Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/562

546 they ask him for the recital. Finally, in September, 1824, Wöhler took leave of Berzelius, and returned to the Continent. He stopped at Göttingen on his way to Frankfort, where he made the acquaintance of Hausmann, who subsequently became his much-valued friend and colleague. During a visit, which he immediately afterward made to Gmelin and Tiedemann, and in accordance with their advice, he decided to apply for the position of docent at the University of Heidelberg. While preparing to habilitate himself at the university, he enjoyed the intimate friendship of Dr. Buch and of the celebrated astronomer Summering, who was then much occupied with observations on the sun's spots, and with experiments on the concentration of alcohol through membranes. Wöhler undertook at this time the translation of Berzelius's “Jahresbericht,” which Christian Gmelin, of Tübingen, Berzelius's first German pupil, transferred to him, as he himself could no longer continue it. Wöhler was the more willing to undertake this translation, as the sale of the book promised to defray by degrees the expense of his Swedish journey. It was while thus engaged at the University of Heidelberg, in 1824, that Wöhler first made the acquaintance of his life-long friend Justus von Liebig. The meeting of these two men took place at Frankfort. By a singular coincidence they had been working in the same direction on cyanogen compounds, and there was a slight scientific misunderstanding between them; but all this was at once dissipated when they met for personal explanation, and the two young men formed a friendship which continued unbroken to the time of Liebig's death. Finding that their ideas ran in parallel directions, instead of opposing each other, they decided to work together, and for many years they kept up frequent correspondence, met regularly for consultation, and spent their vacations together among the mountains. Liebig's hospitable home in Giessen and Munich became the headquarters for Wöhler, Buff, Kopp, and others, and here were subsequently planned many of the scientific researches which have so greatly enriched our chemical literature. When Liebig and Wöhler first met, the former was not twenty-one years of age, and the latter was only twenty-four; and yet both had become renowned already for their important discoveries. It is no disparagement to Liebig to say that the acquaintance with Wöhler was of inestimable value to him. The young man needed the quiet, thorough, and solid character of Wöhler to check his own too vivid imagination, and prevent him from jumping too hastily to conclusions. Liebig was quick and impulsive, Wöhler was slow and sure, and the two characters worked admirably together, the one supplementing the other. In after-years they were so much together that it would be difficult to say how far any investigation was absolutely original with either of them. They compared notes on all occasions, and it was especially Liebig who hesitated to publish until he had subjected his paper to the cool criticism of his friend. No envy and no jealousy