics. I don't
see any good in loading a boy's mind with the minutiae of chem-
istry. It is pure memory work and very dry. Some things I
would teach — carbonic acid, water, air, etc. ; in fact Lloyd Morgan
has written a little book called Things around us which strikes
me as the kind of thing wanted. But as you say, exact measure-
ment is what is required as a training for chemistry. The
chemical measurements are as a rule physical, but much more
troublesome to understand. The chemistry a boy gets from the
Science and Art teaching is really very useless. I often get
such pupils and it means beginning from the egg. They have
got up a certain number of text-book statements to order and
haven't a ghost of a notion what the thing is all about. The
only pull they have over the others is that the names are
familiar. What is to be the upshot of all this ? I think you
are on the right lines ; but are you not beginning at the wrong
end?

I start with the axiom ; no man can be a thoroughly good
teacher who is not at the same time a learner ; and in physical
science that means an investigator. He is neither interested nor
interesting and can't stimulate pupils to the same degree. Now
who are the teachers ? Graduates from Oxford and Cambridge,
— mostly — at all events in the larger schools. These people are
trained with a view not to be investigators, but as people who can
understand and practise a certain examinational system.

Well I would begin at the top. Make preliminary exams, in
science generally the condition of entering a science course at a
university, and after one year (say at 18 or 19) finishing the regular
examinational part of the course. I would give a degree for
investigation. It isn't the originality so much that is required ;
it is the training in methods of thought and means of executing
and realising ideas. That is what tells in life. It is the man who
can improve and invent who should (if he doesn't) come to the

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 203

top, and such a man should be a graduate. Do that and you will
affect the whole of the schools from top to bottom. It appears
to me that the inventive faculty is the one most pleasant to
exercise, and there your idea of pleasure comes in, as an end in
science teaching. But only inventors can teach to invent, and
discover the inventive faculty in others. Now I am afraid that
is almost lost sight of in schools. I gave a paper to the Assistant
Teachers and Pupil Teachers here some two months ago very
much on these lines. . . .

I am afraid I have been rather discursive, but this letter has
been written at several go-s."

Since this was written some steps have been taken
toward the system of awarding degrees for research
work at the University of London, and more recently
at Oxford and Cambridge.

As already mentioned Ramsay held tenaciously to the
view that examinations should be conducted by the
teachers, and generally by the teachers only. He
served a term as examiner at the University of London,
where, of course, he had to administer a system which
was not harmonious with his own opinions. But that
he was a careful and sympathetic examiner is illustrated
by the following extract from a letter, 24th July, 1899,
to Professor Smithells :

" Do you know what Huxley once said about exams. ? ' I
don't care who sees the papers of those who are ploughed ; but
God forbid that any one should see those of the candidates who
pass.' Perhaps if I tell you our plan of action, you will see how
certain it is that no one who should pass escapes passing, while
many who should fail pass.

In the first place there are 600 marks given for the two papers.

204 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

Everyone above 230 is allowed to pass, so far as these papers
are concerned, without challenge. Those between 180 and 230
were viva'd ; as a rule they improved their positions ; but even
if they didn't they were merely let alone, so far as marks go ;
for we took the view that nervousness might hinder their doing
themselves justice. For the practical work 150 marks were
assigned, and 50 marks passed all who had obtained written
marks of over 200. There were so many (850) that if it happened
that they had under 200 in the written but over 50 in the practical,
they went, for we had no time to look into each individual case
further. But remember that all over 180 got a chance of having
their marks raised by the viva. So I think you will say that
rejection has been justified where it took place. If they showed
that they understood the method of the volumetric and had made
a serious effort to get approximate numbers, they passed, for they
were awarded 50 marks."

The following passage from a letter to Mr. Worthing-
ton, 19th November, 1901, relates to what is now merely
a matter of history :

"I am depressed just now by possible proceedings in L.U.
Eoscoe and Riicker are being sorely tempted to truckle to the
Technical Education Board of the L.C.C. and appoint Tom,
Dick and 'arry of the Polytechnics as University teachers,
without any regard being paid to their efficiency. I had a stiff
argument (in private) with them last night, as to the condition
which I have succeeded in carrying for admission as ' teachers »
of the University ; viz. that in the Science Faculty some proof
of originality must be given before their claims are admitted.
We have acted on this up to now ; but Sidney Webb, who holds
the strings of the L.C.C. money bags, is doing all he can to get
recognition as ' teachers ' for the present Board-School-ahnliche
teachers, on the understanding that they will ultimately be
replaced by efficient persons."

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 205

Ramsay had an opportunity of setting forth his views
on the subject of university education in an oration
delivered at University College on the 6th June in the
same year. This was printed in the volume of Essays,
Biographical and Chemical, which he published in 1908,
and which was afterwards translated into German and
issued in Leipzig by the Academische Verlagsgesell-
schaft under the title Vergangenes und Kunftiges aus der
Chemie. The second edition of the German version,
published in 1913, contains the autobiographical sketch
from which extracts have been quoted in a previous
chapter. The last essay in the volume of Essays con-
sists of the oration referred to, which is entitled " The
Functions of a University." It occupies about twenty
pages of print, but the following abstract will serve
sufficiently to give the substance of the essay :

" I am about to speak of the Functions of a University. The
word university has borne many significations ; and indeed its
functions are various, and the signification of the word has
depended on the particular point of view taken at the time.
An eminent German, who visited me some years ago, made the
remark after seeing University College : ' Aber lieber Herr
College, University College ist eine kleine Universitat.' So it
is, for it fulfils most of the functions of the most successful univer-
sities in the world. . . . The traditions of University College
have always been that it is not merely a place where known
facts and theories should be administered in daily doses to young
men and young women, but that the duty of the professors,
assistant professors, teachers and advanced students is to increase
knowledge. That is the chief function of a university — to
increase knowledge. But it is not the only one."

206 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

He then proceeds to give an account of the founding
of the college and of the business of the several faculties.

" We see then that a university, as it at present exists, pro-
vides, or may provide, technical instruction for theologians, for
lawyers, for medical men and for engineers. It is in fact an
advanced technical school for these subjects.

But it is more, and I believe its chief function lies in the kind
of work which I shall attempt now to describe.

The German universities possess what they term a ' Philoso-
phical Faculty ' ; and this phrase is to be accepted in the deriva-
tional meaning of the word — a faculty which loves wisdom or
learning. The watchword of the members of this faculty is
Research ; the searching out the secrets of Nature, to use a
current phrase, or the attempt to create new knowledge. The
whole machinery of the Philosophical Faculty is devised to
achieve this end ; the selection of the teachers, the equipment
of the laboratories and libraries, the awarding of the degrees.

There are two views regarding the advantage of research.
The first of these may be termed the utilitarian view. You
all know the tale of the man of science who was asked the use
of research, and who parried with the question — What is the
use of a baby ? Well, I imagine that one school of political
economists would oppose the practice of child-murder on the
ground that potentially valuable property was being destroyed.
These persons would probably not be those who stood to the
baby in a parental relation. Nor are the most successful investi-
gators those who pursue their enquiries with the hope of profit,
but for the love of them. It is, however, a good thing, I believe,
that the profanum vulgus should hold the view that research is
remunerative to the public, as some forms of it undoubtedly are.

'The second view may be called the philosophical one. It is
one held by lovers of wisdom in all its various forms. It explains

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 207

itself, for the human race is differentiated from the lower animals
by the desire which it has to know ' why ? '

Now the most important function, I hold, of a university is
to attempt to answer that question ' why ? ' The ancients tried
to do so, but they had not learned that its answer must be pre-
ceded by the answer to the question ' how J ? and that in most
cases — indeed in all — we must learn to be contented with the
answer to ' how ? ' The better we can tell how things are, the
more nearly shall we be able to say why they are.

Such a question is applicable to all kinds of subjects ; to what
our forerunners on this earth did ; how they lived ; if we go
even further back, what preceded them on the earth. The
history of these enquiries is the function of geology, palaeontology
and palaeontological botany ; it is continued through archaeo-
logy, Egyptian and Assyrian, Greek and Roman ; it evolves
into history, and lights are thrown on it by languages and phil-
ology ; it dovetails with literature and economics. In all these
research is possible, and a university should be equipped for the
successful prosecution of enquiries in all such branches.

Another class of enquiries relates to what we think and how we
reason ; and here we have philosophy and logic. A different
branch of the same enquiry leads us to mathematics, which deals
with spatial and numerical concepts of the human mind, geometry
and algebra. By an easy transition we have the natural sciences ;
those less closely connected with ourselves as persons, but in-
timately related to our surroundings. Zoology and botany,
anatomy, physiology and pathology deal with living organisms
as structural machines ; and they are based on physics and
chemistry, which are themselves dependent on mathematics.

Such enquiries are worth making for their own sakes. They
interest a large part of the human race ; and not to feel interested
in them is to lack intelligence. The man who is content to live
from day to day, glad if each day will but produce him food to

208 SIR WILLIAM BAMSAY

eat and a roof to sleep under, is but little removed from an
uncivilised being. For the test of civilisation is prevision ; care to
look forward ; to provide for to-morrow ; the morrow of the race
as well as the morrow of the individual, and he who looks furthest
ahead is best able to cope with Nature and to conquer her.

If attempts were made to discover only useful knowledge (and
by useful I accept the vulgar definition of profitable, i.e. know-
ledge which can be directly transmuted into its money equi-
valent), these attempts would in many, if not in most, cases fail
of their object. I do not say that once a principle has been
proved, and a practical application has to be made of it that the
working out of the details is not necessary. But that is best
done by the practical man, be he the parson, the doctor, the
engineer, the technical electrician, or the chemist, and best of
all on a fairly large scale. If, however, the practical end be
always kept in view, the chances are that there will be no advance
in principles. Indeed what we investigators wish to be able to
do, and what in many cases we can do, although perhaps very
imperfectly, is to prophesy, to foretell what a given combination
of circumstances will produce. The desire is founded on a belief
in the uniformity of Nature ; on the conviction that what has
been will again be, should the original conditions be reproduced.
By studying the consequences of varying the conditions our
knowledge is extended ; indeed it is sometimes possible to go
so far as to predict what will happen under conditions all of which
have never before been seen to be present together.

When Faraday discovered the fact that if a magnet is made
to approach a coil of wire an electric current is induced in that
wire, he made a discovery which at the time was of only scientific
interest. That discovery has resulted in electric light, electric
traction and the utilisation of electricity as a motive power :
the development of a means of transmitting energy of which
we have by no means seen the end ; nay, we are even now only

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 209

at its inception, so great must the advance in its utilisation
ultimately become.

When Hofmann set Perkin, as a young student, to investigate
the products of oxidation of the base aniline produced by him
from coal-tar, it would have been impossible to have predicted
that one manufactory alone would possess nearly 400 large
buildings and employ 5000 workmen, living in its own town of
25,000 inhabitants, all of which is devoted to the manufacture
of colours from aniline and other coal-tar products. In this
work alone at least 350 chemists are employed, most of whom
have had a university training.

Schonbein, a Swiss schoolmaster interested in chemistry, was
struck by the action of nitric acid on paper and cotton. He
would have been astounded if told that his experiments would
have resulted in the employment of his nitre-celluloses in colossal
quantity for blasting and for ordnance of all kinds, from the
90-ton gun to the fowling piece.

But discoveries such as these, which lead directly to practical
results, are far inferior in importance to others in which a general
principle is involved. Joule and Robert Mayer, who proved
the equivalence of heat and work, have had far more influence
on succeeding ages than even the discoverers above mentioned,
for they have imbued a multitude of minds with a correct under-
standing of the nature of energy, and the possibility of converting
it economically into that form in which it is most directly useful
for the purpose in view. They have laid the basis of reasoning
for machines ; and it is on machines, instruments for converting
unavailable into available energy, that the prosperity of the
human race depends.

You will see from these instances that it is in reality ' philo-
sophy ' or a love of wisdom which, after all, is most to be sought
after. Like virtue, it is its own reward ; and as we all hope
is the case with virtue too, it brings other rewards in its train ;
not, be it remarked, always to the philosopher, but to the race.

210 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Virtue pursued with the direct object of gain is a poor thing ;
indeed it can hardly be termed virtue, if it is dimmed by a motive.
So philosophy, if followed after for profit, loses its meaning.

Of course it is necessary for a student to learn so far as is
possible, what has already been done. I would not urge that a
young man should not master, or at all events study, a great
deal of what has already been discovered before he attempts
to soar on his own wings. But there is all the difference in the
world between the point of view of the student who reads in
order to qualify for an examination, or to gain a prize or a scholar-
ship, and the student who reads because he knows that thus he
will acquire knowledge which may be used as a basis of new
knowledge. It is that spirit in which our Universities in England
are so lamentably deficient : it is that spirit which has contri-
buted to the success of the Teutonic nations, and which is begin-
ning to influence the United States. For this condition of things
our examinational system is largely to blame. Originally
started to remedy the abuses of our Civil Service, it has eaten
into the vitals of our educational system like a canker ; and it
is fostered by the further abuse of awarding scholarships as the
results of examinations. The pauperisation of the richer classes
is a crying evil ; it must some day be cured. Let scholarships
be awarded to those who need them, not to those whose
fathers can well afford to pay for the education of their
children. ' Pothunting ' and philosophy have absolutely nothing
in common.

There are some who hold that the time of an investigator is
wasted in teaching the elements of his subject. I am not one of
those who believe this doctrine, and for two reasons : first, it is
more difficult to teach the elements of a subject than the more
advanced branches ; one learns the tricks of the trade by long
practice, and the tricks of this trade consist in the easy and
orderly presentment of ideas. And it is the universal experience

VIEWS ON EDUCATION 211

that senior students gain more good from instruction in advanced
subjects by demonstrators than juniors would in elementary
subjects. For the senior student makes allowances ; and the
keenness and interest of the young instructor awakens his interest.
Second, from the teacher's point of view it is always well to be
obliged to go back on fundamentals. One is too apt, without
the duty of delivering elementary lectures, to take these funda-
mentals for granted ; whereas if they are recapitulated every
year the light of other knowledge is brought to bear on them
and they are given their true proportion; indeed ideas occur
which often suggest lines of research. It is really the simplest
things which we know of, the atomic theory, the true nature
of elasticity, the cause of the ascent of sap in plants, the
mechanism of exchange in respiration and digestion ; all these
lie at the base of their respective sciences, and all could bear
much elucidation.

I believe therefore that it is conducive to the furtherance of
knowledge that an investigator should be entirely engaged in
teaching. But he should always keep in view the fact that his
pupils should themselves learn how to investigate, and he should
endeavour to inculcate that spirit in them.

It follows that the teachers in the Philosophical Faculty
should be selected only from those who are themselves contri-
buting to the advancement of knowledge ; for if they have not
the spirit of research in them, how shall they instil it into others ?
It is our carelessness in this respect (I do not speak of University
College, which has always been guided by these principles, but
of our country as a whole) which has made us so backward as
compared with some other nations. It is this which has made
the vast majority of our statesmen so careless, because so
ignorant of the whole frame of mind of the philosopher ; and
which has made it possible for men high in the political
estimation of their countrymen to misconceive the functions
of a University."

212 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

The speaker then proceeded to discuss several other
subjects, and the oration concludes with a statement of
his objections to the predominant influence of examin-
ations in English education. There can be little doubt
from a comparison of dates and other circumstances
that this oration was used as an opportunity of rejoinder
to Lord Rosebery, who, as Vice-Chancellor of the Univer-
sity of London, had in the previous month (May 1901),
at the meeting for conferring degrees, being called on
to speak, allowed himself to give utterance to views of
a wholly different character. For he declared in plain
terms that in his opinion the university should teach,
but should have nothing to do with research. Although
this dictum was received by a considerable section of
the audience with evident signs of approval, it certainly
excited a great feeling of dissatisfaction in the minds
of many persons present. Such a remark falling from
the lips of a speaker of such eminence and holding a
position of such authority in the university seems to
show that at that time he had thought but little about
the question. It stands out in marked contrast to the
view expressed only a few weeks earlier by Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the then newly-con-
stituted University of Birmingham, who exhorted the new
university to aim at doing four things : it should teach,
it should examine, it should add to knowledge by
research, it should show the applications of knowledge.
And this is practically the programme set forth in
Ramsay's discourse.

CHAPTER IX

NOTES ON TRAVEL

RAMSAY was fond of travel, and devoted many of his
holidays to excursions in Scotland, Norway, France,
Germany and Switzerland. But there were also many
occasions when business of some kind took him abroad,
as when he went to lecture in Paris or Berlin, to preside
over a meeting in the United States or Canada, to receive
the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, or to India at the request
of the Government. Some of these journeys have been
already referred to and sufficiently described in previous
pages. With regard to others it was felt that the
continuity of the life history would be unduly inter-
rupted by relating the details of all these journeys in
proper chronological order. Accordingly a short account
of each has been separately drawn up ; the story of the
wedding trip in 1881 has been written by Lady Ramsay,
to whom also the following pages are indebted for an
account of the first visit to Canada in 1884, to Finland
in 1907, and to India in 1900-01. Professor W. P. Ker,
of University College, who accompanied Ramsay to
Iceland in 1895, has been good enough to tell the story

213

214 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

of their adventures in that distant region, and to his
account have been added extracts from two letters sent
home by Ramsay containing humourous and charac-
teristic sketches of their fellow-travellers and of the
journey outwards.

WEDDING TRIP, 1881

His family used to say that all Ramsay's trips abroad
were arranged with a view to visiting new laboratories
and old friends, and that scenery, places of historical
interest and art treasures might or might not be thrown
in if time permitted. The wedding trip was no exception
to this rule. The fact that a new laboratory was shortly
to be built at Bristol made the inspection of laboratories
specially interesting and important. The original plan
was to spend August abroad and return to Clifton early
in September to house-hunt, buy furniture, and get the
laboratory in trim for the next term's work. The
question of the principalship was to have been settled
at a special meeting of council on August 1 Oth, but there
was so small an attendance that the committee of
recommendation which had fixed on Ramsay would
themselves have formed the majority, and the matter
was again postponed till the end of September, just
before the beginning of term. As this would influence
the choice of a house, it was useless to start house-
hunting, and Ramsay felt it was better to stay away
— so as not to seem to influence the decision of the
council. As regards the preparations for the term's

NOTES ON TRAVEL 215

work, this had its inconvenient side, but Dr. Adrian
Blaikie, at that time Ramsay's assistant, shortened his
vacation like the loyal friend that he was, and made
all right in the absence of his chief.

The wedding took place on August 3rd, and had the
family been superstitious they might have felt that
things looked bad for the future. Two days before the
ceremony a maid in the Buchanan household developed
diphtheria, and anxiety was felt lest Mrs. Buchanan
should do the same. This, however, proved a false
alarm, and as it was considered safer, arrangements
were made to have a hotel wedding, a very unusual
thing in those days. Troubles, however, were not over
yet ! Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay had invited the nearest
relatives to dinner in the evening. On the morning of
the wedding day, just after breakfast, the ceiling of
theii dining-room, for no obvious reason, crashed down
— doing, happily, no damage beyond breaking a little
china. Again arrangements were made rapidly, and an
ingenious builder rigged up a canvas ceiling, and the
party went off as if nothing out of the way had happened.

This chapter of accidents, instead of being an omen of
evil, was the beginning of a singularly happy married
life.

After a day or two in London the couple, both being
fond of the sea, crossed to Antwerp from the Thames,
saw Brussels and stayed a few days with Ramsay's old
friend Elizabeth Lang, now Mrs. MacNicol. Her hus-
band, an engineer, was getting some work done at the

216 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

great iron and steel works of Messrs. John Cockerel, and
through his influence Ramsay saw over this wonderful
factory, an experience which he never forgot.

After that Bonn, Heidelberg and Stuttgart were
visited, and all new arrangements and apparatus taken
note of for future use. The summer of 1881 was very
wet, and during the whole of the tour there were only
about ten days of fine weather. These fell luckily at
the time of a small walking tour in the Eiffel, which
Ramsay had once visited before and wanted to explore
more thoroughly. It must be owned that it was a
walking tour by courtesy only, for the journeys were
for the most part made by all sorts of conveyances,
and the walking was done in the surroundings of the
various halts. The means of locomotion were rather
peculiar. One day (it was wet) the local butcher's
" wagen " was hired. It turned out to be one of the long
German carts with two boards as a floor and two long
things like ladders as sides, and, of course, not a vestige
of a spring. Another day appeared a sumptous and evil-
smelling four-wheeled cab, evidently the state chariot of
the neighbourhood. The stopping places were also varied
and full of interest. In one place the little inn was an
old watch-tower, and all the rooms were round or the
segments of a circle. All were out of the common.
The last halt before getting back to much-needed lug-
gage and change of raiment was, as ill-luck would have
it, at the most select and conventional hotel in a most
select and conventional little German watering place,

NOTES ON TRAVEL 217

where every one changed their garments several times
a day and looked askance at the " mad English " who
arrived with only what they could carry.

Tubingen was not forgotten, and Ramsay had the
pleasure of introducing his wife to old Mrs. Kommerell
and her family. This was the last time he saw his old
friend, as very soon after that she died and the home
was broken up.

It did not, however, end his interest in her children,
and indeed the last time he was in Germany, in the
spring of 1913, he went out of his way to go to see the
youngest daughter and make the acquaintance of her
husband and family.

Before going to Tubingen the couple stopped a night
at one of the large towns on the route, to visit one of
his fellow-students, whom he had described as the most
beautiful human being he had ever seen. Alas, the
passing of the few years since they had parted had
changed him into a fat, prosperous, elderly German
citizen with not a vestige of his former charms.

Switzerland was next on the programme, but the rain
it rained every day, and after a week or two of hoping
it would clear, they gave it up and finished their holiday
in Paris till it was time to repair to Bristol and learn
what had been decided about the principalship, and to
settle down in what was to be their home for the next
six years.

218 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN CANADA, 1884

After the wedding-tour the next long journey was the
visit to Canada and the States in 1884. When it was
proposed to hold the meeting of 1884 at Montreal the
Ramsays were much tempted by the idea. Not only
did they want to see our great over-seas dominion, but
also a brother of Mrs. Ramsay's, a great friend of
Ramsay's, who had been some time in the States, and
they wished to meet him and see something of his life.

In the first place this occasion brought home to Ram-
say the great value of the meetings of the association,
not only in spreading an interest in the progress of
science, but in bringing together scientific men, old and
young, in circumstances where each had leisure to be
interested in each other's work and ideas.

Like other young professors, he had visited the
laboratories of the older and larger universities in
vacation time, and found the heads either away or, if
at home, they had stayed to work and visitors were
rather a hindrance. Later, when the younger men came
to see him in this way it was a real trouble to Ramsay
when he had not really time to spare to give to them.
The meetings of the British Association he felt met
this difficulty. There the younger men could hear the
older men speak and make their acquaintance, and the
older ones could listen to the theories and fancies of
the younger, coming men, and give them kindly words
of criticism and encouragement.

NOTES ON TEAVEL 219

Another important outcome of this journey was
the forming of a sort of union among the heads of the
University Colleges.1 Several of these went to the
association, and they talked over things so satisfactorily
that they arranged to meet for the future at regular
intervals, and act in concert in appealing to the Govern-
ment for recognition and aid. It took time and trouble,
but within five or six years they had a grant for endow-
ment given by the State, and now they are nearly all
independent universities.

Another reason for it being a memorable journey was
its influence on Kamsay's friendships. Some slight
acquaintances became real friends, and some friendships
were formed that were to colour his life. Among those
last was that with Professor George Francis Fitzgerald,
of Trinity College, Dublin, which was of the closest
and most intimate character for the next seventeen
years. Fitzgerald was at this time about thirty-one
years old (Kamsay's own age), but his prematurely grey
hair and beard gave him the appearance of a much
older man. The work he did in physical and mathe-
matical science has been told in Sir Joseph Larmor's
memoir, but no one can put on record all he did for science
in helping and encouraging others in their work. No
trouble was too great for him to take, and when less
gifted men were puzzled by seeming contradictions in
their results he threw himself heart and soul into their
difficulties and, with his great mathematical power,

1 An account of the proceedings will be found on page 91.

220 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

made the dark places plain by finding formulae to fit
the new facts. This is the experience of, not one but
of scores of his friends and even casual acquaintances.
Ramsay felt always how much of his success was due to
Fitzgerald's help, criticism and encouragement.

About the middle of July the Ramsays sailed from
Liverpool in the Parisian, a month before she was to
cross the Atlantic with the main body of the association
on board. Among their fellow-passengers were Pro-
fessor and Mrs. Viriamu Jones, Principal of Cardiff
University College ; Mr. and Mrs., now Sir Frederick
and Lady, Pollock ; Mr. and Mrs. John Albert Black,
both of them old friends of Ramsay and his wife, and
many others.

Before starting Mrs. Ramsay had heard from her
brother that he was leaving California and meant to
settle further north, and he suggested that they should
meet in Montana and go through the Yellowstone Park,
which was then in process of being settled up. Their
plans were to go to Montreal and there find out all that
was possible about the Yellowstone and how to get
there and back before the meeting of the association.
Among others on the Parisian were Professor Liveing
and Dr. Campion, of Cambridge, who also hoped to see
the Yellowstone. Professor Fitzgerald was also on
board, but as he was a very bad sailor he did not appear
till the voyage was nearly over. He also had the
Yellowstone in view, and the day they arrived they all
visited the various offices to try to make arrangements.

NOTES ON TEAVEL 221

The Canadian Pacific Railway had most generously
placed every accommodation at the disposal of the British
Association. Free passes and every facility were offered
that the members could see as much of Canada as time
would permit, and naturally they did not appreciate the
special attraction of the Yellowstone. The park was
just being opened up, and ideas about it were very
vague. It was only beginning to appear in guide books,
and their information was apt to be inaccurate and
misleading.

Briefly, all that was known about it was that it was a
tract of land about sixty miles square, on the spurs of
the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Wyoming, which
Congress had determined to keep in its original state
so that future generations might know what America
had once been. It was to be stocked (and this has
now been done) with specimens of the wild animals of
the Rockies, which were even then rapidly nearing
extinction.

To anyone who has re-visited the western states since
then, the wisdom of this is apparent. Where the rail-
way used to run for days through almost unbroken prairie
there are hundreds of miles of cultivated land ; and
instead of the few clusters of settlers' and miners'
shanties there are countless villages and townships ;
and up-to-date motor cars race the trains on good roads
that run parallel to the line.

Beside the fact that the Yellowstone district was a
particularly beautiful part of the country, a plateau

222 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

about 8000 feet high, with wonderful canyons, tangled
forests and high rocky peaks rising overhead, it had
also the unique attraction of being the finest geyser
basin in the world, and these mysterious boiling foun-
tains and strange formations made it, at all costs, a
place to keep as far as possible in its natural state.
. All this is now familiar to the travelling public and to
the student of Baedeker, but in the early eighties the
roads were just being made, and though trips were
arranged to go through it there were only two hotels in
the course of an excursion that took six days. The
extra nights had to be spent in camp stations which
might be much overcrowded.

These particulars even were not known in Montreal,
and the party were warned not to attempt the expedi-
tion. The party that started together included Pro-
fessor Liveing, Dr. Campion, Professor Fitzgerald and
the Ramsays. The latter were to meet Mrs. Ramsay's
brother, Patrick Buchanan, at Livingstone, which the
latest available information described as the station
nearest the park. The journey was not like the luxu-
rious American travelling of to-day. A landslide had
taken place on the C.P.R. line and traffic had tempor-
arily to go by the Great Lakes and then on by rail,
as it had always done till a short time before. The
commissariat department was not, however, quite so
easily reorganised, and for a day or two meals were
sketchy and peculiar. At one stop in the early morning
breakfast had to be taken at a mining camp about a

NOTES ON TKAVEL 223

quarter of a mile from the line, and the next meal was
about eleven o'clock at night. Any refection partaken
of after six in those parts is, or rather was, called " lunch,"
and the joy with which the travellers heard the call
" lunch served next stop " was somewhat tempered by
the nature of the fare, which consisted largely of pump-
kin and apple pie in great cold slabs. The older members
of the party certainly suffered from the fatigues and
hardships of the journey. The younger only laughed
and enjoyed the experiences. To Fitzgerald and Kam-
say everything was full of interest. They never tired
of watching the differences in the wild growths on the
prairie, the animals, not yet sophisticated enough to be
timid, and later, when they passed through the Bad
Lands, " Les mauvaises terres a traverser," the wild
and brilliant colours and strange formation that had
given them their name. Before starting, a parcel of
light literature had been bought, but at the close of the
three weeks' journey only one member of the party had
read any of them, and she only one.

On arriving at the little town of Livingstone, which
had been till a few months before the station for the
park, but now was only a junction, the party separated,
the elder professors going on, while Fitzgerald and the
Ramsay s stopped to wait for Buchanan, who had not
arrived. As a matter of fact he did not receive their
telegram fixing the date of meeting till two days later.
Livingstone was in a strange phase of its existence.
During the time it was the station for the park, it had

224 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

a burst of prosperity, and houses and stores sprang up
almost in a night, but when traffic passed on it was as
suddenly deserted, and at that time there were only
about fifty or sixty people in a town that lately had
held two or three thousand. Two days passed with no
news. The event of the day was to meet the train that
brought passengers from the park and took back those
that arrived in the train from the east. On the third
day the Ramsay s persuaded Fitzgerald to leave them
and join some friends who passed through on their way
to the park. They had not said so to Fitzgerald, but
they were becoming seriously uneasy, and Ramsay had
made up his mind to start next day on an eighty miles'
ride to the address to which they had telegraphed.
However, late that night, greatly to their relief, the
wanderer rode into the hotel yard, and anxiety was at
an end. Buchanan suggested that if they would trust
to his camping knowledge they would have a much
more characteristic experience of the wild west than if
they were just being taken round with the ordinary
parties. As they specially wished to have a quiet time
with him they were only too glad, and at once they pro-
ceeded to get all necessary camp fittings and stores,
and in the afternoon they set off for the real starting
place, the Mammoth Springs Hotel. There, to their
surprise and joy, Fitzgerald greeted them, " Ye never
surely thought I would leave ye in the lurch ; I just
came here to make sure that Pat was not waiting for
us here by mistake." This is not the place to describe

NOTES ON TRAVEL 225

the wonders of the district. The feeling of adventure
and absolute freedom were things none of them ever
forgot. Every day had its interests and the nights
were full of wonders. Once they camped near " Old
Faithful." It is the largeot of the geysers, and its
habits are more regular than any of the others, hence
its name. Every 70 minutes it sends up a great rush
of boiling water to a height of about 150 feet. Till
late that night they sat by their camp fire watching the
great column of water go up and burst in the moonlight
into glittering spray. And all the night was punctuated
by its friendly greetings. Life was simple but busy
too. In the morning they were up early, and after
hot baths of nature's providing, bieakfast was cooked,
and the bread for the day baked by half the party while
the others saw to the horses and struck the tents, so as
to make an early start and take it easy in the hot part
of the day. The days were very hot and the nights
bitterly cold. The first night, to save time in the
morning, the kettle was filled overnight ; in the morning
it was frozen hard, and much time had to be spent on
thawing it, without splitting that valuable possession.
The days passed in a sort of wonderland. The great
obsidian cliff, with at its base the remains of an Indian
arrowhead factory, kept them busy a whole morning,
and a day spent at what is known as the paint-pot basin
was never forgotten. The paint pots are on the slope
of a hill entirely formed of the deposit. It is honey-
combed with holes of varying depths and sizes filled

226 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

with a paint-like fluid of different colours of wonderful
brilliance and purity. It is as if a Titan's hand had
set out paints for a gigantic picture. They spent much
time over this ; Ramsay and Fitzgerald equally keen
on identifying the colouring matter and all wondering
and excited, finding interest everywhere. They had
been warned of the dangers of unfriendly Indians, and
that small parties were often " held up." They never
saw a redskin all the time in the park, and though one
day they felt they were being " shadowed " by two
rough-looking individuals, these proved in the end to
be two miners whose shyness had kept them back for
hours from making the simple request that their photo-
graphs might be taken to send back to their friends at
home. One night a bear came down and scared the
horses away, and it was a long morning's work to find
them. Another day there was a thunderstorm, and a
tree was struck within a hundred yards of where they
had taken shelter in a cave, but youth and high spirits
made light of such things, and to them all " the camp in
the Yellowstone " was one of the red-letter times of
their lives.

Pat Buchanan left them at Livingstone on his way to
the district in which he meant to settle, and in 1897 the
Ramsay s visited him at his ranch there.1 On the return
journey the rest of the camping party were joined by
Drs. Foster Morley, Plimpton and Rideal, members of
the junior chemical staff at University College, London.

1 See page 152.

NOTES ON TRAVEL 227

They were afterwards to work with Ramsay when he
succeeded Professor Williamson at that institution. At
Winnipeg they stepped off to see what remained of old /
Fort Garry, the great seat of the early days of the/
Hudson's Bay Company. Twenty years later the British^
Association was to be royally entertained there, but at
that time it was just in its infancy. The houses were
mostly one or two-storied buildings, standing back from
" side walks " made of rough planking, and the middle
of the streets were virgin soil. There had been rainy
weather and the traffic had made deep ruts that were
nearing danger point, and a great plough was going over
them, followed by a thing like a harrow ploughing up
the main streets and levelling them down. In a few
years all was asphalt and order with electric light and
street cars, and old Fort Garry was a thing of the remote
past ! The next stopping place was Rat Portage, a
small station near the Lake of the Woods, which they had
been advised to see. They had no very clear idea how
to proceed ; but while breakfasting they heard a Scot-
tish voice insisting on seeing Professor Ramsay. " A
cousin of my own," said the voice, and Ramsay went
out to find it belonged to Dr. John Brown, of Burnley,
son of old Dr. John Brown, the well-known naturalist
of the Cape, of whom he had heard all his life. Dr. and
Mrs. Brown had arrived the day before, and had been
made welcome by the agent of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, who had arranged for them a trip in the little
steamer that was used to bring in the skins that the

228 SIK WILLIAM EAMSAY

Indians and trappers deposited at different points on
the lake, and it was to share in this trip that Dr. Brown
brought an invitation. It was gratefully accepted, and
though, being purely a pleasure trip, no business was
done, it was an experience never to be forgotten. The
boat was steered by a half breed. They said no one
but a half breed or an Indian could follow the windings
of the lake. The islands were so thick that it was more
like a tortuous stream than a lake and there never was
clear water more than twenty yards ahead. All day
they sailed among the islands, the haunts of many
different tribes. No living Indians were seen, but they
passed many of their burial places, or rather, Isles of
the Dead, where in birch -bark hammocks strung from
tree to tree, with their tomahawks and water bottles by
their side, the braves slept their last sleep among the
islands that had once been their undisputed home.

The Browns were on their way to Montreal, and the
gradually increasing party went on to Niagara, and
unlike some other travellers none of them found it a
disappointment. After that came Montreal, science and
civilisation. The meeting was a surprisingly large one
and very successful in every way.

Eamsay and his wife were the guests of Mr. and Mrs.
John Molson, and kindness and hospitality was showered
upon them. The most noteworthy events were an
excursion to shoot the Lachine Rapids and a la crosse
match between a Canadian and an Indian team, an
entire novelty to the British visitors.

NOTES ON TRAVEL 229

The American Scientific Association had arranged to
hold its meeting in Philadelphia immediately after the
British meeting was over, and invited members to go.
Most of those who had just come out in time for the
Montreal meeting naturally wanted to see the western
parts, but many of the earlier arrivals went to Phila-
delphia. The Ramsays were among this number. They
were invited to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Smith.
Mr. Lloyd Smith was a man of vast learning and
acquirements, with a great sense of humour, and the
Ramsays found the time spent with him and his kind
wife more interesting than the meetings of the society.
All good things come to an end and duty was calling, so
before the end of the meeting the Ramsays took the
homeward trail and sailed in the Polynesian, or, as it
was called, the " Rolling Polly." The voyage was wet
and stormy and the Polly did not belie her name, so it
was a glad sight to see the shores of England once more.

ICELAND, AUGUST 1895

" Ramsay and I spent many holidays together, particularly in
the Isle of Arran between 1891 and 1894, late in spring and
summer. I forget when we first talked seriously of going to
Iceland : we made plans for the summer of 1894, but these had
to be changed ; it was Arran again that summer. In August
1895 at last we started from Granton for Iceland in the Danish
Mail Steamer Thyra of the Copenhagen Line D.F.D.S. Ramsay
had been working hard and was in want of a rest ; he slept a
good deal the first day out and was not long in recovering. There
was plenty of interest and amusement in the voyage. We saw
the Faroes in every possible light, beginning with fog (as usual)

230 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

which gave Captain Garde of the Tkyra some difficulty as we
tried for the entrance to Trangisvaag. Then the sea cloud
rolled away suddenly ; Ramsay and I went ashore at Trangis-
vaag and up on to the moor behind (among a crowd of whimbrel
and oyster catchers) and looked out on a very remarkable view
to the north— bright sea between us and the Northern islands —
steep rocks (the great and the little Dimun) rising out of the
sea with the remains of the fog hanging on to them like flags
streaming to leeward.

One of our travelling companions was Albert P. Hanson, a
young American electrician from Berlin, who had lived in Iceland
and Denmark, and was going back to Iceland to study the tele-
graph problem. There was no telegraph in Iceland and no
cable. Ramsay naturally was interested in Hanson's ideas and
conversation, which were not limited to telegraphs. The mist
came on again later, leaving blue sky overhead ; and as the
Thyra went slowly on Hanson and his guitar drew the Faroese
passengers round him and then we heard a girl singing, very
gracefully, the old Faroese ballad of Sigurd the Volsung. And
so on through the Northern sounds in fog most of the time —
black peaks sometimes showing overhead through breaks in the
cloud. We left the Faroes at midnight, under a clear sky — colours
of sunset in the North.

Thyra was bound for the east of Iceland, and so north about
round the coast. We came in early one morning, so that when
we first saw Iceland we were at anchor in one of the eastern
fjords. We had come to an important place, where the Icelandic
spar comes from. Hanson of course knew all about it and
took us — Ramsay and me and D. W. Wheeler, a young Oxford
man and one or two others — along the shore a few miles to the
spar mine which we found working.

On the way back we made acquaintance with an Icelandic
family, by going and begging for milk (much needed) at the
house of SelUtrar. Only the children were at home ; the eldest

NOTES ON TKAVEL 231

sister, SigriSur Jonsdottir, was in charge and did the honours of
the place most nobly. How much milk was drunk by the strangers
I do not know, but there was enough for them. The children
looked on and said nothing. I remember the youngest, a solemn
water-baby, whose name was Pjetur Tomas. SigriSur was
offended at the mention of payment : ' Jeg sel eJcki mjolk,9 she
said (' I do not sell milk '). She has our thanks, and we went on
our way considerably indebted to Iceland.

I remember a midnight at Vopnafjord a little later, and a
moon and the sun rising about 1 a.m.,

"Quhilk to behald was pleasance and half wonder."
as Bishop Gavin Douglas says of the midsummer night in
the North. Eamsay spent some of this time visiting a
French schooner, where he gave some help to the captain
about his letters — I forget how ; I was ashore at the time
with Wheeler and Hanson, walking up to the moor above
the little town. But I remember the white Breton schooner,
such as we read about later in Pecheurs d'lslande. Husavik we
saw in a mist : there an American lady came on board, Miss
Elizabeth Taylor, beginning an acquaintance which still for-
tunately continues. So to Akureyri, the great port in the north
of Iceland, where Ramsay and I left the ship, meaning to ride
to Reykjavik, and Hanson also, meaning to walk, with an eye
for a line of telegraph. Mr. Havsteen of Oddeyri helped us
with good advice ; and the best possible guide, Sigurj6n Sumar-
liSason, found horses for us. We spent some time in Akureyri
before starting, and paid a visit, unintroduced and readily
welcomed, to the house of Sira Matthias Jochumsson the poet.
I was glad to find him at home (in another house) in Akureyri
in August 1914 ; we had met in the meantime in London ; our
first morning call was not ill-timed, it would appear.

The road we took from Akureyri was the regular way (called
sveitavegur) with no unusual hazards in it. We were not out
for explorations in the wilderness ; we travelled in the usual

232 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

fashion, and were entertained with the hospitality of Iceland
in one house after another.

Of adventures there were few ; the whole thing was adven-
turous enough for travellers who had never been there before
and who had to find out for themselves what an Icelandic bridle
track was like ; who had ne\er before ridden a pony down the
side of a basalt slab (it might be lava) or through many rivers.

I remember one evening (at B61sta5arhli5) when Ramsay
found a lot of mushrooms and with difficulty persuaded our
hosts to have them cooked for us. I trusted Ramsay in this,
but the people of the house took no responsibility and would
not eat. They made me think of the islanders watching St.
Paul after he had shaken the serpent off : " howbeit they looked
when he would have swollen or fallen down suddenly." In
our case, however, unlike that of Melita, the failure of the experi-
ment left the original prejudice as strong as ever.

The country we travelled through was not very remarkably
different from our own ; the valleys were like the glens we know,
except that there was a want of granite and mica schist and
such-like nobler creatures among the rocks. There were some
splendid places, like the Skagafirth country, looking down to
the sea ; Grettir's island of Drangey showing. It was a great
thing to find oneself riding over the moor, which is called Holt-
beacon Heath in the story of Burnt Njal ; this takes you down to
the head of Northwater Dale and so to the passage of Hvamm
(or Quam, as it is in the Lanarkshire form of the name), where
we spent a pleasant evening talking to Sira Gisli Einarsson, and
were sped on the next morning to North Tongue. That day
offered a problem to the curious traveller, which even Ramsay
was slow in solving. We could not make out the meaning of
a number of fires, as they seemed, scattered over a plain that
opened before us ; little clouds of smoke rising. The truth was,
we had got so used to our familiar Iceland, a natural country of
hills, glens, uplands, lowlands, and clear rivers — with only

NOTES ON TKAVEL 233

occasionally a strange conical hill, or a distant snowfield, to
remind us where we were — that we had forgotten all about the
Iceland of the guide books. What we saw and did not under-
stand was the steam of hot springs. We had forgotten all about
geysers and volcanoes in that comparatively steady and solid
North country which we had been travelling through. We did
not recognise a hot spring when we saw it. That same day we
rode through a birchwood — one of the pleasures that never grow
stale in Iceland.

Our last stage before Reykjavik was from Grund in Skorradal
to Thyrill. This — not a long stage — is one of the most beautiful
parts of Iceland. It is well depicted by Mr. Collingwood in his
Saga Steads— both the Skorradal lake with the very finely
shaped range of mountains beyond it, and Thyrill, the house
under the hill, where we slept that night. We also slept there*
outside the house, that afternoon. We got there rather early,
and it was bright and warm, and we lay on the grass in the sun
and fell asleep. When I awoke, Ramsay was sleeping sound.
I did not disturb him, but set out for a walk alone, up to the
basalt cliffs above. There is a headland of basalt there, not.
coming down to the sea, but leaving a good deal of room and the
usual grassy slopes below ; there the house is built. On each side
of this headland there are cliffs, and cliffs of course at the end of
it, where we were. There is a gully (among others) cutting into
the end of the headland, which is named after Helga in the
Holmverja Saga — a lady who made her escape with her children
away from her husband's enemies, up the rocks. I went to
look at this and found it easy enough to get to the top ; the
tableland was a good place to look out from, and I stayed some
time there, and then came down the same way. Ramsay was.
not there when I got back to our resting-place ; and Sigurjon
told me he had gone off for a walk. And so the time passed on,
and Ramsay did not appear. Sigurjon began to be anxious,
and it was late — I think near 10 o'clock — when Ramsay came at

234 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

last. He too had made for the cliffs ; he took a gully of his own,
and must have been coming up when I was going down, or we
should have met on the plateau at the top. Then he walked
inland along the promontory, looking for another way down,
but found everything too difficult till he got a long way inland.
I was glad to meet Sigurjon again at Akureyri 19 years later,
and to hear him talk of the day when Mr. Ramsay was lost on
the hill. Then we came to Reykjavik ; I remember the surprise
of one of our Eyjafjord horses at first seeing a cart moving on
wheels. There are automobiles at Eyjafjord now, though it
will probably be some time yet before they have command of
the whole way between Akureyri and Reykjavik.

We spent some days in Reykjavik, where we met again our
friends from the Thyra, Miss Taylor and D. W. Wheeler. They
were going home, and Ramsay with them, in the Laura ; I
stayed on to see more, and to take the Thyra again on her return
voyage west and north about. Before the Laura started, we saw
the sights of the capital of Iceland ; best of all the perpetual
view (it was then very fine summer weather) of the white dome
of Snaefell, 70 miles away, rising out of the sea — the whole Snaefell
peninsula being of course very much hull down at that distance,
and the lower mountains east of Snaefell showing like mere islands
above the sea-line.

I remember pretty clearly a walk to the hot springs of Reyk-
javik, a little way from the town. The water of the springs is
useful, and most of the Reykjavik washing is done there. Ramsay
I fo^k had been neglecting his argon and helium all this time ;
but the sight of the springs put him in mind of such things.
Then began the quest of the bottle among the washerwomen ;
the bottle was found ; and then Ramsay had to fill it with gas
from the spring, standing on stepping stones and treated with
no great respect by the dames who had to cross the water with
their bundles. I was sorry to be told that the bottle gave no
results afterwards." W. P. KER.

NOTES ON TRAVEL 235

Ramsay dated his first letter from the S.S. Thyra off
Faroe, 3rd August, 1895 :

ICELAND

" The ship's company consists of Ker, a bright young American
named Hanson, who is head of a manufactory of telegraphic
switches and cables at Berlin. He plays a Spanish guitar and
sings ' quite a number ' of nigger melodies, one ' the golden
slippers ' well worth hearing. There is a Danish student of law,
a nice young fellow. There are several Icelanders, but all speak
Danish, and I am getting my ear attuned to that unmel odious
language. The American has a Danish wife and speaks the
lingo. He picked her up in Iceland about 10 years ago, when
he spent a winter there. There is a Brummagem gent of sallow
complexion, a man named Howell, author of a Tour in Iceland.
He is going off to the mountainous volcanic regions in the east
to explore further. There is a man of unknown origin and
foreign accent, of little speech ; evidently a foreigner settled
in Scotland. A young schoolmaster who has been ill ; and three
ladies whom I haven't seen since the day before yesterday. One
is an Icelander and wears the cap, if cap it can be called. She
is like this [sketch supplied here]. She has been a very beautiful
woman, but is no longer quite young. She has come to meet
her sister from Winnipeg. The third lady is a Norwegian gover-
ness, going to take charge of two little Norwegian girls in the
N. of Iceland. I had some talk with her, but she has disappeared
for a day as have most of the others. We have had the fiddles
on the tables since yesterday morning. The captain is a pleasant
young fellow, but at present is not approachable on account of
the fog. . . .

9 p.m. We are now lying off Thorshavn, a much larger place,1
as it appears in the twilight, for it is near 10 and still quite light
to see by. The Gudstjienst (guess that) is at 11 to-morrow and

1 Than Trangisvaag, where they landed. See Prof. Ker's narrative.

236 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Ker and I are going to it. It is in Danish, though the lingo they
speak here is Faroese, a sort of hybrid between Danish and
Icelandic."

A later letter, bearing no date, begins :

" We have had our first day in Iceland. Yesterday we came
through mist and fog all day with the whistle continually sounding.
This morning when we woke at 8 o'clock we were on the point of
anchoring at Eskifjord on the S.E. coast of Iceland. The hills
are craggy and the fjords are not unlike the Norwegian fjords,
but more barren looking. The vegetation is scattered along the
streams, which run down towards the sea ; they are green and
there are green patches here and there, but for the most part
the land is grey and barren. There are patches of snow low down
on the hills, and green spots here and there high up, which I
imagine to be green moss. The town consists of a dozen houses
or so, like the Norwegian houses of wood, and painted ; but
there are some turf huts among them — new and old Iceland.
We had our usual cup of tea and toasted cookies, and then we
landed for a walk of 6 miles to the Iceland spar mines, which we
saw from the steamer on the way up. The track runs down the
fjord and is like the road up Glen Rosa, only stonier. We met
three ponymen on our tramp, and our versatile friend Hanson,
the American, had quite a long talk with them. Did I tell you
he spent about four months in Iceland, ten years ago ? He
could speak Icelandic then and remembers some still — perhaps
not quite so much as I know of Danish. I find I can follow what
they say from its likeness to Norwegian, and I am beginning to
get a few sentences together. These men galloped off on their
ponies to the village, while we tramped on breakfastless. The
mine is more a quarry than a mine. It is thickly crystallised,
but in large clear crystals. I have, in spite of strict prohibition,
brought several pieces with me ; but we saw one piece about
5 in. cube which was absolutely clear, and worth some 800 kroner

NOTES ON TRAVEL 237

=£4.0. It had been found that morning and had been packed,
but the overseer opened his box to show it us. ... We had a
long tramp back and arrived nearly starved at the village, except
for a glass of milk (mjolk) from a girl, surrounded by her brothers
and sisters, 8 in all, at a little farm hut. The natives aren't
pretty, but they are good-humoured looking. I took some
samples of rock from the neighbourhood of the mine, lest per-
chance it might contain helium.

The head man, Karl Gubelius, was introduced to me and made
several pretty speeches in Icelandic. To which I did my best
to answer in Danish. That is the court language here."

Calling at several places on the way north, the steamer
put in to Voporifjord on the north coast, a little town
more picturesque than the others. While some of the
party went ashore here to attend a wedding, Ramsay
had a little adventure of his own. " The captain of
one of the French fishing boats came on board wanting
if possible to get letters." Here Ramsay was able to
help by interpreting for him, and the captain invited
him to visit his ship.

"The schooner is, I should think, about 200 tons. The
cabin is a wee place lined up with six bunks and rather dirty,
and the crew looks savage enough ; but they were very polite.
I procured a handful of cigars from the steward as a tip and
they were very acceptable. We drank each other's health in
a deep red liqueur. He tells me that he will have made about
£200 by his adventures this summer from March till now and it
has not been a very good year. One of the schooners, he says,
has made 25,000 fr. They carry provisions and salt in their
barrels, and when they are empty they fill them with salt, which
is carried in the hold, and salt their fish, which is then packed
in the hold. They had a bad storm and had the roof of their

238 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

cabin carried away and a life lost. The captain who is a ' char-
pentier,5 repaired it as well as possible, but the roof is not rain-
tight. . . . We saw an interesting sight to-day after dinner ;
two hawks chasing gulls. The hawks are red-breasted or brown-
red and have white tips to their wings. The gulls ducked with
a cry and escaped, and the hawks didn't follow up the chase. We
watched them wheeling about for nearly an hour.

I haven't seen the Doctor's wife l yet ; she keeps her cabin.
But he is up and about and we drank his health — Skal !-— at
dinner in a bottle of claret all round. We had a big erection
of a cake made up of rings, one on the top of another and a cupid
of the female sex on the top of all. This we all ate with great relish ,
and crackers were pulled by the small remainder of the ship's
company. There are left, K. and I, the German from Manchester,
the retired apothecary, Mr. Wilkin the schoolmaster, and the
candidate for priesthood. There have joined us two Icelanders,
one of the hairy red sort and one of the genteel commercial
traveller sort. [Sketches of these persons follow.] We are
nearer the coast. It is flat and green down to the water's edge —
quite low cliffs. We appear to be coming into a new belt of
mist, but the sun still shines. I have read Jane Eyre, and Windsor
Castle by Harrison Ainsworth. It is on the model of The Count,
but somewhat more elaborate. That's about all. Supper calls.

Friday. Last night we started from Husavik, and now,
9 a.m., we are at Ofjord, which is the same as Akureyri. We
start on our overland pilgrimage from here, and we have been
promised horses and guides to Keykjavik, a distance of about 8
days. . . . The bride has appeared. She is a bright fair-haired
girl with a gold tassel to her cap and a lilac silk apron that
shows signs of careful folding. That's very like her [sketch].
The dress is rich enough, but not in modern fashion.

This appears to be quite a fashionable place, judging from the
number of the people."

1 This was the newly-married bride from the last stopping-place.

NOTES ON TRAVEL 239

INDIA, 1900-1901

Early in 1900 Ramsay was asked by the Indian
Government to go out to India and advise on an
educational question of importance. Among the many
Parsee philanthropists whose names stand high in the
annals of India Jamsetjee N. Tata holds almost the
foremost place. He was a man of the widest sympathies
and learning, and at the same time of great financial
ability and enterprise. His far-reaching intelligence
spent itself not only in promoting great engineering
and manufacturing projects, but also in striving to
improve the education of his Indian fellow-subjects.

In a quiet, unobtrusive manner he had, for many years,
helped promising students of the Indian universities and
colleges to go to Europe and do post-graduate work
in the universities there. This had not always the
success for which he hoped, and he felt that an institution
in India for post-graduate research of a scientific
character, and which would lead to the opening up of
careers for its students, would be a benefit to the people
at large. To provide such an institution he offered
to the Indian Government building land and properties
estimated to yield an annual income of £8333, after
providing for administrative expenses, rates and taxes
and an adequate sinking fund. Further the family of
Mr. Tata guaranteed that for ten years the property
would yield this income. The capital value of these
gifts was about £200,000. It was to advise on the best

240 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

way to utilise this munificent gift that Ramsay was
asked to go out for the six months of the next "cold
weather."

The visit to India to study the problem, and the inter-
esting nature of the proposed scheme, strongly attracted
Ramsay, but he felt he could not leave his work for so
long, and declined the invitation. The offer was, how-
ever, again made for as long a time as he could spare ;
and ultimately, and with the consent of the Univeisity
College authorities, it was arranged that after starting
the session he should devote a little over three months
to the expedition.

At first he hoped that he would have been accompanied
by Professor Fitzgerald, as there was an idea that a second
expert would be wanted ; but that was given up. Ram-
say was greatly disappointed at the time, but very
thankful afterwards, as it was while they were still
away that Fitzgerald was seized with the illness that
proved fatal in the early spring. During 1900 Mr. Tata
was in London and had many conversations with Ram-
say, and in November Ramsay and his wife started to
join the P. and 0 steamer at Marseilles. By leaving
London a day earlier than the special train they had a
day in Paris, and travelling by the ordinary night train
they arrived in Marseilles in the early morning. The
town was in a state of great excitement, President
Kruger, having succeeded in leaving South Africa,
being expected. The Ramsays saw his arrival. In a
letter to Dr. Travers the incident is thus described :

NOTES ON TRAVEL 241

" We drove to the landing-stage, where Kruger was to dis-
embark at 10.30, drew up about ten feet from the line the pro-
cession was to take and waited. No crowd. People merely
stopped to look. The old ruffian had had his face washed and a
clean collar on ; he has grown a moustache and wore dark spec-
tacles. I snap-shotted him. There was an attempt at an anti-
English song, but the two seedy singers were chivied out of the
way by gendarmes and fled. The whole crowd could have been
packed into the college quadrangle. In the afternoon, however,
there was a row, we heard, for about 300 roughs (paid, it was
said, by the proprietor of one of the local papers) made a raid on
one of the hotels, where some of our fellow-passengers were.

Some of these charged them and found their way down to the
boat ; but those with ladies were shut up by the landlord and did
not reach the Rome till about 11 p.m."

The voyage was unlike any of these previously taken,
which had been mostly northwards, and everything was
new and strange.

Ramsay said that this journey seemed to give him
ten extra years of life : certainly it gave richness and
colour to it. He was a good sailor and enjoyed every
moment of the time. Port Said, the Canal and the
strange sights and sounds of the desert delighted him.
He never tired of watching the native life. The coaling
of the vessel, with the black forms toiling up the gang-
ways in the flaring light of torches, and later the strange
processions of Arabs, with their grave and solemn camels
pacing along the Canal banks, were pictures that he
never forgot. Needless to say, he was not idle on
either of the voyages. On the voyage out he worked
at Urdu, which he had been told would be the most

242 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

useful language to get up. On the return he wrote
out his report. He was sorry not to learn something
of other languages, but he learnt two or three alphabets
so as to be able to read or at least make the sounds of
words he saw painted up, e.g. names of stations or roads.
By leaving London the day he did Ramsay missed
the incoming mail with final renseignements, and he had
no very clear ideas of how to proceed. Among his
fellow-passengers were the Bishop of Bombay and
Mrs. MacArthur, and they invited the Ramsays to stay
with them if no other arrangements had been made.
On arriving at Bombay, however, they found them-
selves taken in charge by Mr. Padshah, Mr. Tata's
private secretary and right hand in all his enterprises,
and he took them to Malabar Hill, where they were the
guests of Mr. Justice and Mrs. (afterwards Sir Edward
and Lady) Candy. While there they had their first
experience of Anglo-Indian society. In India hos-
pitality is a fine art. Though Ramsay's end and aim
was work, all his time was planned out for him to see as
much of the country and its inhabitants as possible,
without feeling that he was neglecting the object for
which he was sent. If, for example, a long interview
with someone was necessary, an excursion would be
arranged, and he and the other man would be sent
together driving, or boating as the case might be, and so
business and pleasure were combined. An excursion to
the Caves of Elephanta was the occasion of a long
conversation with Mr. Tata on the possible sites for

NOTES ON TRAVEL 243

the Institute. After some days with the Candys the
Ramsays went to stay with Mr. and Mrs. (now Sir
Dorab and Lady) Tata. He was the eldest son of
Mr. Tata, and he and his wife had broken away from
the national custom of living in the family abode and
had taken a house on Malabar Hill, running it much
in the English fashion. Mr. Dorab Tata had spent
some years in England, first with a private tutor and
then at Cambridge, and Mrs. Tata had been brought
up at Bangalore, where her father was minister of
education, and she had shared governesses with English
girls there. After a dinner party at their house one of
the government officials stayed very late and enquired
most particularly into Ramsay's plans. What day he
would be at Poonah ? What day at Bangalore ? How
many days at Madras ? If he had arranged to stay
with anyone ? At the time Ramsay felt it bordered
on the inquisitive, but it was merely a part of the fine
art already alluded to. A government " chit " was
sent round to every place to be visited, and a request
made that everything should be done to further Ram-
say's work, and that at the same time every hospitality
should be shown to him and his wife. As a result
invitations to stay were found all along the route, and
English and Indians alike did everything to make the
journey interesting and pleasant. In Bombay the most
wonderful sight they saw was a Mohammedan wedding,
or rather that part of it where the vows are taken. The
bride was the daughter of a judge, and a few English

244 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

people were invited to this part of the ceremony. It
took place in the evening. The avenue was brilliantly
lit up with coloured lamps, and the house — a long two-
storied front, with marble steps the whole way along —
was a blaze of coloured lights. It looked like a palace
of jewels. Little boys and girls in gold garments, or
so they looked, met the guests on the steps and separated
them, the ladies going first to one end of the house to
pay their respects to the hostess and the bride, and the
men to the great hall where the ceremony took place.
Ramsay delighted to recall the look of the room, with
its mixture of brilliant colouring and the picturesque
figures that might have stepped from the pages of the
Arabian Nights.

The vows were taken by the bridegroom and his father-
in-law representing the bride. They sat together on
a couch, and held up their right hands, touching each
other but covered by a sacred handkerchief. After this
came the signing of the register, in which Ramsay was
a witness. Then the English lady guests and a few of
the nearest relations proceeded to the large room in the
part of the house occupied by the women, with the bride-
groom, who with the bride sat on a sofa and formally
accepted the presents from their respective relations-
" in-law." These were mostly precious stones and heavy
gold embroideries and were brought in on trays by
servants even more gorgeously attired than the guests.
After seeing a few trayfuls presented and bowed over by
the newly-married pair, the friends who had brought the

NOTES ON TRAVEL 245

Ramsays took their leave. There was a magnificent
supper arranged, but as ringers would take the place
of forks it was judged advisable to depart in good
time.

The Ramsays were also guests at a Parsee wedding,
which was interesting though it lacked the brilliance
of colour of the Mohammedan. The ceremonial dress
of the male Parsees is white : a short kilt-like skirt
reaching to about the knee, and a black hat of a peculiar
shape, not unlike a highly polished horse's hoof. This
wedding was in the afternoon. A Parsee marriage
ought to take place, one half in the house of the bride
and the other in that of the bridegroom. As this is
often not convenient, a building, or rather a pair of
buildings, has been erected in Bombay with a court-
yard between them for use at these ceremonies. The
first part took place in the building that represented
the bride's home. The officiating priest sat at a small
table and the young couple sat facing him. On the table
was a large book, from which he read steadily in a tongue
which almost no one understood. Certainly the couple
did not, for they kept up a low-toned conversation
with each other all the time. The reader punctuated
his reading by flinging little handfuls of rice in their
faces, but without interrupting either reading or conver-
sation. After the reading was over, the whole com-
pany formed in procession and solemnly walked across
the courtyard to the strains of a military band which
played " the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo."

246 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

Ramsay was by this time due elsewhere and could not
wait for the last part of the ceremony. It may be
interesting to add that in Calcutta they were again
wedding guests, this time at a Brahma-Somaj marriage,
where the service, though in a language they could not
follow, appeared not unlike the Anglican form.

The time in Bombay had been very fully occupied,
and here a letter of Ramsay to Dr. Travers, dated
llth December, may be quoted :

" We are in India ! The exclamation mark is to express the
absolute petrifaction and astonishment we both have at every
thing we see and smell. It is simply overwhelming. People of
all colours, from nigger black to pure white : dressed in all
sorts of clothes, from none at all save smiles and a nose ring to
the most elaborate turbans, white overalls, and jewels of rare
lustre, through all shades of white, yellow, orange, greens, blues,
lilacs and purples. No browns or sad colours. It is a spectacle
that would make a colour-blind man curse his misfortune. The
oddest groups : a woman with a naked child straddling her
sideways, a scuddy (if you don't know what that is, ask Donnan)
of the male persuasion holding her hand, talking to an old gentle-
man of the Mr. Swan type, with spectacles and a white turban
with a scarlet thread twisted in it, and bare legs, sitting on his
hams writing a letter for the lady. Two chaps with ' nozzings '
on except a waist cloth and even exceptionally naked heads,
caused by an early and persistent use of the razor ; — that's the
kind of group that meets you everywhere. Old, old women,
wrinkled and white-haired, with the remains of good looks about
them, with the usual scanty garments, a saree, or gauzy shawl,
and a short petticoat. Fat, prosperous-looking oily Hindoos,
with white turbans and white blouses and trousers ; Parsees
with black bishop's mitres and European dress ; in fact, one

NOTES ON TRAVEL 247

might go on for a week describing and not exhaust one-tenth of
the oddities that one sees every moment. The crowds are
prodigious, they swarm and struggle for space to stand or sit
on. I am getting fluent in ' ghar ko jaloo,3 etc. The most
familiar part of Hindostani is the imperative mood, and indeed
many Anglo-Indians never get beyond it. We have also a
Goanese sprite, who goes and comes at our bidding. He is sup-
posed to know English, and readily understands what one wants,
but his replies are often enigmas. However, with ' nods and
becks and wreathed smiles ' we get along pretty well. You will
wonder where education comes in here. Well, I have had long
talks with Mr. Justice Candy, the Vice-Chancellor of the Bombay
University, and with Mr. Giles, the Director of Public Instruction.
I have seen a reasonably good technical laboratory run by

— as a private spec. He evidently has a lot of go about

him. I have seen the Wilson College, where a sort of junior
arts and science course is given. They, too, are dependent on
the Bombay University, an examining body, with affiliated
colleges after the fashion of London University in 1859, when
they were founded. I had to give a short account of what I
intended to do. That is to go to Poonah on Sunday afternoon,
spend Monday there ; start on Monday night for Bangalore
and arrive in 36 hours ; thence to Madras, where we spend some
days ; thence to Calcutta by sea (Xinas on the ocean) and stay
over the new year at Calcutta. Then up the Ganges valley to
Benares, etc., as far as Lahore I think, and then back to Bombay
by Allahabad. Padshah, the secretary, will not come with us.
I want to see things with my own eyes, and not through his
spectacles ; he is theosophist, vegetarian, altruistic, and an
admirable Crichton after the Indian model. We are going to see
the Towers of Silence on Thursday. On Saturday we are to see
the Caves of Elephanta and also Jain temples. But the streets
are the real attraction. We spent a, couple of hours this morning
wandering through the markets."

248 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

This programme was pretty well carried out, but it
might be permitted to say here a word or two of the
Goanese travelling servant who piloted the travellers
on their long and rapid journey. He was selected by
Mr. Tata, and having mostly travelled as part of a
large suite, he was a little pained to find himself single
handed. However, after a few days to readjust his
ideas, he became the most devoted retainer, regarding
Ramsay as a personage who must never be troubled
with any details as to trains and conveyances till the
moment came to use them. His " chits " (testimonials)
spoke of him as a perfect servant, shikari, sick nurse
and, if necessary, medical adviser, and he did not
belie them.

Towards the end of the time when the constant
travelling had begun to tell and Mrs. Ramsay had some
days' illness, he treated her with great skill and severity.
All food sent to her room by an attentive hostess was
most gratefully accepted and as promptly burnt, and
only slops of his own providing were given to the invalid.
The hostess found it out and was much amused, but
the results were most satisfactory. When she was
restored to ordinary life his vigilance did not relax.
In Bombay the servant goes out with his people, and
at a dinner party there a fellow guest said to Mrs.
Ramsay : " Does your man ever allow you to eat any-
thing ? for I notice that whenever you help yourself
to anything he takes away your plate before you can
touch it." He was most scrupulously honest towards

NOTES ON TRAVEL 249

his employers, but not so much so as regarded their
interests. If they admired anything in their room, it
appeared in the next house they stayed at, and on one
occasion an entire set of toilet bottles that had been
on the dressing-table of the room in a friend's house,
where they had dressed and dined, appeared on their
table next morning. As he had a walk of over six miles
to restore them, he learned to curb his enthusiasm to
a certain extent, but books that he thought " his lady "
was reading he purloined till the last.

The travelling was almost incessant, and not parti-
cularly pleasant just at that point. To save time, they
went mostly by night, and as they were coming from a
plague-infected area, at the boundary of every state
they entered official doctors came on the trains and
felt pulses and generally disturbed the travelling public.
Poonah and Bangalore were both possible sites, and
had to be seen. The latter was finally selected. Then
came Madras, where there were more colleges and
institutions to be visited, and people to be interviewed.
There they stayed with Mr. and Mrs. (now Sir John
and Lady) Atkinson, connections by marriage of Ram-
say's, and they did all they could, not only to help him
in his work but to make the time in Madras a very
happy one. A few days before their arrival the new
railway to Calcutta had been opened, and as going by
it would save a day or two the idea of the sea voyage
was given up, and on Christmas Eve they started on their
journey northwards. It was a very odd Christmas Day.

250 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

The railway was so very new (it had not been opened
a week) that things were always going wrong, and long
stops were frequent, often in lonely places. This was
interesting, for they saw something of the wild life of the
jungle, though the hoped for tigers never appeared.
The train being hours behind time, the Christmas dinner
would have been altogether missing but for the fore-
sight of the faithful Fonseca, who, distrusting new
railways and their commissariat arrangements, had
provided stores which he cooked in ways known only
to himself. A lean little chicken served as turkey and
was followed by a plum pudding, begged from Mrs.
Atkinson ; so all was well.

In Calcutta the Ramsays stayed with their cousins
.and intimate friends Mr. and Mrs. No well Watkins.
After such constant travelling, to settle down for
ten days or so in such sympathetic surroundings
was a great rest. They came in for the height of the
Calcutta winter season. Everything centres round
Government House and they lunched and dined there
and attended a Drawing-room, one of the most brilliant
sights they saw. Lord Curzon was Viceroy at that
time, and he and his lovely wife did everything to give
splendour and dignity to the great position.

The days were filled with work, meetings with heads
of departments, where the Tata scheme, in all its bearings,
was discussed. There were colleges and schools to visit,
so the time passed very quickly away. There was one
lovely morning on a yacht on the Hooghly, and Ramsay

NOTES ON TRAVEL 251

even went to the Baligunj races, where as usual his
chief interest was in the native crowd. They would have
liked to attend the state ball, but the stay in Calcutta
had been longer than they had intended and they left
that night for Patna. Ramsay found two of his old
students on the staff of the college, and they brought
their wives and babies to exhibit them to him and Mrs.
Ramsay. The call was somewhat difficult, as the ladies
only spoke Urdu, and it bade fair to be a lengthy one,
as the Ramsays had not yet learned to use the formula
" It is now permitted to depart." The visitors would
not have felt justified in going without it, but fortunately
a baby cried, and a remark that probably he wanted to
be taken home seemed to give the required suggestion,
and the call ended satisfactorily to all concerned.

Allahabad was the next stop, and there they were
the guests of Mr. Fred Balfour, a very dear young friend,
now alas dead ! Their visit fell at a very interesting
time. In January a great " me]a " (religious festival)
is held there where the Jumna joins the Ganges, and
tens of thousands of devout Hindus gather and
settle for some weeks on the wedge of low-lying land
between the two rivers. The Civil Service has to see
to arrangements for sanitation and for keeping order
in the vast multitude, and the Ramsays spent some time
in the temporary Government office watching the strange
spectacle.

There were fakirs lying on boards covered with nails,
point uppermost, others with their arms held up till

252 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

they had withered, venders of images, preaching fakirs ,
and round them all the great surging, tightly massed
crowd with a constant hum of voices night and day —
and all this under the control of a handful of young men
mostly in their early twenties. The responsibility for
the health and orderliness of these multitudes was in
their hands, and how ably and tactfully these boys face
similar problems only those who have been in India
can know. At Benares the great educational centre
was the new college founded by Mrs. Besant for the
sons of the wealthier and stricter Hindus. Ramsay had
a special interest in visiting it, as an old assistant of his,
Dr. Arthur Richardson, who had a few years previously
embraced theosophy and was in sympathy with Mrs.
Besant's views, was Principal and Professor of Chemistry
in the college. Ramsay gave a short lecture the day he
spent there and, of course, saw the laboratories.

Cawnpore and Lucknowwere next visited, but as neither
were thought of as sites for the new Institute, and there
was not a great deal in either with a bearing on the work
in hand, the visits were very hurried. There was time,
however, to see the memorial over the well, and the
ghaut of tragic interest at Cawnpore and at Lucknow,
that monument to British courage and endurance, the
ruined Residency, with its flagpost on which the flag is
always flying, and the graveyard where so many of the
best and bravest of its defenders lie. Wherever Ramsay
had been he had been told " the man whom you must
see is Hankin of Agra," and it was with much interest

NOTES ON TEAVEL 253

they found they were to be his guests during their
stay there. His real home was in the club, but when he
had visitors he moved into the Ram Bagh, one of the
old Moghul palaces, now used as an official bungalow
for entertaining. It stands on the high bank over-
looking the Jumna and has been little changed in the
passing of the centuries. It is built wholly of white
stone inside and out, and the ceilings of the rooms are
dome-shaped, but the interiors of the domes are broken
up into outstanding geometrical figures, so that it was,
as Ramsay used to describe it; like living inside a large
pudding mould. At Agra there was much to see bearing
on Ramsay's mission, but there was also much to talk
over, which could be done while visiting the points of
interest in and near the town, such as the Fort, with
the lovely Jasmine Tower, and the world-famed Taj
Mahal. Of all he saw in India nothing struck Ramsay
so much as the deserted town of Fatipur Sicri, which was
built, lived in and abandoned all in the space of about
forty years, in the reign of Akbar. It is built of red
sandstone, on a hilltop about twenty miles from Agra,
-and untouched by time it stands just as it did in the
days of the Great Mogul. After Agra came a visit to
Roorkee to see the engineering college there. The head
of it was Colonel Clibborn, R.E., and he and Mrs. Glib-
born did everything to make the visit happy, but a
great shadow lay over the world at that time, for it was
the night before they left that the news came that
Queen Victoria, " The Great White Queen," was no more.

254 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

From that time there was a cloud over everything. It was
a time of real heartfelt sorrow. The bright turbans dis-
appeared and pathetic little bits of black were tacked
on somehow to the garments of even the poorest.

Lahore was the next place on the programme, but
as the Lieutenant-Governor was in camp and as Ram-
say specially wanted to consult him on the subject
of Bangalore, where he, Sir Mackworth Young, had at
one time been resident, Lahore was given up and a visit
to the camp on the other side of the Sutlej was arranged.
Two days were first spent at Delhi, where they had time
to see the Ridge and the various spots so well known in
the history of the great siege, which they did in the com-
pany of one of the people Ramsay had specially to
consult, so no time was lost. The journey to the camp
was rather a novel experience. The first part was by
train and thence across country to the Sutlej. The
ruler of the native state had been asked to convey the
travellers from the railway to the other side of the river
and to do this had made in four days a road about eleven
miles long and laid it with rushes to keep down the dust.
Along this the Ramsays were driven in a state carriage
drawn by four mules, objects of much interest to the
inhabitants of the villages along the route, who had
watched the road being made and were curious as to its
object. From the carriage the travellers were put in
palkis, in which they were carried on board the boat
in which they were taken across the river, and on the
other side they were received by some of the staff and

NOTES ON TRAVEL 255

escorted to camp. An official camp is a wonderful
organisation. It consists of a double supply of tents,
camels, wagons, etc., so that when one camp station is
left there is another fully equipped to arrive at ; and the
one just left is rapidly dismantled and conveyed to the
stopping place next again on the route.

The camp is a village in itself, containing government
office tents (even a post office), accommodation for the
staff, the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, with
great state reception rooms and quarters for guests.
These visitors' tents contain sitting-rooms as well as
dressing-rooms and bed-rooms, and are fully furnished,
though naturally the furniture is of the light kind.
The whole thing is on a scale difficult to imagine. Some-
thing like seven hundred camels were employed to
remove the camps from place to place. Two nights
were spent in camp, and Ramsay had a morning's duck-
shooting, to the scene of which he went on a camel.
There were also strange little desert villages to be
visited, so that a few days' stay would have been a
most welcome rest and a great pleasure. Time, however,
would not stand still, and with much regret they took
leave of their kind hosts, were driven once again along
the new road, and took the train back to Delhi, whence
they started on their return journey. By this time
Ramsay had made up his mind to advise that Bangalore
should be the site for the Institute, and he felt that he
should get back to Bombay as quickly as possible to
go into details connected with the future organisation

256 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

and possibly to revisit Bangalore. The one stop they
made was at Baroda, where they stayed at the Gaekwar's
guest house, and next day Ramsay had a long interview
with him and his minister of education, but he had not
time to see the treasures, even of the town palace, or
anything of the city itself. Fortunately a second visit
to Bangalore was not required, so the remaining week
was spent in consultations with Mr. Tata and his advisers,
and with the University authorities, which furnished
Ramsay with ample material for his report. Looking
back on the time they spent in India, Ramsay used to
say it was like reading the index of a book, with no time
to read the book itself, and he wondered if he might
ever see it again without the constant need to " move
on." It was not to be, but the glowing memories and
the friendships formed and consolidated there coloured
all his after-life.

On the voyage home Ramsay wrote his report and also
a long letter to his friend Fitzgerald, who had so nearly
been his companion on the journey. In this he put
more briefly what he thought should be done. The
letter was returned unopened, having reached Dublin
after Fitzgerald had passed away. Portions of this
letter may be quoted here :

INDIA

"P. & 0. STEAM NAVIGATION Co.,

8.8. Cakdvnia, 19. n. 01.

Let me give you a brief sketch of what we saw and what
I have recommended. First we spent a week at Bombay ; then

NOTES ON TRAVEL 257

went to Poona, Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, Patna, Benares,
Allahabad, Cawnpore, Roorkee, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi ; visited
Sir M. Young at his camp near the Indus, at Sidpur, back to
Delhi, then to Baroda, and finally back to Bombay. The site
I have fixed on is Bangalore. The climate is excellent, neither
too cold nor too warm. It is 4500 feet up, and there is a sort
of fresh feeling like that on the top of a hill. There is a geological
station there, an agricultural station, a college, such as exist in
India. More about them hereafter. They offer a splendid site,
300 acres in extent, in the best part of the town, which is very
open. They have £1200 a year to play with, a sum which has
fallen to the Mysore State as the result of a disputed legacy, and
which they wish to spend for the good of the state. The revenues
of Mysore show a huge surplus which can't be annexed by the
Maharaja, for he has a private allowance of £150,000 ; also the
Cauvery Falls, 40 miles from Bangalore, are being connected
with the Kolar goldfields, 45 miles in the other direction, and the
leads pass within 7 miles of Bangalore. They arc going to begin
with 4000 H.P., but measurements show that for 8 months of the
year 100,000 could be got. Lastly, there are endless deposits
of iron ore, manganese, magnesia, etc., near, all of which might
be exploited. So I have recommended Bangalore. . . . The
Committee have asked me to nominate the first members of staff
and I have suggested names.

They will have to get out a lot of young fellows of a technical
kind from home, as many as they can afford. . . .

The students will be selected by the heads of Colleges, at the
rate of about 15 a year. They must be men who show intelli-
gence and grit. More will be sent than can be permanently
kept ; they will all get three months' trial. These fellows will
almost all require 1 to 1 J- years chemical and physical work before
they are much good. There is hardly any laboratory work done
in India. . . .

Next these members of staff must each take up some question

258 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

of the development of some industry, and the utilisation of some
natural product ; each will associate with him some students as
assistants, and they will develop the processes as far as laboratory
work can do it. There is the £1200 a year to draw on for large-
scale experiments. I suggest that small works should be put up,
so as to get beyond the laboratory stage. And, lastly, the
Mysore government out of its surplus should provide half the
capital, on terms. . . .

There are really no industries in India ; any amount of raw
material, easily got and cheaply worked ; and there is no opening
for any young men scientifically trained, unless openings are
made. The colleges are wretched places as a rule, though here
and there exceptions must be made, and the whole system is
rigidly examinational like the L.U. They are reaping the fruits
of it in a number of cramming shops, miscalled colleges. . . .

I can't in a letter tell you all about our tour. It was the
most interesting experience from first to last that I have ever
had, and we met all the most interesting people from the Viceroy
to the coolie. I can speak enough Hindostan to get on ... and
really to understand the drift of the answers made.

Now adieu, and affectionate regards from both of us to both
of you. — Ever yours, W. RAMSAY."

FINLAND, 1907.

When Ramsay arrived in a foreign country the first
thing he did was to buy some books in its language in
order, as he would have expressed it, to rub it up. When
in Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize, the book that
interested him most was one called From Golden Locks
to Silver Hair, by a certain Andreas Eamsay of Finland.
It was partly an autobiography and partly a family
history, and dealt with the stories of many of the Swedish

NOTES ON TRAVEL 259

families which had migrated to Finland in the sixteenth
century. The name of the author interested him at
once and also the fact that so many of the Swedish
settlers in Finland bore other Scottish names. After
reading it Ramsay wrote to the author saying how
much he had enjoyed the book and asking him if he
were any relation of a certain Professor Wilhelm Ramsay,
who often had papers on chemical and geological sub-
jects in German scientific publications, and whose proofs
had sometimes been sent to Ramsay by mistake. Andreas
Ramsay replied at once saying, that Wilhelm was his
nephew, and asking many questions on his part as to
the Ramsay families in Scotland. From that time a
lively correspondence ensued. Ramsay had always
hoped to visit Finland, but it was not till 1907 that a
favourable opportunity occurred. That year, as he
could not get the house he wanted for the summer
holiday till September, and in the beginning of August
was tired out with a busy session, he thought that a
voyage to Finland and a week there would provide a
good change and a rest from correspondence. It was
quickly arranged, and he wrote to Mr. Ramsay saying
that he expected to be in Helsingfors in the middle of
August and hoped to call on the old man while there.
Ramsay and his wife started on the 10th going first to
Gothenburg and across Sweden by the Gothenburg
canal. That part of the journey interested Ramsay
very much. The enormous height to which the canal
had to be carried represented an engineering feat which

260 SIK WILLIAM RAMSAY

lie fully appreciated, while the pleasantness of the
canal voyage, part of the time spent in walking from
lock to lock, was exactly the kind of rest he needed.
On reaching Stockholm he was surprised to receive at
once a visitor on whose card was the name " Ramsay."
This proved to be a member of the Swedish branch of
the family commissioned by Andreas Ramsay to put
himself in touch with the shipping lines and keep him
informed of the London Ramsay's plans. A first-class
criminal could not have been more adequately dealt
with. Mr. Ramsay evidently forwarded all the infor-
mation he got by telegram or telephone, for on arriving
at Abo, the first port of call in Finland, whence they
were to travel by train to Helsingfors, there was standing
on the landing-stage a fine-looking old man who was
eagerly scanning the faces of the arriving travellers as
they descended the gangway. When Ramsay passed
down, he evidently recognised him at once, and without
a moment's hesitation the old man threw his arms round
him, and murmuring " Mon cher cousin," welcomed him
to Finnish soil.

From that time forward the plan of seeing something
of Finland resolved itself into seeing very little except
Helsingfors and its immediate surroundings, but a great
deal of the Finlanders, especially of the Ramsay family,
and learning something of the history and general
conditions of that sorely tried little country. Like most
of his countrymen Ramsay had always referred to
natives of Finland as Finns or Finnish, and the first

NOTES ON TRAVEL 261

thing he had to grasp was that there are Finlanders
and Finns, and that the two races are absolutely
distinct. The native race of Finns have a language
and a type, slightly Mongolian, of their own. The
Finlanders are of Swedish descent, and are largely
mixed with Scottish families who migrated to Sweden
in the time of Gustavus Adolphus. Intermarriage
between Finns and Finlanders is very rare. Doubt-
less when Sweden lost Finland in the early days of last
century, many patriotic Swedes returned to Sweden.
The Scots, however, cared more for their homes than
for the question whether Sweden or Russia were to be
their sovereign state. They therefore remained and
carried on the traditions of earlier times.

The morning of their arrival the Ramsay trio went
sight-seeing in Abo and stayed the night there, start-
ing early next morning for Helsingfors, where they
were allowed to go to the hotel. Their rooms had been
already engaged, but except to sleep and have early
breakfast, they were hardly ever in it. Mr. Auguste
Ramsay, a nephew of their original friend, prepared
a programme for the disposal of their time, and
nothing could have been more interesting. Helsingfors
lies in a deep bay with the island of Sweaborg in the
middle of it. Beyond it on the east and west are
scores of small wooded islands on which most of the
Helsingfors families have country houses, to which
they remove for the summer. Being August the
various Ramsays were in their summer quarters, and

262 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

the days were mostly filled up with visits to one or other
of these islands and making acquaintance of the various
branches of the family. Sweaborg, an island fortress,
is or was the headquarters of the Eussian army in
Finland, and more closely guarded from civilian intrusion
than our arsenals and naval dockyards. Any boat
going within about a quarter of a mile of the shores
was warned off by a gun, and had it persisted would
have been fired upon. The summer before there had
been a mutiny among the troops, and the numbers
being nearly equal warships had to be called in before
it was quelled. So near is it to Helsingfors that the
groans of the wounded and dying could be distinctly
heard, and the cannon balls that overshot their mark
lodged among the homes in the islands. " C'etait bien
desagreable, il m'a fallu me remuer chez mon fils," as
one old lady put the fact that her house had been
struck and her garden devastated by these shots, in
much the tone she would have used in speaking of a
specially heavy shower of rain. It was rather a poly-
glot existence. Ramsay knew enough Swedish for all
travelling necessities, but among their friends French,
German or English was spoken. The older people
all spoke French, but some of the middle-aged were
more familiar with German. The younger generation
were all learning English in preference to German, and
were delighted to have an occasion to speak it. A
year or so before their government had made Finnish a
compulsory language in schools, and as the list already

NOTES ON TKAVEL 263

included Swedish, French and either German or English,
the youth of Finland had their work cut out for them so
far as modern languages were concerned. The first day
at Helsingfors was spent with Baron and Baroness
Ramsay at 'their home, Monksnaes, about five miles
from the town. The baroness was English by birth,
though her life had been spent entirely in Russia and
Finland, and she greatly enjoyed talks in her native
tongue, though when her husband was present French
was always used. This visit was repeated several times,
and there the Ramsays met the children and grand-
children of their hosts, who were all equally kind and
ready to welcome their " cousins " from overseas.
Baron Ramsay, the head of the Ramsay family, was a
striking-looking man, an unmistakable soldier and a
figure in history. He was Commander-in-Chief of the
Finnish army till about three years before, when, with-
out a word of warning, orders came from Russia that the
entire army was to be disbanded at once. Some weeks
before this the rules had been called in on some slight-
pretext, so resistance, even if thought of, was impossible.
It was a heavy blow. The army and its efficiency had
been the chief aim of General Ramsay's life and he felt
it sorely, but with wonderful pluck and determination
he and the other officers set themselves to confront new
conditions, and, by establishing new industries and
developing old ones, to find employment for the soldiers
now thrown on their own resources. Russia's idea had
been that the soldiers would now join Russian regiments,

264 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

but the feeling against it was so strong that the idea had
to be abandoned, and instead of the soldiers being enrolled
in the armies of the Czar, a large indemnity, payable
over three years, had to be guaranteed. In 1907 two of
these annual payments had been made and the third
was nearly due. In the meantime, however, a change,
not only of government, but of the entire constitution,
had taken place, and there was a strong feeling that
the new parliament might repudiate the previous agree-
ment and refuse the third payment. In this case
Helsingfors would be bombarded by Sweaborg. The
Ramsays were in Finland in the latter part of August
and parliament was to meet early in September, but
though matters were so critical that a pretext had been
made to delay the opening of the schools till after the
debate on the question, nothing was made of the serious-
ness of the matter so that the visit should not be clouded
by the overhanging possible tragedy. In those days of
peace, the thought of the bombardment of the town
they were living in and the sight of the damage done the
previous year at the time of the Sweaborg mutiny,
seemed to the Ramsays like stepping into the midst
of " old, unhappy, far-ofi things " of bygone centuries.
Now, alas, such things are no longer strange and
wonderful !

Only one night was spent away from Helsingfors.
This was at Tammerfors, an industrial centre where
Mr. Walter Ramsay had his home. Andreas and some
of the younger members of the family and, for part of

NOTES ON TRAVEL 265

the way, the Deputy-Governor, were of the party.
The latter was the only Russian the Ramsays met
during their stay. Halfway the journey was broken
to see an intimate friend of the family, whose bad
health prevented him going to the capital to make the
acquaintance of the visitors. He was a large land-
owner and of great wealth. Ramsay said that the
preparations for their reception reminded him of the
old story of " Bring more curricles," for about seven
or eight carriages were in waiting at the station, so that
everyone should have a choice as to which kind of vehicle
he or she preferred. In going through the coach-houses
and stables later in the day the Ramsays saw that
these were only a very small proportion of the number
there. The house was large and roomy, but adjoining
it was a guest-house, with many bedrooms, where
visitors generally stayed so as to have no fear of dis-
turbing their invalid host if their hours and his did not
correspond. All these rooms were ready, but it was not
possible to prolong the visit beyond the late afternoon.
Their host had done a great deal in developing the
resources of the district and Ramsay saw there some-
thing of the difficulties and possibilities of food pro-
duction in these northern regions. It was night when
they reached Tammerfors, and to Ramsay's great
surprise he found that Swedish was now of no use, as
all the porters, cab-drivers, and most of the shopkeepers
spoke only Finnish. What he thought even more
remarkable was that Anders Ramsay did not know

266 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

even the coins and numerals, and the cab fares had to
be settled by holding out a handful of money and
leaving it to the cab-driver to choose.

By next morning Ramsay had learned enough Finnish
to tackle such questions and also to make a few pleasant
remarks, though the answers for the most part were
beyond him. The day in Tammerfors was spent in
visiting woodyards and paper-mills connected with the
great industries of Finland, and also the new church,
the latest thing in Scandinavian architecture and decora-
tion. In the afternoon the party, largely augmented
by more members of the connection, went a steamer
excursion on the lake. This was the only one of the
chain of inland lakes the Ramsays saw, and the trip had
to be a short one as they were to return to Helsingfors
that night.

The other days of the stay were spent in yachting
and visiting the homes on the islands. Mr. Auguste
Ramsay, who had planned everything, was kindness
itself, and the Ramsays spent much time with him and
his family. There they met Professor Wilhelm Ramsay,
whose name had been the medium of introduction
between the two branches. They also spent a day
with old Mrs. Ramsay, his mother, a woman of excep-
tional charm and with the remains of great beauty.
It was she who had found cannon balls striking her
house " really disagreeable." It was at her house that
the Ramsays met General Schaumann and his wife,
one of her daughters. He was a sad-faced man, much

NOTES ON TRAVEL 267

broken in health by many months in the prison of St
Peter and St Paul. He had been in command of troops
in an outlying part of Russia and was suddenly arrested
and thrown into prison with no reason assigned, and for
nearly a year knew nothing of the charge against him
or what was happening to his family. Many readers
will remember the assassination of the Russian governor
Bobrikoff in 1905. On his appointment Bobrikoff had
declared that if he were allowed a free hand he would
reduce Finland to subjection in two years. This was
granted and a time of unexampled harshness and
severity began. Then when some specially hard mea-
sure was about to be taken, a young civil servant, when
he brought in some papers to be signed brought also a
revolver and killed the tyrant and with the next shot
ended his own life. This was the brilliant and idolised
son of General Schaumann. At once all the intimate
friends of the boy, he was little more, fell under suspicion,
their houses were searched for incriminating documents,
and the father was arrested and imprisoned. The search,
however, revealed no trace of any complicity. Evidently
the boy had made up his mind, and without a word to
his most intimate friends, did the deed. His sacrifice
was not without avail. A milder governor was appointed,
and the country had a time of peace and gentler rule.
Young Schaumann was spoken of as " Ce jeune heros
qui a sauve le Finlande."

On the morning of the 25th August the Ramsays left
Helsingfors, seen off by seventeen of their name and

268 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

many others of the connection. Mrs. Ramsay, Anders
and the Baron and Baroness Ramsay they never saw
again, but many of the younger members of that
happy party came to England and found a welcome
at Chester Terrace during the next half dozen years.

They returned to Stockholm and thence went by
railway across Sweden, finishing their holiday with a
few days spent with Ramsay's friend, Professor Otto
Pettersen, at his country home near Barstrand. He
has a large experimental farm, and on an island opposite
the house is the Government laboratory of Marine
Biology, of which he is the head. It was a very happy
time, the family were nearly all at home, among them
the son Hans, who afterwards came to London to
University College, and whose work on the micro-balance
is now well known.

Many friends have said that Ramsay was a perfect
host, but he was an equally good guest. Whatever
the nationality or status of his hosts he at once identified
himself with their interests, and young people always
accepted him as one of themselves. It was so at
Halma. Neither he nor the young Pettersens ever
forgot those few days together. An excursion was
made inland to see the curious rock carvings attributed
to the bronze age, and farming problems were studied,
but the great interest was the laboratory on the island.
Its fascinations might have had serious results. Pro-
fessor Pettersen was going to Gothenberg that week
and it was arranged that the Ramsays and some of the

NOTES ON TKAVEL 269

young people should go with him on the official vessel,
breaking the journey at a little island on the way up
a fjord in the Cattegat that was the original home of
the Pettersen family. On the morning of departure
the two professors went over to the laboratory for an
hour, which was so much prolonged that the start,
which should have been about eleven, was not made
till the afternoon, and it was nightfall before the mouth
of the fjord was reached. It was now impossible to
take the little gunboat through the labyrinth of small
islands, so an anchorage had to be found and a boat
launched. There was still a row of more than a mile,
and with the darkness, a rising wind and sheets of rain,
it was rather an adventurous voyage. At first the
sailors steered by the chart, but after one or two narrow
escapes of running on the rocks, Hans Pettersen took
the helm and, as he evidently knew the currents and
channels blindfold, he brought the boat safely in at last,
and it was a much relieved and happy party that scram-
bled up the steep and slippery rocks to the hospitable
door of Cauliflower. Cauliflower, needless to say, was
not the right name of the island, but a phonetic rendering
that Professor Pettersen always used for his English
friends. This was the last night that Eamsay spent on
Swedish soil, as the steamer left Gothenberg for England
next day. It was not, however, the last time he saw
the Pettersens, as they came to England in 1911 and
stayed with the Eamsays on the Thames before the
meeting of the British Association at Portsmouth.

270 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

AMERICA IN 1912.

This last visit to America differed in many ways
from previous visits, and was perhaps the one Ramsay
enjoyed the most. All the previous journeys were made
at lightning speed, everything having to be done in a
very limited time.

As retiring President, Ramsay had arranged to attend
the triennial meeting of the International Chemical Con-
gress at New York in September of this year, and he
obtained leave of absence from University College for
a great part of the autumn term. He had, therefore,
nearly four months at his disposal, and determined to
spend the time in seeing parts of America that he had
never seen before. This was made the more easy by
the fact that he had been asked to be one of the lecturers
at the opening of the Rice Institute in Texas in October,
and to deliver a course of the Lowell Lectures in Boston
at the end of that month and the beginning of November.
These engagements all fitted in, giving intervals of
leisure, so that there was plenty of diversified interest
and yet no feeling of hurry, while the fees for the
lectures removed all difficulties in the way of a very
enjoyable holiday.

On the 9th of August the Ramsays started from Liver-
pool on the Tunisian. Previous voyages had been timed
to suit meetings of the British Association, 1884 and
1897, and the Society of Chemical Industry in 1904,
and on these occasions the ship had been full of colleagues

NOTES ON TRAVEL 271

and friends with the same interests, so that there was a
constant tendency to talk " shop," and that, however
interesting, was not relaxation. This time there was
no one on the boat of specially scientific tastes and very
few people they had known before.

There were, however, Lady Ramsay's old friend, Mrs.
John Tennant, and her husband, and Sir Henry Craik,
also an old friend, and his travelling companion, Canon
Perkin, of Westminster. The six had a table together
and made a little party by themselves. The very fact
that their interests were all so diverse made the time
pass most pleasantly, as well as more restfully than on
any previous voyage. The only incident of special
note was a stoppage in fog off the coast of New-
foundland. The Tunisian had made almost a record
run, but a wireless message reached it that icebergs were
ahead and had struck another ship, and as the fog was
very dense there was nothing for it but to wait till it
cleared. Two days passed — with no sound but the fog-
horn, and even the sea not visible from the upper deck,
so dense was the fog. The ship might have been
imbedded in cotton wool, and there seemed to be no
reason why the fog should ever lift. One of these days
was devoted to the usual sports, and a joker among the
young passengers put up a notice, " Athletic Sports will
be held every Thursday till further notice." However,
on the Friday morning there was a welcome sound of
revolving screws, and on the morning of the 19th the
party reached Montreal and went their several ways.

272 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

Thursday had been spent by the Ramsays in driving
about Quebec and the neighbourhood under the guid-
ance of a very loquacious driver, who was much more
interested in pointing out a window from which he had
seen Crippen look out the week before than anything
on the Plains of Abraham.

The first part of the time was to be spent with Dr.
and Mrs. Nichols at their country house on one of the
Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence. Dr. Nichols was
already a great friend of Ramsay's, and was to be
President of the Congress. On arriving at Montreal a
friend of Dr. Nichols met the steamer, rushed the Ram-
says and their baggage through the Custom House and
put them in the train for the next stage of the journey.
At the station to which they had, so to speak, been
consigned (Gananaque), they were met by Dr. Nichols,
Mrs. Nichols and other members of their family in one
of their yachts, which in an hour or two brought them
to " Nokomis."

Like the islands round Helsingfors, in Finland, each
of the Thousand Islands has one or more summer homes
built on it, and these vary from the palatial dwellings
of American or Canadian millionaires to tiny structures
built on slabs of naked rock, but all with boat-house,
boat or boats and landing-stage. The Nichols' invita-
tion had been worded " to stay at our little camp on
the St. Lawrence," but " camp " is a word of wide
interpretation. If being built of wood made it a camp,
then camp it was, but a very lovely picturesque house

NOTES ON TRAVEL 273

would be a more definite description. Its cream-
coloured walls, red roofs and turrets might have looked
over a smiling Surrey landscape, and it is sad to think
that lovely house is no more, for the following year it
was burnt down. Another house has been built, but
the old " Nokomis " is gone. The time spent there
was just the kind of holiday Ramsay loved to take in
Scotland, in a house by the sea (in this case it was on
the river), boating and bathing, with room enough for
a friend or two to share the pleasure. Only the scale
differed : in Scotland a small motor launch and a
rowing boat met his wants, but at " Nokomis " there
were two, if not three yachts of different sizes, several
launches and quite a fleet of smaller boats. The
pleasure, however, was the same. The island was a
large one, and had actually a riding track about a mile
long.

The bathing was most luxurious. The bathers came
from their rooms, crossed half-a-dozen yards of lawn
and stepped into the St. Lawrence, which, being wide
just there, had not a very strong current. There were
excursions to visit friends on other islands, one to
Kingston to see an old assistant of Ramsay's, a regatta,
mornings of tennis and afternoons of fishing, evenings
of games and talk, so the time went past all too quickly.

As some arrangements for the Congress were yet to
be made, the whole party decamped on the 30th to
New York, where they took up their abode at the
Belmont Hotel. Dr. Nichols' own home was in Brooklyn,

274 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

but for the purposes of the meeting he thought it
necessary to be in New York itself, and as he had invited
all the previous presidents who were attending the
meeting to be his guests, there was a large party. The
meeting was to have been opened by President Taft,
but unfortunately he had an accident or illness and his
doctors forbade him to travel to New York. With
truly American promptitude and resource, the arrange-
ments were changed, and reversing the Mahommedan
tradition, as Mr. Taft could not come to the Congress,
the mountain — that is to say the Congress — went to him.

All had to be settled very quickly, special trains
arranged for, and accommodation provided for the large
number of members, but it was done most successfully,
and the visitors had the pleasure of seeing Washington,
spending an afternoon at White House and a morning
at Mount Vernon, the home of General Washington,
before starting its business at New York.

The Congress had one experience which it would have
been glad to miss — a severe heat wave. The strangers
felt it a good deal, but the hosts even more, as their
work of organising was heavy and constant, and one of
the kindest and most active died a few weeks later of
typhoid, which he had caught during that time. Every-
thing was done to make the occasion pleasant and
memorable ; perhaps the day that stands out most
was an excursion by steamer up the Hudson, where
the English guests saw, with the greatest interest, places
long familiar by name, the Palisades, West Point,

NOTES ON TRAVEL 275

Albany, and the landing-place associated with the
tragic figure of Major Andre. The Congress ended on
the 13th, and large excursion parties started in various
directions.

The Ramsays' plans had been already made indepen-
dently. They were due at Houston, Texas, on the 10th
October, and had arranged to spend the intervening
time at the Ranche * in Montana, so on the 14th Septem-
ber they started for the West by Chicago, but not stopping
anywhere on the route. This was the second visit to
the Ranche. The elder of Lady Ramsay's brothers,
the first owner, was dead, and the younger one and his
wife and children, and the widow of the brother Patrick,
were now the ranche party. The house was much
enlarged, and the surrounding country greatly altered
by the construction of roads and the spread of cultiva-
tion. The use of motor cars also had changed con-
ditions, and the feeling of isolation was gone. In the
old days friends came generally with their bedding, so
that when the house was full they overflowed into tents
in the garden. Now they came by car, and could spend
a day and go back in the evening, and the old Wild
West rough and ready hospitality had been replaced
by the hospitality of civilisation. There were other
differences, however, that shed a new light on ranche
life. In 1897 they had been out in the height of summer
and for so short a time that holiday making was the rule,
and it was the picturesque side of ranche life they saw ;

1 See page 202.

276 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY

bright sunshine, cowboys dressed for the part, with
flowers in their buttonholes and riding well-groomed
horses.

In 1912 they saw the other side of the picture. Every-
thing was late and harvesting had to be hurried, and the
" boys " had to give up being picturesque and work
their hardest. Then on the third or fourth day a heavy
snowfall came, covering the entire country some inches
deep. Sheep then had to be rounded up on the moun-
tains and brought down into winter quarters, and last of
all came the excitement of a supposed outbreak of swine-
fever. The snow went as suddenly as it came, the
swine-fever was a false alarm, but these few days gave
an insight into the troubles of the simple life and the
difficulties that had to be faced by the pioneers. The
weather became lovely again, and Ramsay, whose love
for animals was always very strong, found a new interest
in the study of the colony of beavers which had been
the irrigation engineers of the valley for many years.
The Ranche lies among the foothills of the Rocky
Mountains, and close to it runs in winter and crawls in
summer a " creek," that is, a small river or large stream.
Quite near the house the beavers have built a dam which
has had the effect of widening out the creek into a small
lake just where the water can conveniently be brought
to the house and garden. The lake is covered with little
islands, probably formed originally by the remains of
earlier dams, silted up with mud and driftwood, and
now overgrown with cottonwood trees and undergrowths.

NOTES ON TRAVEL 277

In these islands the beavers have their homes and live
practically undisturbed. They have been such good
friends to the Ranche that, so long as they confine their
operations to the trees on their islands and do not
attack those in the garden, they are not interfered
with, and are consequently, if not tame, at least practi-
cally without fear. Ramsay used to lie for hours in
the late afternoon hidden among the bushes on the
bank, with his sketch-book and his devoted little com-
panion, his nephew George Buchanan, and watch the
beavers at their work. The melting snow had doubtless
injured the dam and they were specially busy. The
actual scene of operations was not visible, as it was
hidden by vegetation, but on the islands the beavers
could be heard breaking branches and soon would swim
out trailing large boughs, which they took to the builders
and returned against the current, empty handed, or
rather empty-mouthed, for more.

Before leaving Montana, he was asked to give a lecture
m Great Falls, the large town of the district and the seat
of a great copper industry. He never addressed a more
attentive or enthusiastic audience. The stay at the
Ranche was prolonged till about a week before the
opening of the Rice Institute at Houston, Texas. When
he had spoken about this part of his plan the usual
answer had been " I never heard of the Rice Institute.
Has it anything to do with the Rice murder ? " As
Ramsay had never heard of that, the conversation on
the subject dropped. Ramsay indeed knew very little

278 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

about what he was to expect from this part of his pro-
gramme. Early in the year he had been officially asked
to give three introductory lectures (to be accurate, to
deliver one and hand in the others), and one or two
others of his friends had been asked to do the same.
Owing, however, to his having left London early in
August, the full instructions had not reached him, and
all he knew was that he had to be at Houston on the
night of the 9th of October. Of Houston itself he knew
little. One lady, with whom he had talked of it in
London, had told him she had dined a few years before
in its best hotel and that the mirrors had been all
riddled with pistol shots after some gentle and joyous
pastime of the night before. This account promised
some excitement at least.

The origin of most of the American universities is
very different from that of the ancient foundations in
this country. They are very generally the outcome of
private benevolence, often retaining the name of the
founder, as at the universities of Harvard, at Cam-
bridge, Mass., and Johns Hopkins at Baltimore.

One story about the start of one of these universities
was told to Ramsay at Harvard. Some years ago the
then president of Harvard was called on by an old couple,
who asked if they might see over the university. They
explained that they were interested in all young men
for the sake of their only son, whom they had recently lost,
and they looked so simple, so shabby and so sad, that
the kindly President took them round himself. Their

NOTES ON TRAVEL 279

criticisms and questions were simple like themselves.
They did not take much interest in the intellectual work
of the students, nor care to know which were the old
buildings of the original foundation nor which college
in Cambridge (England) gave the model on which the
chapel had been built; they only now and then remarked,
" This must have cost a great deal of money. Say,
Sir, about how much ? " Even at the last, when leaving
the gates, their question was, " Just about how much
would you say it would take to build this here place ? "
The President made some answer, wondering that their
interest in education should only express itself in such
financial queries. A little later he wondered no more :
for the simple old couple who had called on him were
the founders of one of the great universities of the
Western States. The Rice Institute, which will doubt-
less one day be the Rice University, had a much more
melodramatic history.

Towards the end of last century a certain Mr. William
M. Rice, a citizen of Houston, announced to some of his
friends that he was making a will, and intended to leave
his fortune to found an Institute for the teaching of
science in his native town. These friends were to form
an advisory committee when the time came to take
action. Not long after that he died under suspicious
circumstances, and though the will was found, a newer
one was produced, setting it aside, and leaving all the
money to a lawyer who had done business for him.
When the circumstances of his death were investigated

280 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

it was found that the old man had been murdered and the
will probably forged. The legatee was arrested and
tried and found guilty, but such was the ingenuity of
the accused, that on small points of law the verdict
was set aside, and the case was tried, retried and tried
yet again, so that it was nearly twenty years before the
money was set free for starting the Institute. During
this time property in Texas had risen in value by leaps
and bounds, and in consequence of that and the accumu-
lated interest the trustees found a very much larger
sum at their disposal than the testator had ever dreamed
of. They had also ample time to think over the best
use to which to put the funds, and they decided not to
confine the teaching to science, but to make the pro-
gramme more general, looking forward to a time when
the Institute would become a university.

The first step the committee took was to appoint a
principal — Dr. Odell Lovett — and then an architect —
Dr. Ralph A. Cram, already well known in the first
rank of his profession. A site was then selected, covering
about five square miles of ground, about two miles from
the town. The Principal was then sent off to visit the
universities of Europe, Japan and America, to collect
ideas and to determine what would be best, allowing
for difference of climate and other circumstances. On
his return he and Dr. Cram prepared a general plan of
the whole, but provided that buildings should only be
put up as required. The costs were paid out of income
and not capital, surely a unique arrangement in matters

NOTES ON TRAVEL 281

of the kind. The Principal then started off again on
a tour to find a few members of staff to form a nucleus
of the teaching body, and by the time he returned it
became necessary to think of a formal opening. This
Dr. Lovett wished to make as impressive as possible,
and as Texas, in long vacation, is not very attractive to
Americans, who know the heat of the Southern States,
he felt something special must be done. In view of this
he invited twelve professors of world-wide fame to give
courses of introductory lectures, and trusted that their
presence would attract eminent men from every part
of the States in spite of distance and heat. The lecturers
who accepted the invitation were Professor Altamira y
Crevea, of Madrid ; Professor de Vries, of Amsterdam ;
Professor J. W. Mac-kail, late of Oxford ; Professor
Stormer, of Christiania ; Professor Emile Borel, of
Paris ; Senator Benedetto Croce, of Naples ; Professor
Sir Henry Jones, of Glasgow ; Privy Councillor Baron
Dairoku Kikuchi, of Tokio ; Professor Ostwald, of
Leipsic ; Professor Henry Poincare, of Paris ; Professor
Senator Vito Volterra, of Rome ; and Ramsay himself.
Professor Poincare died in the early summer. The death
of the Emperor of Japan prevented Professor Kikuchi
leaving at the appointed time, and one or two others
failed to appear, but those who were present had the
warmer reception. Warm it was in every sense of the
word.

All this, however, the Ramsays did not know till later,
and they left Montana without having received any

282 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

letters as to arrangements for the celebration. As a
matter of fact, the invitation proper and other directions
had been sent to London in such a superior box that it
was never opened, but put aside for their return. It
is " a far cry " from Great Falls to Houston and involves
a long cross-country journey, first southwards and then
through the length of Texas. It was not much out of
their way to stop at Denver and at Colorado Springs.
Wherever Ramsay and his wife went they found old
students, and at the latter place an old student invited
them to lunch to meet Dr. Woodrow Wilson, not yet
President, but on an election tour, and to hear him
address a meeting in the afternoon. Ramsay, however,
had arranged to spend the day in an excursion up
Pike's Peak, and to see the Garden of the Gods. So
he was obliged to decline the invitation. Had he fore-
seen the part which would be played by this man in
the great European struggle it is likely that the Peak
would have remained unvisited and the Garden of the
Gods unseen. As it was the day was very wonderfully
spent. Oddly enough the last signatures in the book of
visitors to the hut were those of one of the Chemical
Congress parties, which had made the longest tour and
been there only the day before. From the top the view
was magnificent. All about the nearer range were snow
and cloud effects never to be forgotten, and, far away
in the faint distance the peaks of the Sierra Nevada,
like mountains in a dream. This was destined to be the
nearest approach to the Pacific coast, which Ramsay

NOTES ON TRAVEL 283

had always hoped to see. After Colorado Springs came
the long and varied journey through Texas, beginning
with the ranche country among the foothills and passing
through wheat, cotton and sugar districts, till late in
the evening of the 9th October they reached Houston,
a large, flourishing industrial town, and the end of that
stage of their journey. Though letters from Houston
had not reached Ramsay, his communications had been
delivered, and at the station they were met by the
President, who drove with them to the house where they
were to stay, and introduced them to their graceful and
gracious hostess, the wife of Mr. James A. Baker,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the new Institute.
They were received in a large oak-panelled hall, hung
with family portraits and a few good pictures, so that
all idea of a shot-spotted mirror stage of civilisation
went into oblivion at once.

Their fellow-guest was Dr. Henry Van Dyke, " that
faithful, firm yet fervent minister and minstrel," l as he
has been lately described. The first day in Houston
was occupied with lectures, open to all, a Mayor's ban-
quet, a garden party in the " Campus," the grounds of
the college, and an evening reception of about fifteen
hundred guests at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Baker.
All the Trustees, all the Lecturers, and all the Delegates
were supposed to stand in a line with the host and hostess
and shake hands with the arriving guests. This is
usual in America on occasions of the kind, and seems

1 By the President of Magdalen, Oxford, in an address given in London
January 1918.

284 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

to give great pleasure to those who are received. At
the close of a long and strenuous day, however, " the
receiving line," as it was called, found it rather trying
and gradually melted away, but, entering into the spirit
of the thing, Ramsay kept his place to the last. Next
day there were more lectures, two in the morning and
two in the afternoon, one of the latter being Ramsay's.
After the lectures came a garden party, dinner, a cham-
ber concert and a supper party, given specially to the
inaugural lecturers. The last began about eleven, and
the speeches which followed it lasted till dawn. They
were all good and interesting, and no one noticed how
the time had flown. The third day was appointed for
the real inauguration. Ramsay had been present at
several of the gatherings in this country to commemorate
centuries of university history, but none were more
impressive than this, looking forward to a great future.
As yet there was no large hall, so the ceremony took
place in the open air, in the shadow of the finest part of
the buildings. The wide extent of the Campus, typical
of the spacious years to come, the beauty of the buildings
against the background of the tropical vegetation and
the cloudless southern sky, the simplicity of the pro-
ceedings and the earnestness of all who took part in
them, made it different from anything ever experienced
before. There was first a short religious service, in
which ministers of all denominations took part. Then
Dr. Van Dyke read his beautiful ode on Texas, " The
State of the Lone Star," then one of the oldest settlers

NOTES ON TRAVEL 285

told his memories of the early days, and the meeting
closed with the benediction. It was necessarily a short
ceremony, for the shade of the buildings receding as the
sun rose higher, the heat would soon have been unbear-
able ; but it was indeed a great experience.

There was still on the hospitable programme an
excursion to Galveston, the scene of the great tidal-
wave disaster ten years before, with " a shore supper."
Interesting, however, as that excursion might have been,
the Ramsays were now due at Baltimore, and that night
they started northwards, breaking the journey at New
Orleans for a few hours.

At Baltimore they stayed with Ramsay's old friend,
Dr. Ira Remson, the Principal of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, and Ramsay was at once surrounded by old
students, old assistants and colleagues, and friends.
They again missed meeting Dr. Woodrow Wilson, though
they met Mrs. Wilson and her daughter. The univer-
sity conferred on Ramsay the degree of Doctor of Science,
and a more informal ceremony of the kind surely never
took place. A special University Court had been sum-
moned, but, being vacation time, many of the members
were away, and the audience consisted mostly of old
friends and a certain number of new ones. Everything
was quite formal and academic till the capping was
over, but then the speeches of the Principal and of the
new alumnus were so full of old stories of their young
days at the German university, when Remson " opened
the door " for Ramsay into the world of chemistry, that

286 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

the audience was often convulsed with laughter. The
friends spent one day at Annapolis, and Ramsay was
so fascinated with it that he often said it was the place
of all he had ever seen in which he would best like to
have ended his life. By this time it was drawing near
the date of his first Lowell Lecture, so with many regrets
the Ramsays bade farewell to the Remsons and their
other Baltimore friends, and started for Boston, where
they took up their abode at the Somerset Hotel, and
settled down for the next three weeks. Perhaps
" settling down " is hardly the word to use, for two
nights a week were spent by Ramsay in the train between
Boston and New York, as he had been asked to give
a short course of lectures in Brooklyn, and he could only
do it by fitting them in between his Monday and Thurs-
day Lowell Lectures in Boston. He was a good traveller
and felt it no hardship, though he would have liked a
little more time for Boston social life.

Ramsay's friendship with President Lowell, Professor
Lowell, the astronomer, and Professor Theodore Richards,
besides several other members of the Harvard staff
whose acquaintance he had made at the 250th anniver-
sary of the founding of the Royal Society, the summer
before, acted as an " open sesame " to that most exclusive
of circles, the intellectual world of Boston. Literary
as well as scientific doors were thrown open to the
Ramsays, and they saw a new and very different side
of American life. In a country where change and
progress are so much in evidence, Boston, where the old

NOTES ON TEAVEL 287

families still" live in the homes made famous by their
ancestors, and keep up the tradition of simple and
gracious hospitality without suggestion of rush or
effort, has a special old-world charm of its own. Long-
fellow's house, where they spent an afternoon with a
daughter of the poet, is left as it stood a great part
of last century, with its " old clock on the stair " still
ticking its " never for ever " as it did in his time. In
every direction they were reminded of the great names
of Boston's past. Time was made to pay a two days'
farewell visit to Dr. and Mrs. Nichols in Brooklyn, and
for a run to Philadelphia, where Kamsay received the
Elliott Cresson Medal from the Franklin Society of
Pennsylvania, the oldest society of the kind in the
States. It was in returning from this visit that for the
first time the Ramsays saw the beauty of the true
American " fall," as the maples had just begun to change,
and their colour was indeed dazzling in the clear bright
air of the Indian summer then in its perfection. All
this was a bad preparation for the voyage, which, like
many return voyages, was dull and grey, not to be
wondered at in mid-November, however, but giving the
more time for " revolving many memories."

NOTE. — The proceedings at the inauguration of the
Rice Institute are recorded with full detail in The Book
of the Opening of the Rice Institute, the title-page of which
also adds the following words : " being an account in three
volumes of an academic festival held in celebration of

288 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

the formal opening of the Rice Institute, a university
of literal and technical learning, founded in the city of
Houston, Texas, by William Marsh Rice and dedicated
by him to the advancement of letters, science and art."

These volumes contain the lectures given on the
occasion by the eminent men who had been invited to
assist by their presence and contributions. Volume
three contains the lectures given by Ramsay, the titles
of which are as follows : (1) The Electron as an Ele-
ment, (2) Compounds of Electrons, (3) The Disruption
of the so-called Elements. These lectures develop in
greater detail the application of the ideas set forth in
addresses to the Chemical Society of London already
referred to (p. 181). They are purely speculative, but
they illustrate the readiness with which Ramsay could
turn from conventional views of chemical action, and
the boldness with which he could develop hypotheses
to fit the facts. It is true, as he says at the end of
lecture two, that " the electron is no mythical conception,
and that it enters into the constitution of matter is as
certain as that matter exists." It does not follow,
however, that there is much positive foundation for
hypotheses as to their motions and combinations, and
further study of the facts and phenomena connected
with chemical action is necessary before solid ground
is reached. Until the world settles down again to the
peaceful occupations of civilisation there is not much
prospect of advance in this direction.

CHAPTER X
THE END

A MAN'S character is not to be judged of solely from
Ms actions. We require to know something of his
thoughts, and especially of his opinions on fundamental
questions of ethics, morals and religion. Such thoughts,
however, are not commonly communicated to others,
except in cases where a long intimacy of friendship, or
the still closer familiarity subsisting between an affec-
tionate husband and wife, leads to some disclosure of
the inner self. We all know that attempts at such
disclosure are seldom really successful, even when willing
efforts are made on both sides. It is hard enough some-
times to know one's own mind and the sentiment by
which one's actions are governed. These considerations
must always clog the pen of the biographer, and no
attempt at delineation of character can be more than
partially successful. Perhaps the best test of such
success is to be found in a comparison of the most
prominent actions of the life with such record or in-
dications as may be found to exist of principles professed.
Fortunately in the present case so many letters have

T 289

290 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

been preserved by the family and friends that there is
abundance of evidence. William Ramsay came of a
family more than usually distinguished by the affec-
tionate regard of the numerous members of it for one
another, and the freedom from those divisions which
separate so many relatives^ often for years or even per-
manently, for no reason which to the outside observer
seems sufficient. An only child, his welfare anxiously
watched over by affectionate and deeply religious
parents, the influences which attended him in child-
hood doubtless retained appreciable hold on the general
direction of his thoughts on religious and moral questions.
There is reason to believe that very early in his man-
hood he began to consider these things, and though he
soon threw off the restraints of the narrow evangeli-
calism (Calvinism would be the more exact word) in
which he had been brought up, he continued all his life
to conform to and value religious observances. At
Tubingen he mentioned in his letters the services and
meetings arranged by his American fellow-students, and
he joined with them in these practices, beside attending
the services of the Lutheran Church. And years later
when he became Professor at Bristol and was living
there alone, letters of his at that time refer to his
attendance at the services in the Cathedral and to excur-
sions to country churches. But all this time it cannot be
doubted that the misgivings which had already begun
to operate in his mind had slowly crumbled away his
acceptance of many of the views and feelings under

THE END 291

the influence of which he had been brought up. We
have the evidence of his old friend, Mr. Otto Hehner,
in the sympathetic obituary communicated by him
to the Journal of the Society of Public Analysts, that
while still in the Andersonian College and not much
more than twenty years of age, the two young
men discussed philosophical questions, the one "in-
fluenced by inheritance from Covenanting ancestors,"
the other by that " from unorthodox and agnostic
surroundings."

Let not any reader suppose from this that Ramsay at
any time of his life drifted so far away from orthodoxy as
to join " with men who make a mock of holy things."
Such an attitude would be rare, even at the present day,
though there are still too many people who misunder-
stand and misrepresent the position of men of science,
forgetful of the fact that of all men they are the best
qualified and the most disposed to feel the awe of the
great mystery in which man's life, and the purpose of
all being, is immersed and enveloped. The Creed of
Science has been used as the title of a book. But such
a phrase is very difficult to interpret. It seems to
imply that science is stationary, whereas the character-
istic of all science is progress ; if there were any fixed
tenet which could be attributed to science or to scientific
men as a body, it would at once become associated with
authority, whereas science submits to no dicta and to
no dogma.

The position reached by Ramsay seems revealed in a

292 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

letter to Professor Worthington, dated Boat of Garten,
14th September, 1903. After remarks about the weather
and the doings of friends, he proceeds :

" This is Sunday and I am going to continue our conversation
of three weeks ago, and give you two quotations, one neutralising
the other, I think. The first is from W. H. Howells,1 and is
called ' The Bewildered Guest ' :

' I was not asked if I should like to come,
I have not seen my host since here I came,
Or had a word of welcome in his name :
Some say that we shall never see him ; some
That we shall see him elsewhere and then know
Why we were bid. How long I am to stay
I have not the least notion. None, they say,
Was ever told when he should come or go ;
But every now and then there bursts upon
The song and mirth a lamentable noise,
A sound of shrieks and sobs that strikes our joys
Dumb in our breasts ; and then some one is gone.
They say we meet him, none knows when or where ;
We know we shall not meet him here again.'

The second is in Paul Reiver, by Jerome K. Jerome, a book
which I strongly recommend, if you haven't read it already :
' " What do you believe," I asked, " father really, I mean ? "
The night had fallen. My father put his arm round me and
drew me to him, " That we are God's children, little brother,"
he answered, "that what He wills for us is best. It may be
life, it may be sleep ; it will be best. I cannot think that He
will let us die ; that were to think of Him as without purpose.
But His uses may not be our desires. We must trust Him.
' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' "

1 Is this not W. D. H., American novelist and poet ?

THE END 293

We walked awhile in silence before my father spoke again.

" ' Now abideth these three : faith, hope and charity ' — you
remember the verse — faith in God's goodness to us, hope that
our dreams may be fulfilled. But these concern but ourselves
— the greatest of all is charity."

" Be kind, that is all it means/' continued my father. " Often
we do what we think right and evil comes of it, and out of evil
comes good. We cannot understand — maybe the old laws we
have misread. But the new law that we love one another — all
creatures He has made — that is so clear. And if it be that we
are here together only for a little while, the future dark, how
much the greater need have we of one another ! "

I think there is little more to be said. Indeed, it is all the
Law and all the Prophets/'

That this found response in his own soul there can be
no doubt. He took the trouble to write it all out again
in a letter to Mr. Hehner about the same time.

" He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

This was the practical precept of his life.

How such a view harmonised with his own nature is
illustrated in many an act of charity and benevolence.
He never shut his ears to any tale deserving of pity.
But many people who have similar charitable impulses
draw the line at misfortunes which people bring on
themselves. It was not so with Kamsay. An em-
ploye of a society with which he was connected was

294 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

discovered to have falsified the books and to have mis-
appropriated moneys entrusted to him. After his defal-
cations were discovered Ramsay, fearing he might con-
template suicide, went to see him at his house, urged
him to make a clean breast of it, and afterwards did
everything in his power to win him back to ways of
honesty and give him a fresh start in life. Two other
cases of a similar kind may be mentioned. One was
that of a friend who met with misfortune in business,
took to drink, and gradually sank in the social scale.
He emigrated subsequently to America. Many people
would have been glad to be quit of a friend who might
have become very troublesome. That was not Ramsay's
way. When he visited America he sought him out and
did what was possible to relieve him. The other was a
case of matrimonial trouble. The husband was the
flagrant offender. He occupied a good position origin-
ally, which he forfeited in consequence of the irregular
habits into which he fell. Ramsay spared neither time nor
trouble in his efforts to reclaim him, and that at a time
when he was immersed in his researches and in university
business. Other cases are known to his friends, but
for obvious reasons details cannot be given in these
pages. But to omit notice of these facts would be to
do less than justice to this fine feature of Ramsay's
character. He was always on the side of the weaker
brethren and ready to take the trouble, from which so
many others shrink, to sustain by words of sympathy
and to give the practical help, without which words too

THE END 295

often seem to be a mere mockery of suffering. On this
subject his old friend Sir James Dobbie writes :

"He often spoke to me with great feeling of the miseries
inflicted on certain families known to us both by the irregularities
of certain of their members, but his sympathies seemed always
to be divided between the sinners and those sinned against. He
had a strong belief, as you know, in the transmission of ancestral
qualities by heredity, and it may be that his views on the subject
of personal responsibility were influenced thereby. But I am
inclined to think that his conduct in such cases was prompted
solely by his large-hearted human sympathy and was not
influenced, at least consciously, by any scientific theories."

The views about heredity here referred to are clearly
expressed in the early part and are again hinted at in
the concluding words of the autobiographical sketch
contributed to the volume already referred to, " Ver-
gangenes und Kiinftiges aus der Chemie." The follow-
ing is a translation of the last paragraph :

" In conclusion I should like to quote a passage from Robert
Boyle, which, however, I have slightly altered. ' To have been
the son of such parents as were my father and mother, to have
had such a helpmate as my wife, has brought me happiness
which I must acknowledge with the greatest thankfulness : my
birth and career agree so closely with my inclination and views
that if a choice had been permitted to me I could hardly have
wished to change the ordinance of God.' '

There is no need to enlarge further on this side of
Ramsay's private life. Whatever acts of benevolence
he did were performed quietly and unaffectedly and were
known to few even among his friends.

Another characteristic was his perennial cheerfulness

296 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

and readiness to take part in and contribute to the
gaiety of others. That he often displayed a lively
humour has been shown in some of the quotations from
letters already given. One more example may be
recalled. In 1897 the family had all taken to cycling
and Kamsay wanted to give a bicycle to his cousins.
Instead of sending it to them he sent it to his aunt
(Lady Kamsay) with the following note :

" 12 ARUNDEL GARDENS,
20ft Deer., 1897.

MY DEAR AUNT LOUISA,

You will receive a ' parcel/ it may be to-day it
may be to-morrow, which you will not think pretty, and which,
you will not find useful. You mustn't give it away ; that would
be to slight the giver, but you may lend it freely. One of its
advantages is that though there isn't much of it, the little there
is will go a long way. You can blow her up when she displeases
you. She is always tired and yet never unwilling to go. Though
she is entirely without grit, she has a good deal ot backbone ;
though unmarried, still she has two hubs. I hope you may never
have to put a spoke in her wheel. Etc., etc."

In a similar spirit he took the trouble to write a whole
letter in rhyme to the daughter of a friend, Dr. W. E.
Adeney, who had apparently given him a hint that he
ought to shave.

His knowledge of languages and familiarity with so
many tongues led him into frequent little jokes with
his friends. At one time he addresses postcards in
Latin to Professor Smithells in mock grandiloquence,
" Tibi gratias, o vir eruditissime, propter tuam epis-

THE END 297

tolam, etc." At another time lie writes to his cousin
in a language which we may suppose to be Esperanto (?) :

" Mi CAR DORA, — lo hab recip vestr litr, ke era mult facil a com-
prendar, etc."

And among letters to his Cousin Ella are many in
which this frolicsome spirit is a feature. One begins
thus :

" Mein theurestes Kind ? Wie geht's dir ? Combien te porte-
tu, ma chere ? Come sta, ma carissima ? How are you, my dear
child ? and you may imagine yourself chucked under the chin if
you have strength of imagination for it "

And so on.

After he was grown to man's estate Eamsay did not
change much physically. An athletic frame capable of
great exertion in walking, rowing or swimming, as
already mentioned in earlier pages, was associated with
a quick step, alert manner and usually cheerful spirits.
With fine expressive eyes, he had the habit of elevating
one eyebrow or the other, which often preceded some
quizzical remark or even some momentous pronounce-
ment. His amusements were of a simple character,
such as tennis or boating. He was never interested in
what is called sport, and never carried a gun. His
fondness for music and his accomplishments in that
direction have already been sufficiently mentioned. In
early life his interests were confined chiefly to his chemical
work and to the happenings in the university and social
circles in which he moved. He troubled himself little
about politics in those days and never meddled to any

298 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY

serious extent, as so many of the younger men did, with
questions of reform which were then troubling the
Scottish universities. Later in life his interests widened
and he occupied himself, as already related, with many
questions, especially such as related to education. His
taste in books was always a catholic one. Scott was a
great favourite, and during his last illness he had many
of the Waverley Novels read to him over again.

His taste for languages led him to interest himself in
his later years in an attempt to devise a new universal
language, written but unspoken, utilising the funda-
mental idea of hieroglyphics, a sort of modern Chinese.
A rough figure represented a man, an arrow indicated
the man's intention to do something indicated by
another figure, the direction of the arrow was used to
suggest the future or the past tense of the action. Such
a symbolism was expected to convey ideas to the stranger,
which he would express in his own language, be it
English, French or Arabic. A friend writes a propos :
" One night I found him studying Chinese and Egyptian
grammar ! He said Egyptian was very easy, but he
confessed that Chinese was rather stiff. He was making
preliminary studies for his philosophical universal lan-
guage in this way."

The absorbing interest of his life was scientific research.
With what ardour, interest, patience and skill he followed
the path of discovery has been sufficiently shown in
what has gone before. This led quite naturally to an
acquaintance with a very large number of men of science,

THE END 299

and the number of these was so much the greater because
he could use the language of everyone. This led to his
being invited to lecture on his work many times in Paris
and several times in Berlin, so that the circle of ac-
quaintance continually widened, and many cases of mere
acquaintance ripened into friendship. Hence he had a
large correspondence with friends in other countries, in
addition to the constant exchange of letters with his
relatives and several friends, with whom he had kept up
unbroken communication from the time of his youth.
And he was a delightful friend, always cheerful, inspiring,
enthusiastic, full of ideas, and ready to give information
or discuss any difficulty. A very rapid worker in experi-
ment, and possessed of a remarkable skill in working
glass and fitting together glass apparatus.

Naturally many honours fell to his lot. Of these
perhaps the most notable was the Nobel Prize, not merely
on account of its considerable pecuniary value (nearly
£8000), but by reason of the deliberation and formality
which precedes the award. In 1896 he was made Officier
de la Legion d'Honneur ; a K.C.B. in 1902 ; a Commander
of the Order of the Crown of Italy ; Knight of the Prus-
sian Order " Pour le Merite " ; and received honorary
degrees or honorary membership from a large number
of universities and academies. A complete list of these
distinctions is given at the end.

Notwithstanding the strenuousness of his life and the
immense labour given to his teaching and research,
Ramsay retained generally good health and showed

300 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY

little sign of exhaustion of bodily or mental powers
down almost to the last six months. Work had been
going on as usual at college down to the time of his
retirement from the Chair of Chemistry. On the
10th December, 1910, however, he wrote to Professor
Smithells :

"I have been hovering between life and lumbago for some
weeks, and yesterday I was in bed trying to get some ease. . . .
In fact, unless I call a halt for a bit I shan't need to call one at
all, for I am awfully played out. ... I have no doubt that a
decent rest will pull me up, and I am going to try during the
holidays to do nothing for a bit, but I have the B.A. address on
me and half a dozen other things more or less pressing. One is
the liberation of the radium lent by the Austrian government,
or its return to Vienna on demand. That in itself means a
fortnight's hard work."

That Ramsay's life was on the whole a very happy
one there is abundant evidence. The letters quoted
show it, and his own definite avowals at the end of the
autobiography (quoted p. 295) and in letters to friends
during his last days prove that he thankfully acknow-
ledged the happiness which life had afforded him. In
writing to a friend (February 1908), this is how he
expressed himself:

" Yes, it is thirty years since you and I first smelt the Liffey.
Life has been pretty good to us — perhaps I should say * God/
I feel inclined to. You have had a terrible trial which I have
been spared ; but you have got a good son and daughter, and
that is much to rejoice at. So have I. Just think what it
would be if it were different. I can't think of anything more
heart-breaking."

THE END 301

He had been engaged from early youth onward in
pursuits of his own choosing, and at every step he
enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that in these pur-
suits he was achieving something, that he was, in fact,
on the path of discovery. It is only those who have
joined in serious attempts to solve the problems pre-
sented by nature, or what is called " scientific research,"
who can understand the exultation which fills the heart
at the moment of success. Honours or rewards which
may follow are not thought of. And the triumph
belongs not only to the " watcher of the skies," but is
shared by the humblest discoverer of things on the earth.

Testimony to this feeling is not wanting in the utter-
ances of men of science. In the Memorial Lecture
given by Ramsay himself to the Chemical Society in
1912, after the death of his friend Moissan, he quoted
the following words from the preface by Moissan to his
book on the Electric Furnace :

" But what I cannot convey in the following pages is the keen
pleasure which I have experienced in the pursuit of these dis-
coveries. To plough a new furrow ; to have full scope to follow
my own inclination ; to see on all sides new subjects of study
bursting upon me, that awakens a true joy which only those can
experience who have themselves tasted the delights of research."

Ramsay was ever filled with that divine curiosity
which in spite of obstacles impels the discoverer forward.
None of the common impediments stood in his way ;
there was neither poverty, nor ill-health, nor discourage-
ment from friends, nor family cares. He was in due time

302 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

happily married and the comradeship which subsisted
between the husband and wife is illustrated throughout
by the letters, some of which have been quoted, showing
that she was always the first to hear news from the
laboratory, as well as to be consulted on all the concerns
of their family life. His pride and happiness in the
doings of his two children when young is also shown in
many letters. Ramsay was spared to practise Vart d'etre
grand-pere, for his daughter married happily in 1906 and
grandchildren came to enrich the family circle. It was
a great pleasure to him that during what may be called
the last happy summer of his life, that of 1913, before
the war cloud gathered, he had the children with him,
and introduced them to the delights of a holiday in the
Highlands. His old and ever kind friend, Sir Andrew
Noble, had lent him a lonely old castle on a rocky
promontory on Loch Fyne. It had till then been a
ruin and had only just been restored, and in this romantic
setting he was able to give his grandchildren their first
experiences of swimming and rowing and the manage-
ment of boats. It would be difficult to say which was
the happiest of the party.

That Ramsay had long ago gained experience in the
ways of children, and profited by it, is shown by the
following passage contained in a letter to Dr. George
M'Gowan so long ago as March, 1886, when his own son
and daughter were children :

" I think you will, if your experience is like mine, find a young
human being a very uninteresting person for a year and a half.

THE END 303

But after that one begins to feel the responsibility of a father
and the interest grows. We have got to the story stage now
and the constant and never-ceasing demand is, " Tell me what
you did when you were a little boy." And no amount of anecdote
satisfies that craving, so I sometimes desert the sure path of
truth and wander in the romantic groves of fiction. But it is
a dangerous process, for the verbal memory of youth is wonderful
and if one tells the story with the slightest variation the youthful
mind refuses to accept the innovation and insists on the same
facts being told in the same words ; and when these same facts
are fiction it is a little difficult to do so."

He and his wife had long established a reputation
for hospitality, and when he retired from the Chair at
University College they hoped to gather friends about
them in the pleasant country home at Hazlemere in Bucks,
to which they had so recently removed. This, however,
was not to be, but even in the misfortune which over-
took him and ended his life in months of physical misery,
the survivors may try to extract consolation from the
thought that he was spared the years of " slow con-
suming age," the weary watching of declining powers
which are the lot of many for whom the " fell sergeant "
is less swift in his arrest.

Dr. Johnson, who had ready-made views on every
subject, is said to have maintained that, in writing a
Life and not merely a Panegyric, an intimate friend
should endeavour to represent it as it really was and
should mention faults. In the present case it is not
easy to comply with this precept, not because the
subject of the memoir had no faults, for to say so

304 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

would be to proclaim him more than man, a character
to which he would have been the last to lay claim. But
this may be asserted with the utmost security that such
faults as he had are hard to discover, and whether they
concerned his scientific work, his public life or his private
conduct, they were not such as to attract the open
censure of his contemporaries. Some twenty years ago
an anonymous attack on him was unfortunately admitted
into the pages of the Chemical News. Its authorship
and origin were easily recognisable, but Ramsay paid
no attention to it. His friends were satisfied that there
was no justification for the allegations and expressions
thus brought forward and which could only be regarded
as discreditable to the writer. The immense circle
of his intimate friends and correspondents is sufficient
evidence of the virtue that was in him. Here is a
portion of a letter from a scientific man who had known
him from the old days in Glasgow University :

" He was then as always a delightful companion, full of gaiety
and kindness. It was wonderful to see how absolutely unspoiled
as a friend he remained amid the shower of honours that came
upon him. He was never with people too important to give
him time to welcome in his radiant way an old acquaintance.
Memories flow in upon me, for I saw him in many vicissitudes
and many were the happy hours I spent with him."

That his actions on one or two occasions exposed him
to criticism is no doubt true, but such imprudences are
attributable wholly to the exercise of that abundant
good-nature which was a characteristic. He sometimes
allowed himself to be approached too readily by the

THE END 305

professional interviewer, forgetting how easy it is for
the newspaper man eager for " copy " to exaggerate
and distort words uttered in conversation as freely as
if spoken to a friend. He was always optimistic in his
view of what was possible in the application of science
to practice, as, for example, in his proposal to submit
coal to distillation in situ. And he was sometimes too
eager to get things done and was impatient of the
cautious and apparently dilatory attitude of the majority
of men of business. This led him on more than one
occasion to embark on schemes into which he did not
hesitate to fling money of his own, but which were in
some cases predestined to disappointment.

Notwithstanding the extraordinary fame of his long
series of brilliant discoveries, Ramsay never showed
that the height to which he had risen in the eyes of the
world lifted him beyond the range of old friendships.
Although he left Glasgow in 1880, he kept in close touch
all through life with many of the friends of his youth
there and was never happier than when in their company,
recalling memories of the trials, humours and triumphs
of the old days when he was assistant to Professor
Ferguson. To his students he was the same sympathetic
and kindly teacher at the end as at the beginning of his
career, while to his contemporaries he was always
friendly and courteous. His spirit and his enthusiasm
for scientific research have left their deep impress on
students young and old, and through them will pass on
to future generations.

306 SIK WILLIAM RAMSAY

We look back over the centuries and among the
founders and master builders of their science we see
the outstanding figures of Boyle and Black, Lavoisier,
Priestley and Scheele, Cavendish, Davy, and Berzelius,
with a few more. The stream of time bears along to
oblivion the vast majority of the sons of men, and though
in this age of scientific activity there is an ever-increasing
army of workers, most of them are engaged in supplying
merely the bricks of which the edifice of scientific know-
ledge is built. They have their reward in their own day
and generation. The name of William Ramsay will
always stand among those of the Master Builders.

HE hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and what
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

ADDENDUM
LIST OF SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY'S HONOURS

Degree of PhD. Tubingen 1872
German Chemical Society

Member 1872

Chem. Soc. London Fellow 1873

Phil. Soc. Glasgow Member 1875

Royal Soc. London Fellow 1888
Membre Hon. Soc. de Phys.

et de 1'Hist. Nat. Geneve 1894
Barnard Medal, Columbia,

U.S.A. 1895
Prix Leconte, Inst. de

France 1895
Membre Cor. de 1'Inst. 1895
Hodgkin's Prize, Smithson-
ian Inst. 1895
Davy Medal, Royal Society 1895
Officier L6gion d'Honneur 1895
Royal Irish Acad. Hon.

Mem. 1896
Bohemian Acad. of Science

Hon. Mem. 1896
K. Akad. d. Wissen. Berlin

Cor. Mem. 1896

Turin Acad. Cor. Mem. 1897

D.Sc. Dublin 1897

LL.D. Glasgow 1897

Swedish Acad. For. Mem. 1897

Pharmac. Soc. Hon. Mem. 1898

Phys. Verein. Frankfurt 1898
Batavian Soc. of Science,

Rotterdam 1899

German Chem. Soc. Hon.

Mem. 1899

Soc. Romana de Stiinte

Hon. Mem. 1899

Manchester Lit. and Phil.

Soc. Hon. Mem. 1899

Phil. Soc. Philadelphia

Mem. 1899

Ph.D. Cracow 1900

Istituto Veneto Cor. Mem. 1901
New York Acad. of Sciences

For. Mem. 1901

Amer. Chem. Soc. Hon.

Mem. 1901

Danish Acad. Hon. Mem. 1901
Imp. Acad. Sci. Petrograd

Hon. Mem. 1901

Soc. Helve* tique des Sciences 1 902
K.C.B. 1902

Hofmann Medal 1903

Erlangen Med. Soc. Hon.

Mem. 1903

Bunsen Gesellschaft Hon.

Mem. 1904

M.D. Heidelberg 1904

307

308

ADDENDUM

Hungarian Acad. Cor. Mem. 1 904

American Acad. For. Assoc. 1 904

D.Sc. Columbia Univ. New
York 1904

Sc.D. Cambridge 1904

American Academy Cor.
Mem. 1904

Brooklyn Inst. Hon. Mem. 1904

Nobel Prize 1904

Grosse Goldene Medaille,
Wilhelm II. 1904

Royal Society, Edinburgh,
Hon. Fellow 1905

Royal Med. and Chir. Soc.
Hon. Fellow 1905

Anthropological Soc. of
Moscow Hon. Mem. 1905

Grand Prix, St. Louis Ex-
hibition 1905

Athenaeum Club (elected
under Rule II.) 1905

Acad. Sci. Bononiensis
Member 1905

Soc. Sci. Sao Paulo, Brazil,
Cor. Mem. 1905

R. Acad. dei Ciencias,
Madrid, Cor. Mem. 1906

R. Accad. dei Lincei For.
Mem. 1907

Videnskabs Selskabet
Christiania For. Mem. 1907

Commendatore della Co-
rona d'ltalia 1907

D.Sc. Oxford 1907

D.Sc. Liverpool 1907

Gold Medal, Italian Soc. of
Science 1907

Societa Italiana (detta dei
XL) For. Mem. 1908

R. Acad. of the Nether-
lands For. Mem. 1908

M.D. Jena 1908

Soc. Espanola de Phys. y

Quimica Hon. Mem. 1909
Soc. Engin. and Architect.

Vienna For. Mem. 1909

Soc. Chimique de France

For. Mem. 1909

Asiatic Soc. of Bombay

Hon. Mem. 1909

Phil. Soc. of Rotterdam 1909
Incorp. Inst. of Hygiene

Hon. Fellow 1910

Assoc. Fran9aise Medal 1910
R. Cornwall Polytechnic

Soc. Hon. Mem. 1910

Institut de France Membre

Stranger 1910

Phil. Soc. Glasgow Hon.

Mem. 1910

LL.D. Birmingham 1910

LL.D. Sheffield 1910

1st. Ant. Alvarez, Mexico 1910
D.Sc. Bristol 1911

Sc. D. Christiania 1911

Order "Pour le Merite,"

Prussia 1911

D.Sc. Johns Hopkins, Bal-
timore 1912
Elliot Cresson Medal, Phil-
adelphia 1912
D.Sc. Durham 1913
Rumanian Acad. Hon. Mem. 1913
Imp. Acad. of Sci. St.

Petersburg Hon. Mem. 1913
Inst. of San. Engineers

Hon. Fellow 1915

Soc. of Engineers Hon.

Fellow 1915

Univ. of Odessa Hon. Mem. 1916

INDEX

Andrews, Professor Thomas, 68.
Argon, 134, 142.
Argon, Companions of, 146.
Arthur and Turnbull, 4.
Autobiography, 2, 4, 28, 38, 49, 295.

Baker, C. F., 106.

Baker, W. Proctor, 67.

Baly, Professor E. C. C., 110.

Beddoe, Dr. John, 85.

Belmont, 18.

Birkbeck Laboratory, 105.

Bischoff, Professor Gustav, 42.

Blaikie, Dr. Adrian, 71.

Bonhill, 16.

Brauner, Professor B., 72.

British Association at Glasgow, 62 ; at
Dublin, 64 ; at Montreal, 90 ; at
Leeds, 115; at Toronto, 145;
at Portsmouth, 186.

Brown, T. E., 85.

Brunton, T. L. (Sir Lauder), 14, 168.

Buchanan, Allan, 8.

Buchanan, George, 8.

Buchanan, William, 8.

Burnet, George Wardlaw, 26.

Carnelley, Professor, 72.

Chemical Society, Annual Meeting

(1895), 137.

Chemistry Chair at Bristol, 68.
Collie, Professor J. W., 105.
" Comical " John, 52.
Cranbrook, Deputation to Lord, 98.
Crurn, Walter, 5.
Crombie, Elizabeth, 5.
Cundall, James Tudor, 84, 113.

Dale, Rev. Dr., 96.

Dobbie, Professor (Sir James J.), 45 ;

notes, 46.
Dymock, Mrs. Robert, 18.

Evans, Franklin P., 84.

Fanshaw, Professor Reginald, 85.
Ferguson, Professor John, 45.
Fittig, Professor, 31.
Fitzgerald, Professor G. F., 219, 223,

256.

Fortey, Miss E. C., 80.
Fownes, Professor George, 103.
Fry, Albert, 67.
Fry, Lewis, M.P., 67.
Fyfe, H. B., notes, 19.

Garnett, Dr. W., 92.

Goodwin, W. L., 71.

Goschen, Deputation to Mr., 97.

Government Grant to Colleges, 98.

Graham, Professor Charles, 104.

Graham, Professor Thomas, 6, 102.

Gray, Dr. Whytlaw, 160.

Hehner, Otto, obituary by, 42.
Helium, 136, 142, 158.
HeUand, Dr. Amund, 55, 61.
Hicks, Professor W. M., 90, 92.
Hofif, Professor Van't, 115.

Irwin, Sidney, 85.

Jameson, Miss Duncan, 17.
Jolly, Archibald, 13, 15.
Jolly, Dr., 7.

Jones, Professor J. Viriamu, 90.
Jowatt, Professor, 51, 67, 93.

Kellas, Alexander, 107.
Kilcreggan, 18.
King, David, 32.
Kommerell, Professor, 32.
Krypton, 145.

Laboratory instruction, Methods of,
108.

309

310

INDEX

Letts, Professor E. A., 67.
Lloyd Morgan, Professor, notes, 87.
Lubbock, Sir John (Lord Avebury ), 97.
Lunge, Dr. G., 113.

Macara, Rev. Dr., 14.
MacEwen, Professor, Rev., 26.
M'Kendrick, Professor, 46.
MacNicol, Mrs., notes, 10.
Mac Vicar, Miss F., notes, 10.
Marshall, Professor Alfred, 69 ; letter,

70.

Martineau, Sir Thomas, 96.
Masson, David Orme, 71.
Mendeleeff, Professor, 89.
Miers, H. A. (Sir Henry), 135.
Mills, Dr. E. J., 49.
Morgan, Lloyd, Professor, notes, 87.
Moissan, Professor, 301.
Moore, Professor Richard B., 160.
Muir, M. M. P., notes, 11.

Napier, Robert, 6.

Neon, 145.

Niton or radium emanation, 161.

Olszewski, Professor C., 134.
Ostwald's ed. of Ramsay's Essays, 2.

Peace, Dr. A. L., 11, 21.

Percival, Rev. Dr. (Bishop of Here-

ford), 67.

Picton, H. W., 106.
Plimpton, Dr. Richard T., 106.
Purdie-Dickson family, 13.

Radium, 158.
Radium Corporation, 169.
Radium Institute, 169.
Ramsay, Sir Andrew, 3, 4, 6.
Ramsay, Eliza, 3, 6.
Ramsay, Ella, 30.
Ramsay, John, 3, 6, 20.
Ramsay, William, grandfather of Sir
William, 3, 4, 5.

William, father of Sir
William, 3, 6.
Ramsay, William (Sir William)—

Birth, 9.

At Glasgow Academy, 18.

At Glasgow University, 19.

In Tatlock's laboratory, 21, 28.

Assistant in Anderson's College, 22.

Visit to Paris and Havre, 22.

Professor at Bristol, 23, 64.

At school, 19.

Character at school, 24.

Physical characteristics, 25.

In Shetland, 30.

In Heidelberg, 31.

In Tubingen, 31.

On learning German, 33.

On billiards, 34.

Examination at Tubingen, 36.

Dissertation for Ph.D., 37.

Journey to Switzerland with uncle,
Sir Andrew, 43.

Abstractor for J. Chem. Soc., 44.

First paper, 45.

Interest in languages, 55, 59.

At the British Association, 62, 64.

At the French Association (1877),
62, 173, 188.

Principal of University College,
Bristol, 70.

Paper on Smell, 86.

Paper on Brownian motion, 87, 118.

Meeting with Mendeleeff, 89.

At BritishAssociation in Montreal,90.

Letter from Oxford, 95.

Papers by Ramsay and Young, 99.

Elected F.R.S., 104.

On Molecular Weights of Metals,
112.

On Nitrogen Oxides, 113, 114.

On Universities, 119, 204, 206.

Letter about nitrogen, 129.

Isolation of argon, 130.

Discovery of helium, 136.

Lectures in Paris, 139.

Journey to Iceland, 139.

Visit to Cauterets, 140.

Award of Davy Medal, 141.

President Chemical Section of
British Association (1897), 145.

Receives the Longstaff Medal, 148.

Nominated for Presidency of Chemi-
cal Society, 149.

Lectures in Berlin, 149.

Journey to Canada, 150.

Apparatus for isolating argon, 153.

Determination of density of niton,
161.

Radiothorium, 170.

Views on transmutation, 159, 163.

President Society of Chemical In-
dustry (1904), 172, 174.

President Chemical Society (1908,
1909), 172, 181, 183.

President International Congress of
Applied Chemistry (1909), 172,
184.

President British Association (1911),
172, 186.

At St. Louis Exhibition (1904), 172,
174, 176.

Lecture hi Vienna (1908), 173.

On the Sewage Commission, 173.

INDEX

311

Ramsay, William (Sir William)—

At the Association Helvetique, 173.

At the Association Fran9aise, 173,
188.

Receives the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry, 178.

Congress of Applied Chemistry, 184.

Journey to Rio de Janeiro (1909),
186.

Excursion to Algiers (1911), 186.

Retirement from University Pro-
fessorship (1912), 187.

Purchase of house at Hazlemere,
187.

Portraits, 187.

Presides over International Associa-
tion of Chemical Societies, 188.

On the Royal Society War Com-
mittee, 191.

Fatal illness, 191.

Last scientific communication to
Royal Society, 193.

Manchester Daily Despatch, Article
in, 194.

Education, views on, 194 ; earlier
views on, 200.

Examiner in University of London,
203.

On the functions of a university,
205.

Wedding trip (1881), 214.

Visit to Canada (1884), 218.

Visit to Toronto (1897), 145, 150.

Visit to Iceland (1895), 229, 235.

Visit to India (1900-01), 239.

Visit to Finland (1907), 258.

Visit to Professor 0. Pettersen, 268.

Visit to United States (1912), 270.

Lectures at Rice Institute, 283.

Visit to Baltimore, 285.

Visit to Philadelphia, 287.

Quotation from Autobiography,

295.

Rayleigh, Lord, on Densities of Gases,
125.

Difficulties with nitrogen, 127.

Isolation of argon, 128, 155.
Remsen, Professor, 31 ; notes on

Tubingen days, 38.
Reynolds, Colonel H. C., 84.
Richardson, Dr. Arthur, 77.
Rideal, Dr. Samuel, 106.
Robertson, Archibald, 3, 7.
Robertson, Catherine, 7.

Roscoe, Sir Henry, 72, 93.
Rowley, Professor James, 85.
Royal Society Special Meeting, 134.

Sewage Commission, 173.

Shaw, Professor H. S. Hele, 84.

Shenstone, W. A., 85, 86.

Smith, Mrs. John Baird, 17.

Smith, Watson, 105.

Smithells, Professor Arthur, 45 ;

notes, 117.

Sollas, Professor W. J., 84.
Steele and Grant balance, 162.
Stoney, Dr. Johnstone, 147.
Struthers, John, 26.

Teaching University for London, 119.
Tilden, Professor W. A., 92, 96, 97.
Thompson, Professor Silvanus P., 84.
Thomson, Professor Allen, 29.
Thomson, Professor James, 74.
Thomson, Thomas, 5.
Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin), 7,

29, 124.

Thorpe, Professor (Sir T. E.), 80.
Thorianite, 170.
Travers, Dr. Morris, 107.
Turnbull, 4, 16.
Turnbull, William, notes, 16.
Turner, Professor Edward, 102.

University College, London, Pro-
fessors of Chemistry, 102.
University Colleges, rise of, 66.
University of London, 119.
Urquhart, Robert Dowie, notes, 12.

Waage, Professor Peter, 49.

Wace, Rev. Dr., 92, 93.

Wait, W. Killigrew, 67.

Walker, Dr. James, 107.

Watson, H. E., 160.

Williams, Miss K. I., 84.

Williamson, Professor Alexander, 103.

Wollaston, G. H., 85.

Worthington, Professor A. M., 85, 111.

Xenon, 146.

Young, James, 41.
Young, Professor John, 29.
Young, Professor Sydney, 71, 84;
notes, 72.

GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO, LTD.

GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY