Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/565

 has recently been published in Germany. Wöhler had found in a mineral what appeared to him to be the oxide of an unknown metal, and he sent a specimen of the strange substance to Berzelius with an interrogation-mark. The new substance proved to be oxide of vanadium, and the fact that Wöhler narrowly escaped discovering it led Berzelius to write the following letter, which we translate entire:

. . . . In reference to the specimen sent by you, designated with an interrogation-mark, I will relate the following story: In the remote regions of the north there dwells the goddess Vanadis, beautiful and lovely. One day there was a knock at her door. The goddess was weary, and thought she would wait to see if the knock would be repeated, but there was no repetition, and whoever it was went away. The goddess, curious to see who it could be to whom it appeared to be a matter of so much indifference whether he was admitted or not, ran to the window to look at the retreating figure. “Ah!” said she to herself, “it is that fellow Wöhler; he deserves his fate for the indifference he showed about coming in.” A short time afterward there was another knock at the door, but this time so persistent and energetic that the goddess went herself to open it. It was Sefström who appeared at the threshold, and thus it was that he discovered vanadium. Your specimen is, in fact, oxide of vanadium. But the chemist who has invented a way for the artificial production of an organic body can well afford to forego all claims to the discovery of a new metal, for it would be possible to discover ten unknown elements without the expenditure of so much genius as appertains to the masterly work which you, in association with Liebig, have accomplished and have just communicated to the scientific world.—

Notwithstanding the great advantages which his position offered in Berlin, and the favorable prospects open to him in the future, Wöhler was constrained, for domestic reasons, to resign his professorship in 1832, and to remove to Cassel, where his wife's family resided. For several years he held no official position, and occupied himself with the translation of the third edition of Berzelius's text-book of chemistry, and with the yearly reports. He spent some time with Liebig, at Giessen, where the two friends completed their important research on the oil of bitter almonds. The large supply of arsenical nickel which had accumulated as an incidental product at the prussian-blue factory in Cassel led Wöhler to invent a method by which the nickel could be economically separated, to be subsequently used in the manufacture of German silver. The process succeeded so well that extensive nickel-works were established, yielding many thousand pounds for exportation to Birmingham. He, at that time, proposed nickel as a suitable metal for coinage, but no attention was paid to the suggestion. While Wöhler was residing at Cassel, a Gewerbeschule, similar to the one in Berlin, was founded, and he was appointed to a position corresponding to the one he had held in Berlin, and was one of the three officials upon whom devolved the organization of the new institution. Afterward Professors Buff and Phillips were added to the corps of teachers.