Another point of importance to you is this: That power shall

be given to the Court of the University, after considering the

report of the Executive Body upon the subject, to accept the

application of any other College for incorporation with the

University, provided always that the Court should be satisfied:

(1) that such College has established a reasonably complete

curriculum and possesses a reasonably sufficient teaching staff

in the Departments of Arts and Science at least; (2) that such

College has furnished proofs of its means and appliances for

teaching being established on a footing of permanent security;

(3) that such College is under the independent control of its

own Governing Body; and (4) that the admission shall receive

the sanction of the Lord President of the Council.

Again, power to be given to any such College to appeal for

final decision to the Lord President.

One other point. On incorporation the professors of such

College shall take a proportionate share in all the

examinations of the University as decided by the University

Court.

I hope that these proposals will be found to meet your views.

Meanwhile the Council of the Yorkshire College, acting in conjunction

with its Academic Board, had been carefully considering the situation.

Influenced to a large extent, no doubt, by the local Press, public

feeling in the district set strongly in the direction of immediate

action. Although the infant institution was barely three years old,

there could no longer be any doubt that it was already firmly implanted

in the estimation and regard of the community in which it was placed.

Indeed, nothing in its short career up to that time stimulated and

strengthened this regard more than this particular crisis in its

fortunes. The call for sympathy and support which now was spread

throughout the Ridings was the finest _réclame_ it could possibly have.

It served to deprive the College of the last semblance of being a

merely local foundation; henceforth it was in fact as in name a county

organization.

In the following May a deputation arranged by the Yorkshire College

waited upon the Lord President of the Council. The report of the Council

of the College pointed out that whilst the Owens College scheme admitted

of the admission of other colleges to the university, the provisions

that the charter should be granted to the Owens College, and that the

university should be named after the City of Manchester were very

generally considered incompatible with the future incorporation of

institutions in other towns. Lord Ripon, in introducing the deputation,

gave forcible expression to these views. The memorial was supported

by representatives of the municipalities of the large towns in the

West Riding and elsewhere in the county, by a number of scientific

organizations, and by many eminent educational authorities.

As the Owens College memorialists had already expressed their willingness

to consider favourably the inclusion of other colleges, under reasonable

conditions, there was little difficulty in opening friendly negotiations

between the two Colleges with the desire on both sides to arrive at a

satisfactory arrangement. The Duke of Devonshire, who was a liberal

supporter of both Colleges, and had shown great interest in their

welfare—Lord Frederick Cavendish being President of the Yorkshire

College—convened a conference at Devonshire House between representatives

of the two Colleges, when after full discussion the basis of a federal

scheme was devised. The details of this were worked out by committees of

the two Colleges. Eventually complete agreement was arrived at, and it

was decided to present a joint memorial from the two Colleges praying

that Her Majesty might be advised:

(1) To create a new university, in which the Owens College, Manchester,

and such other institutions as may now or hereafter be able to fulfil the

conditions of incorporation laid down in the Charter, may be incorporated

colleges.

(2) To grant to each of such incorporated colleges a share in the

government of the university, depending only upon its magnitude and

efficiency, in accordance with the suggested Constitution.

(3) To be graciously pleased to allow the said university to be called

the Victoria University.

In the various conferences needed to reach this solution the late Sir

Arthur Rücker, who acted as one of the representatives of the Yorkshire

College, took an active and leading share, and it was in no small degree

due to his tact, urbanity, and diplomatic skill that it was secured.

In reference to this matter the present Master of Peterhouse, Sir A. W.

Ward, who was at the time Principal of the Owens College, bears the

following testimony:

“I remember very well how admirably he conducted the case of the

Yorkshire College, which was at first adverse to our wishes at

Manchester, and afterwards was conjoined with our own application. He had

great difficulties to contend against; for the Yorkshire College seemed

to be opposing our application for a university charter without being

able to set up a similar claim for itself, and the federal principle to

which resort was ultimately had was by no means free from objections.

He had, if I remember right, very effective parliamentary support,

especially in the late Mr. W. E. Forster, and then, or afterwards, in the

late Lord Ripon. But he was the active representative of Leeds, and the

virtual success of the action of the College was very largely due to him.

“Personally he was a man of great charm of manner and a very pleasant as

well as effective speaker.”

The deputation presenting the joint memorials waited upon the Lord

President, who was accompanied by the Marquis of Salisbury, on May 5,

1879. It was headed by the Duke of Devonshire, as president of the Owens

College, and the Archbishop of York, as representing the Yorkshire

College, and consisted of noblemen and gentlemen of influence connected

with the two counties; representatives of different denominations,

municipalities, scientific and educational bodies, as well as other

gentlemen interested in higher education. It received the customary

promise “that the proposal should have the most attentive consideration

of Her Majesty’s Government.”

The various steps in the procedure needed to obtain a royal charter

are many and devious. They need only be indicated by stating that they

seem expressly designed to afford abundant occupation for lawyers. The

following letter from Roscoe, sent to the writer from the Athenæum Club,

and dated June 19, 1879, bears upon this point:

It is most important that you should at once get a Petition to

“The Queen in Council” drawn up and sent to the Parliamentary

Agents for presentation. We are doing so. The Duke of

Devonshire will sign our petition, and yours in identical terms

should be signed by the Archbishop [of York] and Lord Frederick

Cavendish.

…

The Council meets on the 26th June, and everything must be sent

in before that date.

I have seen Mr. [W. E.] Forster who has telegraphed to your

secretary this evening.

We have the draft of our petition at O[wens] College if you

wish to consult it.

It is most important to get this done and to get your

Archbishop to sign.

The next letter, so far as regards the Victoria University, requires

some explanation. The then Chairman of the Council of the Yorkshire

College, the late Dr. Heaton, was not wholly friendly to the idea of a

new northern university, and ultimately he dissociated himself from his

colleagues on this particular question. He was never able to persuade

himself that another university was actually needed or was desirable. In

his judgment the interests of higher education, so far at least as the

creation of degree-granting bodies could serve them, were sufficiently

assured in England by the existence of the universities of Oxford,

Cambridge, and London. He viewed with considerable apprehension the

attempt to establish rival universities: he imagined that the stress of

competition for students might lower the standard of scholarship. Above

all he was strongly opposed, in what he thought the true interests of the

medical profession, to the increase in the number of possible avenues to

practice: in his opinion there were already too many for an efficient

standard of qualification to be maintained. It was perhaps characteristic

of him to suppose that the immediate, and indeed the ultimate, effect

of the establishment of the university in Manchester would be not to

hearten and rouse his colleagues to fresh exertions in order to make the

Leeds College worthy to be received as a member of the University: on

the contrary, he thought that, by force of circumstances, the enthusiasm

of the friends of that institution would be gradually damped, and their

energy proportionally weakened, as the neighbouring College grew in

power and prestige after being raised to the dignity of a university. He

was specially concerned about the future of the Leeds Medical School,

of which he had been a member for many years. It was well established

and had an excellent record, but its position would, he considered, be

undermined and its continued existence jeopardized by the proximity of

a school attached to a degree-giving body. He was not able to carry his

colleagues on the Council of the Yorkshire College with him in his view

of the probable influence of the new University on its fortunes. As the

sequel proved, he entirely misconceived its effect: so far from weakening

the energies of its friends, events showed that it acted as the most

powerful stimulus the Leeds College ever received. But Dr. Heaton’s

authority and influence with respect to the Medical School enabled him

to carry his point in regard to the proposed medical degrees, and the

Yorkshire representatives were instructed to disavow any wish that power

should be sought to grant them. A suggestion to send a private message to

the Lord President to this effect was made after it had been represented

by the legal agents that no observations on the draft chapter could be

received by the Privy Council. Under the circumstances the authorities of

Owens College were not without justification for their disappointment and

annoyance.

In the first place I would propose to you that we should

together do the atomic weight of Titanium. You and I both

thought of doing it. You are busy with other things.… I will

sketch a method out, prepare some more TiCl₄ and send the

proposals to you. If you like, that is. So much for private

affairs.

Now with regard to the Victoria University. We all have been

much annoyed and surprised to find that you at Leeds, having

so far acquiesced in our proposals—see memorial, etc.—now

at the last moment put in a _caveat_ about Medical Degrees!

This appears to us rather too bad. If this move was intended

we ought to have had previous information of it. If you have

only now determined on this course it is more obviously unfair

to us to start the hare now! Fancy what the University will

be without such power. Think of Glasgow and Edinburgh thus

emasculated. Is this what you wish us to come to?

Then I think that R.’s proposal to send a private message

through your President to the Duke of Richmond still more

objectionable. “Openly we agree, but we come to inform

you privately that you will please us by striking out the

provision.” This is really what you propose to do! This,

coupled with the petition from Liverpool and the opposition and

jealousy of other Medical Schools, may suffice to so mutilate

our Charter that it won’t be worth having.

_Do_ see what can be done to dissuade your people from sending

any such message to the Duke.

The private message above referred to was not sent. At the same time

Dr. Heaton’s views, backed up as they were by the action of the College

of Surgeons and British Medical Association, and a great number of

the leading hospital surgeons and teachers in London and elsewhere,

prevailed, and the application for power to grant degrees in medicine

and surgery was, for the time at least, withdrawn, in the expectation

that legislative action on the general question of medical education

and qualification was contemplated. As no such action was taken, a

supplementary charter removing the restriction was granted on April 20,

1883.

The next letter, under date February 14, 1880, shows a further stage in

the progress of the application. By a then recent Act it had to be laid

before both Houses of Parliament for thirty days before any report on the

subject could be submitted to the Sovereign.

…

By the way, you know, of course, that the Charter (unaltered)

is now lying on the table of both Houses, and if we can only

keep everybody quiet it will be law in less than thirty days!

When are you coming over?

The Charter was granted by the Queen in Council on April 6th, and was

finally ratified on April 20, 1880.

The next letter (March 30, 1880) shows that this event was to be

celebrated, as a matter of course, in the customary British method.

I am very sorry that you cannot dine with the P.C.S. [President

of the Chemical Society—Roscoe himself] on the 16th. I intended

you to have been there as Longstaff medallist! I am asking the

officers and some of the Council.

You must all reserve yourselves for July 14th or 15th. The

opening of the V.U. [Victoria University] and a Banquet at the

Town Hall!!

The following letter (January 16, 1881) shows how cordial the relations

between the sister Colleges had now become, thanks to the frank and

friendly discussion between their representatives, and how loyally those

in authority at Owens were prepared to carry out the compact:

Accept my sincere though tardy thanks for your beautiful

photograph, which is a marvellous study of volcanic action.

I have lately heard that P⸺ has been making a statement (on

whose authority I cannot think) that the Yorkshire College

would not be allowed to join the V.U. Though I know that you

would take this for what it is worth, I think that others may

misunderstand, and I think that you should inform any one who

reports such a statement that it is wholly without foundation.

In the first place, the V.U. cannot refuse even if they desired

to do so. In the second, I for one, and many with me if not

_all_, will cordially welcome any addition to ourselves, for

those who have to work the new University desire to have other

competent persons to help to share their great responsibility.

Roscoe, in fact, from the very beginning of its career had always

shown a sympathetic interest in the fortunes of the Yorkshire College.

Badly housed and poorly endowed at its start, its early struggles

and difficulties were watched by him with a kindly regard, based, no

doubt, to some extent on the memory of his own experiences. He was

not unfrequently in Leeds in those days, and his breezy optimism and

cheerful confidence that things would come right, in spite of checks and

disappointments, were at once stimulating and encouraging to the small

band of young professors who were striving to mould the institution

according to the pattern of that which he had himself done so much to

fashion. An indication of that interest was manifested by his presence,

in December 1880, at the formal opening of the new buildings which the

College owes to the wise liberality of the Clothworkers’ Company. At

the banquet which followed he responded to the toast of “The Victoria

University,” and expressed, on behalf of the authorities of Owens

College, the hope that before long the Yorkshire College would become one

of the incorporated Colleges, and would help the Owens College to uphold

the dignity and usefulness of the new University.

Roscoe took a leading part in shaping the curriculum of the new

University, and at the meeting of the Court which settled its general

lines he might be said to have been the mouthpiece of the party which

succeeded in impressing upon it its characteristic features. What had

to be considered were the needs of great industrial communities. What

sort of knowledge do they desire, and what should they be encouraged to

pursue? The discussion mainly turned upon the place which the classical

languages should hold in the university courses. “Compulsory” Greek was

no longer regarded as a practical question. Should “compulsory” Latin

also be eliminated? Are these ancient languages, or either of them, still

to be regarded as an indispensable part of a liberal education and an

indispensable requisite for a degree? The claims of the Classics were

not without defenders, but as a local newspaper pointed out in a leading

article, curiously enough it would seem that among the stoutest of these

were to be found some of the very men who might have been supposed to

be the natural champions of the newer learning, and if orthodox academic

traditions received a rude blow, it was because they were deserted by

the very men who had been nursed in them. With two exceptions, the

professorial members of the Court were unanimous in recommending that

Latin should not be made obligatory for a degree. The Chancellor and Lord

Derby supported the contention that whatever may be the value as mental

food and training of the Classics when thoroughly mastered, the wretched

minimum of ill-learnt Latin and soon-forgotten Greek prescribed in

university examinations as preliminary to more serious studies possesses

no educational value whatever. Perhaps the argument most decisive

with the Court was that given by Roscoe. He said they had to consider

the large number of persons who came to the Owens College for special

instruction, and more particularly for engineering and mathematics, but

who had never been at any school where Latin was taught. Those were the

men who carried off the best engineering prizes, and for them it was that

this door had wisely been kept open. They must not be guided by what

Oxford or Cambridge had done, but by what was good for their own district

and what was advisable at the present moment. Let them remember what a

number of men such as he had mentioned there were in their neighbourhood,

and how flourishing were the mathematical schools, and then let them

say whether they could cut off those schools and men from university

education. The “innovators” won the day by a majority of 2 to 1, and thus

effected “the dethronement, never to rise again, of this mischievous

idol.”

It was amusing to notice the perturbation which this departure from a

time-honoured tradition caused in certain scholastic circles and among

the self-styled “friends of culture.” But on the whole the action was

favourably commented upon by the more influential newspapers and leading

educational journals. It was regarded as the inevitable consequence of

modern necessity, and of the gradual recognition that the traditions of

mediæval schoolmen were not sacrosanct or necessarily the best adapted to

new requirements.

In drafting the Constitution of the new University power was of course

taken in accordance with established procedure, and in deference to the

democratic tendencies of British seats of learning, to form the body

known as Convocation, and those of the former students of Owens College

who came within certain definitions were made its first members.

It would seem to be the inevitable tendency of all Convocations to play

the part of a Parliamentary Opposition. Their primary duty, as they

conceive it, is to criticize and to take an independent view of the

policy of the university, as determined by the governing or executive

powers. No doubt such criticism is salutary if wisely directed, but

experience has shown that it is sometimes factious and occasionally

obstructive. Much, therefore, depends upon the chairman. It was felt

by many of the members that it was specially important at the outset

to make a prudent selection if Convocation was to secure from the

beginning its proper influence and dignity as a deliberative assembly.

The Extreme Left—there is always such a group in such a gathering—had

promptly proposed Dr. Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a student of the College

in the Quay Street days, and now mainly remembered as the husband and

father of certain ladies who have distinguished themselves in the cause

of Woman Suffrage. Dr. Pankhurst was never regarded quite seriously in

College circles—least of all by his former associates, who on a dull

evening at the Union would occasionally put him up to make a political

harangue in the style of the Convention, when he would declaim the most

blood-curdling sentiments in a highly pitched falsetto, with all the

fiery eloquence and fervid passion of a Danton or a Hebert. But however

powerful the appeals to a youthful enthusiasm, the stones of Quay Street

remained unmoved, nor was Deansgate at any time blocked with barricades.

Later on Dr. Pankhurst went to the Bar, when he followed in the footsteps

and sought to better the example of a once well-known Chartist orator

whose name is well-nigh forgotten, became an active local politician,

and made one or two futile attempts to gain a parliamentary seat as the

most extreme of advanced Radicals. It was possible, of course, that when

weighted with the responsibilities of office Dr. Pankhurst’s conduct of

the chair might have been irreproachable. But the majority of Convocation

were not disposed to take the risk. Accordingly an “influentially signed”

memorial was issued suggesting Roscoe as first chairman. The advantage

of securing at this early period a chairman well acquainted with the

work of the other co-ordinate bodies of the University was obvious. But

there was another reason, as the terms of the memorial indicated. The

general body of the members were anxious to testify their appreciation of

the services of the man who had been so largely instrumental in making a

Convocation at all possible.

By knowledge and experience no man was more qualified to

promote administrative accord than Dr. Roscoe. From him came

the first proposal of the new University; and no one worked

with greater zeal and devotion in the movement, which after

a long struggle was so happily successful. No sacrifice of

time and labour was too great for him, and his forethought

and knowledge of business were of untold advantage during the

negotiations.

The suggestion that he should be the first chairman was made without

Roscoe’s knowledge, but it was so well received that he consented to be

nominated and was elected by a large majority. The _Intransigeants_, of

course, affirmed that they were fighting solely for a principle, and “as

a protest that those who teach and train ought not to govern and examine

and fill all the positions in the University.” They next proceeded to

move “a kind of vote of censure on the Executive Council for anticipating

the jurisdiction of Convocation in arranging for degrees, examinations,

and so forth.” This was met by “the previous question” and lost,

whereupon the meeting proceeded to discuss the absorbingly interesting

subject of academic costume, and the dissident minority melted away.

At this first meeting the clerk informed Convocation that at the next

ordinary meeting of the Court the Council proposed to report as to the

University making use of its power to grant degrees to persons being at

the date of the University Charter associates of the Owens College. The

first graduation ceremony of the University took place in the autumn of

1882, when Professor Ward in presenting the Associates said:

The Associates of the Owens College, whom it is my privilege to

present to you to-day, are spontaneously linking their names

and reputations with the name and fame of our University, and

it seems a twice-blessed relationship which on both sides is

founded on goodwill. Many of those whom I am about to lead to

you are men distinguished in letters and science, and in the

several learned professions and other occupations to which

their lives are devoted. Some are members of the governing and

teaching bodies of our own University. A great number hold

the degrees of other Universities—of those older Universities

from which our own has received so many signs of kindly

and ready sympathy, or of that great examining University

without which much of the educational progress of the last

half-century—without which such progress as was made within

the walls of Owens College, would itself have lacked its

trustworthiest tests.

The following letters from Roscoe to the writer have reference to this

function, which took place in the Manchester Town Hall—with, as the

descriptive reporter stated, “all the ceremony and pageantry that help to

cast a glamour over the older seats of learning.”

MANCHESTER,

_October 14, 1882_.

I write a line to say how much we all hope that you will run

over on November 1st to have the degree of the V.U. conferred

upon you. It is of importance that our best Associates should

show up on the occasion, and I am particularly anxious that

you should not be wanting. The ceremony is to be held in the

Town Hall, and we hope that Lord Derby and Mr. Mundella will be

present.

How are you getting on? We are full in our laboratories and

hard at it.

Unfortunately, the recipient of these letters (and of the degree) was

unable to be present. He had just succeeded by effluxion of time to

a position formerly held by Roscoe himself in “that great examining

University” which had in the past so efficiently tested the educational

progress of Owens College, and his official duties kept him in London.

_October 22, 1882._

I think in spite of Mrs. A. B. B.Sc. it would be as well if you

would come to have the V.U. degree granted. If you do not come,

unpleasant remarks may be made as to the cause of your absence.

I never supposed you did care for the degree as a degree: it

is simply an enrolment of yourself as a _bona-fide_ member

of the University.… My feeling is that all those who have an

interest in the University and who have taken active steps in

its foundation should not hold aloof on this occasion, but show

that they are willing and anxious to support the new University

to the best of their power.

You took an active part in modifying the original lines on

which we had decided to lay our University, and I think that

therefore you are, perhaps, more bound than other people to

help now to make it a success on its present footing.…

I am very glad you are coming to open our Chemical Society’s

Session here on Friday. I fear I may be away as my Commission

[Technical Instruction Commission] meets on Wednesday for some

consecutive days. If I can get back I will.

The time, perhaps, has not yet arrived to attempt to assess the effect

on the higher education of the country which has followed from the

establishment of these modern universities, but that it has already

been very great there can be no question. Since they are free, for the

most part, from the influence of the schoolmen, and are unhampered by

mediæval traditions and the prepossessions of the past, they are the

more readily able to shape their course in accordance with the demands

of industrial progress and the necessities of modern life. From the

circumstance that they are nearly all situated in large towns and in the

midst of industrial communities, the study of science is, as a rule, a

prominent feature in their scheme of instruction, and accordingly their

science faculties are usually strongly developed. A spirit of emulation

makes them all active centres of research, especially in physical

science and in its technical applications, and their aggregate output of

original scientific inquiry is now very considerable, and in extent and

quality compares most favourably with that of continental nations. Their

influence upon the conduct of those industries which ultimately depend

upon science is already very marked, and as the number of scientifically

trained men becomes larger, as the result of their instruction, that

influence is bound to become still greater. With the diffusion of a

knowledge of scientific principles new applications of science to

practice will follow, and these in their turn will react upon the

instruction in the schools of science. The ultimate effect of all this

will be a still clearer recognition by the community that the permanence

and eventual success of our manufacturing industries depends upon the

intelligent application of science.

We are thus able to perceive how Roscoe’s action in helping on the

development of Owens College on modern lines and in raising it eventually

to the status of a university has reacted, and is bound still further

to react, upon the intellectual and material welfare of this country.

It was the great success of the Manchester College as a centre for the

diffusion of knowledge in its own district that incited other towns

to seek to emulate its example, and when Owens College sought for the

position as a university to which she was entitled, the same spirit of

emulation quickened the efforts of her friendly rivals to make themselves

not less worthy of such a dignity.

Of course it is not claimed for Roscoe that he actually initiated this

remarkable movement—a movement which must be regarded as one of the most

significant features of our times; he shares the credit with others. But

he certainly was one of the mainsprings of it. It may be said the time

was ripe for the step. Nevertheless, it is due to him to affirm that

he was one of the earliest to perceive that fact, and to take occasion

boldly by the hand. If he cannot justly be said to have actually started

the action, he was at least one of its most powerful prime movers.

CHAPTER VI

ROSCOE AS A TEACHER

Some years before Owens College attained to the position of a university,

several attempts were made to induce Roscoe to sever his connection

with it. In 1870 he was offered the lectureship on Chemistry at St.

Bartholomew’s Hospital in succession to Dr. Matthiessen.

The following letter under date October 14, 1870, refers to this

circumstance:

…

I have just refused to go to London again! They wanted me at

St. Bartholomew’s.

Miller is to be succeeded by ⸺ ⸺, and it appears that this

gentleman has made a compromise with the New School, and is

to adopt O = 12! Is not this rich? Originality at King’s was

always at a discount, but then Orthodoxy reigns supreme, and

this is the “Wahre Jakob,” as they say in German!

Lockyer is down here visiting Stewart, and I had a physical

and astronomical party here last night (my wife being away),

at which a large number of interesting new observations on the

heavenly bodies and on science in general were made, which did

not conclude until the small hours.

I cannot buckle to the new book—but I have arranged the order

of things to my tolerable satisfaction. Whether it will ever

see the daylight remains a mystery.…

Two years later he was invited to become a candidate for the vacant chair

of Chemistry at Oxford, with the promise of a fellowship if elected.

That he might be Brodie’s successor was, he says, a tempting suggestion,

but on consideration he felt he had a wider scope, and the possibility of

greater usefulness in building up the chemical school of Owens College—a

decision which he had the satisfaction of knowing met with the warm

approval of Huxley and other friends.

Roscoe’s method of working his department was wholly modelled on that of

Bunsen, as those of his pupils who subsequently repaired to Heidelberg

could testify. _A bove majori discit arare minor._ He gave his lectures

at the beginning of the working day, after which, and whilst the

laboratory men were settling to work, he would retire to his sitting-room

to glance at his correspondence. He would then go round to each in turn,

see what had been done since the previous visit, and give such directions

and advice as were necessary. Although the students worked independently,

and were at different stages of progress, he knew precisely how each was

occupied. With the men engaged on research work, or with preparations,

or on any matter out of the usual routine, he would frequently spend a

considerable amount of time. He always seemed to be as much interested

in the work as the workers themselves, and was unaffectedly pleased

with a good analytical result, a well-constructed apparatus, or a neat

preparation. His boyish love of manipulation, simply as such, remained

with him to the end, and he somehow managed to convey something of his

own feeling of delight in handling apparatus to those he taught. In this

lay the secret of his power and success as the director of a laboratory.

Although his students never forgot that he was the professor—he was

always “Doctor” Roscoe to them—they realized that he was quite on an

approachable plane, and a bond of sympathy and of mutual understanding

was quickly established which strengthened into friendship and esteem.

As a teacher, tolerant of the imperfection of human nature in youth, he

might pardon stupidity or condone carelessness, but he had no patience

with anything that savoured of pretension or deceit. Nothing angered

him more than to find that an analytical result had been “trimmed” or

“cooked.” He once summarily expelled a young man from his laboratory who,

under pretence of making a re-determination of an atomic weight, was

caught hatching out a series of wholly fictitious numbers. And he was

amazed at the mentality of a minister of religion who failed to perceive

the heinousness of such a crime, the fact being the good easy man thought

the procedure was on a par with any other mathematical exercise, and

therefore liable to error. That young man, it may be added, in after

years came to a violent end, for he was lynched for horse-stealing; the

descent to Avernus, as Roscoe would point out, is easy and inevitable

to one of the moral obliquity that can juggle with the sanctity of

experimental figures.

The ingenuous youth of Owens in the writer’s time were not a particularly

lamb-like lot, and occasional _émeutes_ were not unknown, but

disturbances in Roscoe’s class-room were absolutely unheard of. Indeed,

such was his personal ascendancy that at times his assistance was

invoked to quell an uproar in a neighbouring territory. As he stepped

into the room and began, “Now, boys, etc.,” he would be received with a

round of cheers, and order would once more reign in Warsaw. A word of

expostulation from him would suffice to ensure it.

Of course, as the number of his pupils increased, and the laboratories

became larger and more numerous, it became impossible to give so

great a share of individual attention, and much had to be delegated

to demonstrators, for the most part chosen from among senior students

who were preparing for an academic career, and who had themselves been

trained by him. At the same time he was quite alive to the value of “new

blood,” and any promising young man who had shown aptitude for teaching

or ability in research was sympathetically considered on the occasion of

a vacancy.

He next visited his private laboratory to consult with his assistants,

and to learn how their work was progressing. As his engagements

multiplied, and the calls upon his time increased, he gradually ceased

to take any active part in the operations when assured of the competence

of those to whom he had entrusted the execution of his plan of research.

Indeed, he allowed his chosen helpers considerable latitude, if, as

usually happened, they were genuinely interested in their work. He had

a strong belief in the wisdom of giving the ’prentice hand “his head,”

as the surest way of strengthening any latent faculty for original

inquiry he might possess. He had himself been trained in this way, and he

employed the same methods in turn.

Roscoe, like Bunsen, set no very great value on lecture-room teaching,

although he recognized that with the majority of students no other system

is practicable. It no doubt serves to afford an _aperçu_ of the subject,

which is what the average attendant at lectures presumably wants. At

the same time he spared no pains to make his lectures interesting, and

they were always admirably illustrated by experiments. Luckily he had in

his _famulus_ Heywood, a remarkably able lecture-assistant, a skilful

glass-blower, and a good mechanician, with a talent for devising striking

and original illustrations. Roscoe had a good voice, clear enunciation,

and a pleasant, easy mode of delivery, but he had none of the arts of

the orator—nothing of the fiery, impulsive manner of his contemporary,

Hofmann, or the command of polished speech that characterized Kekulé. In

the lecture-room his language was simple and direct; he was an excellent

expositor, always lucid, occasionally humorous, and never dull.

Although organic chemistry at his most active period as an investigator

was experiencing an extraordinary development, and offering limitless

opportunities of discovery, its problems then, and, it may be added,

at no subsequent time, had more than an academic interest for him. The

only communication dealing with organic chemistry with which his name is

associated is a short note on the Spontaneous Polymerisation of Volatile

Hydrocarbons contributed to the Chemical Society in 1885.[4]

The paper had its origin in a chance observation brought to his notice

by a tar-distiller, who had noticed the formation, on standing, of a

white crystalline mass among the volatile hydrocarbons resulting from

the decomposition of phenolic substances at a red heat. The crystalline

substance was found to have a molecular formula C₁₀H₁₂, but its real

nature and the mode of its genesis were not established.

Organic chemistry was hardly taught at Heidelberg in Roscoe’s time,

and then only by subordinate professors and _privat-docenten_, mainly

to pharmacists. The effect of this training was seen in the subsequent

character of his teaching. The lectures on organic chemistry that he

was necessarily required to give at Owens College, with their limited

possibilities of experimental illustration, simply bored him. Happily he

found in Schorlemmer a colleague who was glad to relieve him of the duty.

Schorlemmer was not a fluent speaker, and although he wrote our language

with ease and accuracy, he never acquired familiarity with the mysteries

of its pronunciation. But he was an excellent teacher, remarkably

well-read, and had an astonishingly retentive memory, and his lectures

were thoroughly appreciated by the discerning student.

Roscoe continued to direct the Chemical Department of Owens College

until his election as Member of Parliament for the Southern Division of

Manchester in the autumn of 1885, when he resigned the Professorship of

Chemistry. On his retirement the Council recorded its strong sense of

the eminent services he had rendered to the College through a period of

thirty years, and its conviction that to his great attainments as a

man of science, his skill and success as a teacher and organizer, his

widespread reputation, and his high personal qualities, it was in great

measure due both that the College enjoyed so high a rank as a place of

education, and that its Chemistry Department in particular had long held

a position second to that of no other academic institution in the United

Kingdom.

Similar testimony was borne by his colleagues when placing his portrait

by Burgess in their Common Room, and by his pupils when offering another

portrait by Herkomer to Lady Roscoe. The address accompanying this latter

gift, and signed by upwards of two hundred old pupils, was as follows:

_To Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, M.P., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.,

etc., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the Owens College,

Manchester, February 16, 1889._

We, the undersigned students of the Owens College, who have

had the privilege of being your pupils, desire at the close of

your active work as a teacher to offer you some recognition of

the value of the services you have rendered to your College

during the time you have laboured as one of its professors. For

upwards of thirty years you have had the control and direction

of the chemical department of the Owens College. You leave

it the best organized and best equipped school of chemistry

in the kingdom, numbering its students by hundreds, and the

acknowledged model of the many similar institutions which

the success of your own school has called into existence. No

place of chemical instruction in the country has exercised so

profound an influence as that of which you have been the moving

and directing force, and with which your name will always be

connected. Its influence on the industrial welfare of the

community is seen from the number of responsible positions held

by your students in the district. Its influence on educational

progress may be judged from the number of your pupils who hold

important positions as teachers of chemistry. As a centre of

chemical research you have made the Owens College known all

over the world, and your books on chemical science form the

standard works, not only in this country, but in many others.

The genial and sympathetic interest which you always showed in

the lives and work of your students is gratefully remembered by

all of us, and it has bound us to you by a personal tie such as

rarely unites a teacher and his students. Whilst we have viewed

with regret the severance of your active connection with the

institution for which you have done so much, both in moulding

its academical organization and in consolidating its work, we

trust you may long be spared to continue in the wider sphere

of political and public life those efforts which have already

contributed so largely to the intellectual advancement of the

people of this country. We beg your acceptance of the portrait

which accompanies this address as a token of our affectionate

respect, and in grateful recollection of many kindly acts which

have endeared you to us all.

In a short account which Roscoe compiled for private circulation, he

recorded, with pardonable pride, the rise and progress of the Chemical

Department of the Owens College during the thirty years he directed it;

and he indicated the leading principles which had guided him in its

development. He recalled the position of the College in 1857, when the

workers in the chemical laboratory were fifteen in number. It was only

very slowly realized that Science could be made an efficient instrument

of education, and that such an education was not only compatible

with, but was absolutely necessary for, a successful manufacturing

and industrial career. The fact that the stipend of the Professor of

Chemistry was fixed at one-half of that given to the other chairs showed

how the Governing Body at that time regarded the relative importance of

that subject, as compared with classics and mathematics.

From the outset he was firmly convinced that the great blot in English

industrial life was a singular want of appreciation of one of the

essential conditions of success, namely, a sound training in the

scientific principles which underlie all practice. The fact that the

intimate connection which ought to exist between science and practice

was more clearly recognized by our continental rivals, was bound in the

long run to tell against our own manufacturing industries. He then shows

how he had sought to establish a sound and thorough course of systematic

theoretical and practical instruction in chemistry to meet the gradual

recognition of this fact which he was certain would arise under the

stress of necessity. But, as he points out, the success of any such

scheme must ultimately depend upon its director.

The personal and individual attention of the professor is the

true secret of success; it is absolutely essential that he

should know, and take an interest in, the work of every man in

his laboratory, whether beginning or finishing his course.…

It is in the laboratory, and there alone, that chemistry can

be properly learnt, and it is by the peripatetic teaching of

the professor and his demonstrators that the student benefits

most. Laboratory teaching must inculcate method and accuracy;

the student must be made to understand what he is doing and

why he does it, and must gradually acquire the power of exact

observation and of logical inference. All these faculties are

exercised and developed by a properly organized and thorough

course of qualitative chemical analysis, and no elementary

course of practical scientific work is more useful, either in

training the hand or the head.

This, however, presupposes that an explanation of the theory

accompanies the practice of qualitative analysis, and that the

student attends a course of instruction in which the reactions

and methods of separation are systematically explained and

discussed, as well as a general course on theoretical chemistry.

Having thus obtained a knowledge of the principles of the

science, facility in manipulation, and reliance on his own

powers of observation, the student should begin quantitative

analytical work, in which he learns by degrees what scientific

accuracy means, and how exact results are to be obtained by

careful work. Constant personal supervision of the student

is absolutely requisite, as everything depends on the care

with which the various operations are carried on, working

from recipes without superintendence being really valueless.

One main object of this course is so to teach the pupil as to

give him reliance on his own power of exact work; to inculcate

habits of neatness and order; to make him aware of sources of

error, and to teach him either to estimate their amount, or

how, if possible, to obviate them.

On this firm foundation of a competent theoretical knowledge of inorganic

and organic chemistry, and of a thorough practical acquaintance with

analysis, can alone the proper and higher education of the chemist,

whether for purely scientific or for technical purposes, be based. It

was upon this view Roscoe consistently acted. He steadily set his face

against any practising of rough-and-ready works-methods until the student

had learnt to appreciate the exacter processes. It is only when he has

gained the capacity for judging as to the particular applicability of a

method that he should be permitted to compromise between efficiency and

speed. When confidence is based upon knowledge and practice, the special

circumstances of his position and his sense of responsibility, when

engaged in technical work, will enable him to determine rightly when such

compromise is justifiable.

As regards instruction in applied chemistry, Roscoe always held that the

application can only be properly learnt in the factory or works, just as

a trade cannot be taught in a school—unless, indeed, the school becomes a

shop. But there is no reason why the scientific principles and details of

the various industrial processes should not be brought to the knowledge

of the pupil who is intended afterwards to conduct such processes.

Provided a sound scientific basis is secured, such instruction, given by

a teacher who has had practical as well as theoretical experience, is of

great value to the technical student.

Thanks mainly to Roscoe’s example, these principles are nowadays among

the commonplaces of chemical instruction, and are adopted substantially

by all teachers of experience. That they commended themselves to lay

minds capable of appreciating and judging them, and that the practical

results of working the Owens College Chemical Department by means of

them proved satisfactory, was proved by the steady increase in the

number of Roscoe’s pupils, session after session, and by the variety of

responsible and important positions many of these pupils subsequently

filled. Another significant feature was the increasing public recognition

of the meaning and value of a sound chemical education as shown by the

growing willingness of parents and of young men themselves to devote

such an amount of time to their studies as would enable them to obtain

real benefit. He found in the earlier years of his experience that the

prevailing notion of the majority of manufacturers (though there were

notable exceptions) was that if the son stayed at College for six months

he could be “put up” to all the necessary information to enable him to

apply chemistry to his business.

The fathers (he said) frequently used to come with a story of

this kind: “I am a calico-printer, or a dyer, or a brewer,

and I want you to teach my son chemistry so far, and only

so far, as it is at once applicable to my trade,” and when

informed that chemistry as a science must be taught before

its applications could be understood, and that his son could

not for two or three years at least begin to work upon the

subjects directly bearing on his trade, he too often replied

that if that were the system he could not afford time for his

son to learn on this plan, and that if he could not be taught

at once to test his drugs he should prefer to leave him in the

works, where he and his father before him had made a great

many commercial successes with no scientific knowledge, and

where he saw no reason to doubt that his son would do the

same. The change that has come over our manufacturers during

the last five and twenty years [this was written in 1887] has

been remarkable, and now all are, I believe, fully awake to

the necessities of their position, and are most desirous of

improving the scientific knowledge not only of themselves and

their sons, but of their managers, foremen, and workpeople.

That this is so may be proved by the fact that whereas formerly

it was difficult to keep our students for more than one

session, we now find our senior laboratory well stocked with

men in their third, fourth, and even fifth years, working at

advanced subjects and becoming “chemists” in the highest and

best sense of the word.

When he laid down his office he could point to the fact that his

laboratories, spacious as they were thought to have been when first

erected, had been more than full during the previous half-dozen years. It

was calculated that upwards of two thousand men had passed through his

courses. Among them were many teachers, technologists, and professional

chemists occupying responsible and important positions. In the list of

the Dalton Chemical Scholars, and of the Berkeley Fellows, were to be

found names known in the literature of science for their scientific

investigations. Indeed, no similar place in the kingdom could show such a

record of contributions to chemical knowledge. Under Roscoe’s government

the Owens College Chemical Laboratory furnished, from first to last, two

hundred and thirty-five original communications, mainly to the _Journal

of the Chemical Society_, or the _Proceedings_ and _Transactions of the

Royal Society_.

The laboratories which Roscoe designed, and which are known under

his name, have long since proved inadequate to accommodate the

numbers which now flock to the Manchester School of Chemistry. After

Schorlemmer’s death it was found necessary to add to their number, and

the new Schorlemmer laboratories, of eighty-nine working benches, were

built for the special study of organic chemistry. These were in their

turn overcrowded, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the well-known American

multi-millionaire, who never forgets he was born on British soil,

presented the University with £10,000 to erect buildings, on condition

that they should be called the John Morley Laboratories, in honour of his

friend Viscount Morley of Blackburn, the eminent historian and statesman,

and now Chancellor of the Victoria University.

On October 4, 1909, Roscoe was requested to open formally the new

laboratories, when he remarked: “It was very gratifying to know that Mr.

Carnegie, who has spent millions of money on founding public libraries

all over the English-speaking countries, seemed to be turning his

attention to the foundation of laboratories which, in my opinion, was of

still greater consequence.” A characteristic remark which those who knew

the speaker would be quite prepared to hear.

CHAPTER VII

ROSCOE AS AN INVESTIGATOR

The character of Roscoe’s scientific work may also be said to have been

entirely moulded by his Heidelberg training, and Bunsen’s influence may

be traced through it to the last. So completely was this the case that

consciously or unconsciously he seemed never to contemplate attacking any

problem that would not have appealed to, or have been appreciated by,

Bunsen.

His first research was undoubtedly suggested by Bunsen. As already

stated, it resulted in the classical investigation on the laws

regulating photochemical action. It was already known that a mixture of

equal volumes of hydrogen and chlorine on exposure to light lost its

characteristic colour, and was converted into hydrochloric acid, readily

soluble in water; and Bunsen conceived the idea of making this reaction

the basis of a method of measuring the relative amount and activity of

those light-vibrations which are mainly concerned in effecting chemical

change. As a matter of fact the idea was not new, for, unknown to Bunsen,

it had already been adopted by Draper, of New York, who had, as he states

in his paper in the _Philosophical Magazine_ for December 1843:

invented an instrument [based upon the same reaction] for

measuring the chemical force of the tithonic rays, which are

found at a maximum in the indigo space, and which from that

point gradually fade away to each end of the spectrum.

It perhaps says little for the assiduity with which young Roscoe read

the original chemical literature of his time that he should only have

knowledge of Draper’s remarkable papers some thirteen years after they

were published in the English journals. But it is only due to him to say

the chemical students of University College in those far-off days had

fewer opportunities of access to original literature than they now enjoy.

Be this as it may, Roscoe’s discomfiture at being thus anticipated was of

no long duration.

Do not (wrote Bunsen) let your discovery of Draper’s work

disconcert you.… It appears to me that the value of an

investigation is not to be measured by whether something is

described in it for the first time, but rather by what means

and methods a fact is proved beyond doubt or cavil, and in this

respect I think that Draper has left plenty for us to do.

After many fruitless attempts they succeeded in constructing an apparatus

in which the defects of Draper’s “tithonometer” were obviated, and by

which not only accurate comparative determinations could be made, but

which enabled them to reduce the chemical action of light to absolute

measure. They showed by means of it that the amount of chemical action

produced by light from a constant source varied inversely as the

square of the distance. They studied more accurately the phenomena of

photochemical induction, discovered by Draper, the causes which determine

its occurrence, and the laws which regulate the chemical action of

light after the induction is completed. They proved that the absorption

of the chemical rays in passing through a medium varies directly as

the intensity of the light, and that the amount transmitted varies

proportionately with the density of the absorbing medium. It was found

that for a given amount of chemical action effected in the mixture of

chlorine and hydrogen an equivalent quantity of light is absorbed, and

that the coefficients of extinction of pure chlorine for chemical rays

from various sources of light are very different. They established a

general and absolute standard of comparison for the chemical action of

light, and sought to determine the quantitative relations of the chemical

action effected by direct and diffused sunlight, and to investigate

the laws which regulate the distribution on the earth’s surface of the

chemical activity emanating from the sun. They also measured the chemical

action of the constituent parts of the solar spectrum. The action on

the sensitive gas showed the existence of several maxima of chemical

intensity in the spectrum. The greatest action was observed between

the lines G in the indigo and H in the violet, whilst another maximum

was found to be near the line I in the ultra violet. Towards the least

refrangible end of the spectrum the action became imperceptible about the

line D in the orange, but at the other end of the spectrum the action was

found to extend as far as Stokes’s line U, or to a distance from the line

H greater than the total length of the ordinary visible spectrum.

By investigating the conditions under which it was possible to

prepare a photographic paper of uniform and constant sensitiveness,

and ascertaining the means by which the darkening of the paper on

insolation could be accurately compared with a standard tint, it was

found comparatively easy to construct an instrument capable of measuring

the chemical action of light effected at any point on the earth’s surface

by the total sunlight and diffuse daylight under the most widely varying

circumstances of climate and atmospheric condition.

This joint research, begun in 1855, occupied its authors until 1862.

Roscoe did the greater part of the experimental work, and after his

election to the professorship in Owens College in 1857 he spent his

long vacations in Heidelberg in continuing the inquiry. The results

were communicated in a series of memoirs to the Royal Society and are

published in the _Philosophical Transactions_.[5]

Subsequently he pursued the subject alone or in conjunction with others.

In a short paper published in 1863 he gave the results of a series of

measurements of the chemical brightness of various portions of the solar

disc made by means of standard photographic paper according to the method

described by Bunsen and himself in their last communication;[6] and in

1864 he described a method of meteorological registration of the chemical

action of total daylight based on a modification of that originally used

by Bunsen and himself. The account of this method was made the Bakerian

Lecture in 1865, and is published in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of

that year.[7]

In this paper he gives the results of consecutive observations on each

day for nearly a month at about midsummer, and compares the chemical

action of light at Manchester at the winter and summer solstices, and the

vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The wide variation in the chemical action

of light at different periods of the year was illustrated by the fact

that if the integral of that on the shortest day be taken as the unit,

that upon the equinox will be represented by 7, and that upon the longest

day by 25.

In 1866 he and Mr. Baxendell contributed a joint note to the Royal

Society on the relative chemical intensities of direct sunlight and

diffuse daylight at different altitudes of the sun. They showed from

observations made at Manchester and at Heidelberg that the ratio of the

chemical intensity of direct to diffuse sunlight for a given altitude at

different localities is not constant, but varies with the transparency

of the atmosphere, and that this ratio does not in the least correspond

with the value of visible intensity as estimated by the eye, the action

of the atmosphere being 17·4 times greater upon the chemical than on the

luminous rays when the sun’s altitude is about 25° and 26·4 times greater

when it is 12°.[8]

With a view to the introduction of the instrument into meteorology, and

as part of the routine work of an observatory, he caused a regular series

of measurements to be made during two years at the Kew Observatory,

under the direction of Dr. Balfour Stewart; and in order to gain further

knowledge of the variation in the chemical action of light in different

areas of the earth’s surface, he sent the writer in 1866 to Pará, on

the river Amazon, 1° 28´ south of the Equator. The selection of this

particular place arose from the circumstance that his cousin, now the

Right Hon. Charles Booth, was proceeding to the Brazils in connection

with the establishment of a new line of steamers, and it was arranged

that the writer should accompany him, in order that he might make

photometric observations _en route_, going and returning, and at the same

time make a series of determinations of the amount of carbon dioxide in

sea air, night and day, with a view of testing the truth of an allegation

by a French chemist, that it was subject to a diurnal variation,

depending upon the intensity of sunlight.

The special form of apparatus arranged for making photometric

observations at sea proved to be ill-adapted to the purpose. But even

if its performance had been good, the conditions under which it had to

be employed were incapable of furnishing valid results. Accordingly

the writer elected to remain at Pará in order to obtain the required

observations at that place, until such time as he could return by the

succeeding steamer. He was thus enabled to make a much more extensive set

of observations than was originally contemplated, and under conditions

which ensured trustworthy measurements.

The following letter, dated May 12, 1866, and received at Pará, refers to

these matters. The allusion to Agassiz arose from the circumstance that

the great naturalist was at the time engaged in work on the Amazons and

its tributaries under the auspices of the Emperor Dom Pedro.

Roscoe himself was busily engaged with his vanadium researches.

Although I was disappointed to find that the _Augustine_

returned without you, yet I think that you acted quite rightly

in staying until the _Jerome_ returns, as you could not get any

results whilst on board. I only hope that your health will have

been good, and that you will have enjoyed your stay at Pará,

and that when you return in August we may have to work out

plenty of interesting results.

I send per the _Jerome_ a second bottle of silver solution, and

some more salted paper, as you may possibly be out of both. I

also enclose two or three fixed strips, but _not calibrated_.

These, in case you are out, may be used, _carefully preserved_

and calibrated, on your return. They must be carefully marked

before using and notice taken in the book of the marks on each

strip when employed.

…

Your carbonic acid observations are _very_ interesting: you

seem to have settled Lewy completely, and I hope you will get

some more experiments made on your return voyage.

Could you not manage to make several series of _daily_

observations (photochemical) on your return voyage? It would

not much matter if the surface was not perfectly horizontal

always, and you could use your pendulum concern to steady the

exposed paper to a certain extent. Perhaps your ship does not

give you a sufficiently free horizon. However, you will do what

is possible.

Your meeting with Agassiz was very fortunate, and I was glad to

hear that the other friends whom you found were likely to prove

agreeable.

We have not much news to send you. The book [“Lessons in

Elementary Chemistry”] is not yet out. I have this day,

however, corrected the last proofs of the Index, and I fully

expect that it will be ready (and I hope a great number sold!)

before you arrive here.

My new assistant [Mr. Francis Jones] is a very careful and

accurate worker. He has with great care determined the atomic

weight of vanadium by the loss of weight of VO₃ in hydrogen,

and curiously enough gets _exactly_ Berzelius’s number of

68·5! This in two experiments on large quantities. We are now

preparing pure chloride to try again whether we get 67·4 (your

number), and we have got hold of some very queer reactions,

which I can only understand either by the presence of another

metal having the same (or nearly) atomic weight as Va, or else

by the existence of an isomeric (solid) modification of the

chloride. However, time, I hope, will show.

My lecture on June 1st at the Royal Institution will, of

course, be shorn of some of its interest as I cannot tell them

how much chemical light there is in the tropics, but I hope to

have enough to make an interesting hour, and have got some nice

experiments to illustrate the opalescence of the atmosphere.

My wife tells me to remind you to be so good as to bring her

something tropical—some birds’ skins would do or anything you

see or fancy. Only no monkeys, if you please, for me! I hate

the animals.

Your father will doubtless send you all the news of the times,

as well as local information, and so I will only add that the

Laboratory [rowing] crew were again beaten last week. The races

were very good—better as regards equality than last year. The

umpire, poor R⸺, got upset and nearly suffocated in the Irwell

mud!

Hoping to see you safe back at the end of July or beginning of

August.

The day after this letter was written Roscoe received some of the

preliminary results of the photometric observations, so that he was

enabled to give his Royal Institution audience some idea of the amount

of chemical light in the tropics. He made this matter one of the chief

features of his lecture.

I have only just time to send what you want over to Liverpool

this afternoon, and to acknowledge your letter of April 14th

with enclosures, which are all very welcome.

…

The diffused and direct sun experiments are very interesting.

They differ _in toto_ from the Heidelberg results. Pray get

some more at low elevations of the sun.

I must now close … as the _Jerome_ sails early in the morning.

P.S.—I hope you may be able to get _one_ cloudless day before

you leave, as the clouds evidently much modify the result. It

is almost a pity that you did not go out in the vacation for

September and October, but it cannot be helped now.

If you get a cloudless day begin early, take four or six sets

of observations (one at noon, of course) until late in the

evening, so as to get the _low_ elevations.

The Kew observations showed that the mean chemical intensity for hours

equidistant from noon is practically the same on the same day, and that

the daily maximum of chemical intensity corresponds with the maximum of

solar altitude. Measurements showing the daily rise and fall of chemical

intensity for each of the twenty-four months were obtained, as well as of

the biennial variation for the same period. It was pointed out that the

curve of yearly chemical intensity is not symmetrical about the vernal

and autumnal equinoxes. Thus for 100 chemically active rays falling at

the spring equinox at Kew, there fell at the autumnal equinox 167 rays,

the sun’s mean altitude being the same, the difference being probably due

to the greater atmospheric opalescence in the spring.

The Pará observations were interesting from the fact that they were the

first measurements of photometric intensity made within the tropics, and

that they served to dispel certain fallacies about photographic effects

in very hot climates at that time current. The observations showed that

the relation between the sun’s altitude and chemical intensity may be

represented by the equation:

C I _a_ = C I₀ + const. _a_,

where C I _a_ represents the chemical intensity at a given altitude _a_

in circular measure, C I₀ the chemical intensity at the altitude 0, and

const. _a_ a number to be calculated from the measurements. Comparisons

between the observations at Kew and at Pará on the same days in April

showed that the daily mean chemical intensity at the latter place was

from ten to fifty times greater than at Kew, the wide differences being

due to the enormous and rapid variations in intensity from hour to hour

which the chemically active rays experience in the tropics during the

rainy season of the year.[9]

The relation between the sun’s altitude and the chemical intensity of

daylight was more accurately determined by the writer from a long series

of observations made by Roscoe’s method under a cloudless sky near

Lisbon in the autumn of 1867. The fact was confirmed that the direct

sunlight is robbed of almost all its chemically active rays at altitudes

below 10°, and that although the chemical intensity for the same altitude

at different places and at different times of the year varies according

to the varying transparency of the atmosphere, yet the relation at

the same place between altitude and intensity is always represented

by a straight line. The differences in the observed actions for equal

altitudes, which may amount to more than 100 per cent. at different

places, and to nearly as much at the same place at different times of

the year, serve as exact measurements of the varying transparency of the

atmosphere. As illustrating the wide differences in the daily march of

chemical intensity at various places, it was found that, when light of

unit intensity acting for 24 hours is taken as 1,000, the value of the

mean chemical intensity at Kew is represented by the number 94·5, that at

Lisbon by 110, and that at Pará by 313·3.[10]

Roscoe’s hope that measurements of the chemical intensity of daylight

might become part of the regular work of meteorological observations has,

unfortunately, not been realized. Observations of the kind, no doubt,

consume much time, and if properly conducted require the whole service

of a skilled assistant. But considering the enormously important part

played by chemically active light in the economy of nature, and more

particularly in the phenomena of vegetable life, it cannot be doubted

that a sufficiently long-continued series of observations, systematically

carried out on a well-considered plan, at observatories distributed over

the earth’s surface, would afford most valuable information concerning

the facts of solar energy, and incidentally serve to elucidate many

important collateral questions. With the assistance of Mr. Horace Darwin,

Roscoe made attempts to devise an automatic arrangement which should

minimize the labour of observation, but in the absence of any certain

assurance that such an instrument would be utilized, the trials were

discontinued.[11]

It has been thought desirable, for the sake of continuity, to describe

Roscoe’s work on chemical photometry, arising out of his association with

Bunsen, so long as he continued to pursue that subject. A subsequent

paper will, however, be mentioned later.

We must now revert to his work when he returned from Germany.

On leaving Heidelberg to settle again in London, as already stated he

engaged Dittmar as research assistant, and they jointly studied, by

Bunsen’s methods, the absorption of hydrochloric acid and ammonia in

water,[12] proving that these gases do not obey Dalton and Henry’s law.

He next attacked, first with Dittmar’s and then with Schorlemmer’s

assistance, the nature of the aqueous solutions of the common volatile

acids of constant boiling-point, and showed that although the ratio of

acid to water is constant for a definite boiling-point under a particular

pressure, this does not necessarily indicate the existence of definite

hydrates. The composition of the hydrated acid on boiling is entirely

dependent on the pressure under which it is heated—a strong solution

losing acid, and a weak solution losing water until the residue in each

case acquires a constant composition, depending upon the pressure under

which it is boiled.[13]

In those days Gmelin’s “Handbuch” was the chief repository of chemical

knowledge—or the want of it—and many suggestions as to possible

profitable fields of inquiry were to be gleaned from its pages. One such

subject was perchloric acid and its compounds, concerning which but

little was then known beyond the composition of potassium perchlorate,

established by Stadion as far back as 1816. Roscoe, with Schorlemmer’s

assistance, made a fairly complete investigation of perchloric acid and

its hydrates, and a number of its salts.[14]

He narrowly escaped a serious accident when working with ethyl

perchlorate, first prepared in 1840 by the American chemists Hare and

Boye, and known to be extremely unstable. He was engaged in filtering a

few cubic centimetres of the liquid into a test-tube, when the compound

exploded with great violence, and a deep hole was bored into the base

of the filter-stand, and many hundreds of fragments of glass were driven

into his hand. That filter-stand was long an object of interest to

visitors in the private laboratory of the old Owens College.[15]

The writer subsequently prepared thallium perchlorate for him in a pure

state, determined its composition, and established its isomorphism with

the alkaline perchlorates, the crystallographic characters of which had

been previously ascertained by Kopp.[16]

But Roscoe’s most important contribution to inorganic chemistry was

unquestionably his research upon vanadium and its compounds, which

occupied him for the greater part of five years. About 1865 his attention

was drawn to the occurrence of vanadium in some of the copper-bearing

beds of the Lower Keuper Sandstone of the Trias which were then being

worked at Alderley Edge and Mottram St. Andrews in Cheshire. He

obtained possession of a large quantity of a lime precipitate, which

was found to contain about 2 per cent. of vanadic acid. It was a most

unpromising material, but eventually a method was worked out by which

the vanadium was extracted as an ammonium vanadate: this on heating

yielded vanadic acid. Great difficulty was met with in freeing the

vanadic acid from accompanying phosphoric acid. Even small quantities of

phosphoric acid cause the vanadic acid after fusion to solidify as a

pitch-like amorphous mass. It was the writer’s privilege to assist in

the early stages of this investigation, and it fell to his lot to carry

out the various experiments which eventually served to establish the

composition of the oxides of vanadium, the true nature of its volatile

chloride, the existence of hitherto unknown oxychlorides, and of the

mononitride which Berzelius had regarded as the metal, and lastly to

fix its real atomic weight and to show that it was approximately 16

below that assumed by Berzelius. It was only very gradually that the

true chemical relationships of vanadium revealed themselves. For a time

the indications were contradictory and perplexing. The first clue was

given by Rammelsberg’s observation that vanadinite is isomorphous with

pyromorphite and mimetesite—analogously constituted minerals containing

phosphorus and arsenic. The next significant fact to be discovered

was that by the action of a reducing agent it was possible to obtain

a solution of a vanadium oxide which on reoxidation to vanadic acid

appeared to require as much oxygen as Berzelius’s vanadium, regarded

as metal, would have needed. When it was discovered that the volatile

chloride which Berzelius had considered was a trichloride and free from

oxygen, in reality contained oxygen, and was analogous in constitution

to phosphoryl chloride, the whole matter was rapidly cleared up, and

the chemical affinities of vanadium to phosphorus, arsenic, and the

other members of the trivalent group were established. This, of course,

necessitated altering the formulæ of the vanadium compounds hitherto

described.

At the close of the College Session 1866-1867, Roscoe took away with him

the laboratory journals containing the results of the inquiry as far as

it had progressed, and worked at them at Roddam Hall, near Alnwick, which

he had taken for the Long Vacation.

The following letters have reference to this matter:

RODDAM, NEAR ALNWICK,

_August 26, 1867_.

I write a line to say that I hope you are getting on well and

that I shall soon hear from you.… I want you very much to stay

with me till April to settle the vanadium and light matters

and help me in London with my lectures.… I have at last found

out about vanadium. The acid is V₂O₅ like P₂O₅. The chloride

VOCl₃ like POCl₃ and the solid chlorides VOCl₂, VOCl, etc.

This explains the isomorphism of the vanadate of lead and the

corresponding phosphate and lots of other points. It becomes

very interesting now.

Pray write a line and say whether you will stay till April, and

when you will be back.

The first paragraph in the next letter alludes to the circumstance that

the present writer had just returned from Lisbon, where he had carried

out the photometric measurements already referred to.

RODDAM HALL, NEAR ALNWICK,

_September 12, 1867_.

I was very glad to hear by your note received to-day of your

safe arrival and the success of your observations.… You did

quite right in returning home rather than wait indefinitely for

the _Jerome_. The working out of your Pará and of the Lisbon

direct and diffuse-light experiments will take some time and

labour, but I believe the results will repay the trouble.…

I have been up to the Dundee [British Association] meeting for

a few days, but I now, in all probability, shall stop here, so

that I can at once answer your letter.

Please ask Joseph [Heywood] to send me per book-post _Pogg.

Ann._, vol. 98, in which volume is Rammelsberg’s paper on the

isomorphism of vanadates and phosphates. There is no doubt in

my mind that vanadic acid is V₂O₅, and it will be _exceedingly_

interesting to work out the vanadates which must all be

explained as phosphates. The ordinary white NH₃ salt is NH₄VO₃

(like NaPO₃) and is a meta-vanadate. The bi-vanadates can also

be explained, but all need re-preparation and analysis. Did I

tell you that we have now got

V₂O₅, V₂O₄, V₂O₃, V₂O₂ (I wish we had V also!)

V₂O₂Cl₆, V₂O₂Cl₄, V₂O₂Cl₂, and V₂O₂Cl₆, or VOCl₃, VOCl₂, VOCl

At St. Andrews I saw Professor Heddle; he has a crystal half

apatite and half vanadinite, and he threw out the suggestion

long ago that vanadic acid is V₂O₅.… I hope you will write soon

and let me hear what you have to say about my plan. I will then

write what I think of your ideas.

* * * * *

RODDAM,

_Tuesday, September 17, 1867_.

I have now edited the atomic weight determinations by

oxidation, and also the various oxides of vanadium. I have

now to do the chlorides. Many points still remain requiring

clearing up.

(1) As regards the slow oxidation of the V₂O₃

(Berzelius’s suboxide); a sample made on November

13, 1866, weighing 0·7507, weighed on June 12, 1867,

0·8733. This corresponds to an oxide higher than V₂O₄

(V = 51·4). Now I want this oxide and tube drying under

the air-pump and weighing carefully and keeping for

further examination (the weight of tube and oxide was

3·6066 on June 12th last).

(2) When a neutral solution of V₂O₂ in SO₄H₂, got by

zinc reduction, and neutralized by excess of zinc, is

exposed to a current of air, it goes brown, and this

brown colour does not alter. Analysed by permanganate

it would seem to contain V₂O₄. I want this confirming.

(3) Try to get sight of a copy of Greg and Lettsom’s

“British Mineralogy” (you can go and call on Mr. Robt.

P. Greg, Greg Bros., Chancery Lane, and ask him to lend

you the book for me). Under “Vanadinite” you will see

some mention of Heddle and his observations. I find

nothing about him in Rammelsberg’s paper.

(4) Has V₂O₄ been prepared by heating the suboxide V₂O₃

in the air at low temperatures? Is it green?

The thing above all others necessary for us now is to get the

_metal_. We must set about this at the beginning of the session.

If you have time before you go away to clear up these four

preliminary points I shall be glad.

* * * * *

RODDAM,

_September 26, 1867_.

The first thing to do when we begin will be to try to get the

metal V = 51·3 by forming the ammonio-chloride and reducing

the nitride in ammonia.… If we only can get 0·5 of metal the

question of atomic weight is settled beyond dispute.

I have now collated all the experiments: (1) On the oxides

of vanadium; (2) on the determination of atomic weight

by reduction of V₂O₅ to V₂O₃; (3) on the oxychlorides

and determination of atomic weight from the chlorine

determinations. These latter require re-calculation as I do not

know how much should be allowed for as impurity in the silver.

Still, I see already that this alteration can be but very

slight, and the numbers agree very well, viz. (1) mean at. wt.

from reduction expts. 51·362 (probable error 0·068); (2) mean

of 9 volumetric chlorine determinations of the oxytrichloride

61·28; (3) mean of 8 weight determinations of chlorine 61·21,

so that as far as I yet see the true atomic weight is 51·30.

I am obliged by your extract from Greg and Lettsom. When in St.

Andrews I saw Professor Heddle, and he promised to send me some

crystallized specimens of vanadinite and pyromorphite existing

in one crystal.

I think I have got quite matter enough for one paper, but I

should like to have the metal if only in sufficient quantity to

oxidize up to V₂O₅ and determine the increase. Everything can

be very nicely used, and all fits in well; but, of course, such

a first paper must in some points be imperfect.

I think it is perhaps best that ⸺ should give the lectures, as

I am sure to want you in London several Saturdays—otherwise I

should have been very glad for you to have taken the course.

You will be back on Saturday, October 5th, I suppose. We must

re-calculate all the analyses with the exact atomic weight.

This can soon be done, and I should like to get this first

part off my hands before long.

I hope you are enjoying this splendid autumn weather.

…

As regards the blue oxide got by gradual oxidation of V₂O₃

(suboxide) we have analyses proving it to be V₂O₄—by oxidation.

It is very possible that the further increase in weight is due

to the hydration of this oxide. We must wait until the green

substance remains constant, and we must then determine the

water and the V₂O₅.

Roscoe’s first memoir on the subject was read to the Royal Society on

December 19, 1867, and was made the Bakerian Lecture of that session.[17]

On February 14, 1868, he gave a Friday evening discourse at the Royal

Institution “On Vanadium, one of the Trivalent Groups of Elements,”

when the writer acted as his lecture-assistant. Having arranged the

experimental illustrations, the assistant spent a spare half-hour in

wandering through the old laboratories in the cellars of the Institution,

sacred to the genius and labours of Davy and Faraday. In looking over

some specimens in a cupboard he came upon a small bottle containing

ammonium vanadate, labelled “Sent to me by Berzelius. 1831,” and on it

Faraday’s well-known monogram by way of signature. A portion of the

substance was afterwards placed at Roscoe’s disposal by the late Sir

Edward Frankland, at the time Fullerian Professor of Chemistry. On

examination it was found to contain considerable quantities of phosphoric

acid, thus serving to indicate the probable cause of the discrepancy

between the numbers obtained by Berzelius and Roscoe in the course of the

atomic weight determinations. It had been observed that the presence of

even traces of phosphorus prevents the complete reduction in hydrogen of

the vanadium pentoxide to vanadous oxide.

Some little time after the appearance of the first memoir on vanadium,

the writer proceeded to Heidelberg to study under Bunsen, to whom at that

time practically all Roscoe’s senior students who were in a position to

go to Germany were sent. It had been reported in a French periodical on

popular science that Roscoe had been awarded the Copley medal for his

work on vanadium, and of course his former assistant had hastened to

congratulate him on that event.

CAMFIELD PLACE, HATFIELD, HERTS,

_September 13, 1868_.

In the first place let me thank you for your letter and

congratulations upon the great French discovery! Many of these

Parisian wonders have after all turned out myths—and this last

is, I believe, no exception—the expression “Medaille de Copley”

is, so far as I am aware, the French (and bad French too!) for

the “Bakerian Lecture.” I am, however, none the less obliged

to you for your good wishes on this occasion, and for all the

valuable help which in many ways you gave me.

…

Thanks for your news of my dear friend. I have been very remiss

in not writing to him. Tell him so, please; and ask him to send

me the first proof-sheets of his “Filtration” paper for me to

translate; unless, indeed, you do it yourself, as I am sure you

can perfectly well. Give B[unsen] my kindest regards, and say

that I will write to him soon.

Part II of “Researches on Vanadium,” dealing with the chlorides VCl₄,

VCl₃, and VCl₂, and metallic vanadium, which he obtained by heating the

dichloride in hydrogen, was presented to the Royal Society on June 16,

1869,[18] and his last memoir, treating of the bromides, and of certain

of the metallic vanadates, including vanadinite which he prepared

artificially, on April 7, 1870.[19]

With the mention of a short communication, “On Two New Vanadium

Minerals,” to the _Proceedings of the Royal Society_ for 1876,[20]

and of a lecture on “Recent Discoveries about Vanadium” at the Royal

Institution, the foregoing statement includes all Roscoe’s published

contributions to the history of vanadium. As regards original work, he

handed over the subject to his senior students, and under his inspiration

and direction a considerable number of communications from the Owens

College Laboratory were made to the Chemical Society from Crow (1876),

Bedson (1876), H. Baker (1878), Kay (1880), Brierley (1886), Hall (1887),

and published in the _Transactions of the Chemical Society_.

* * * * *

Other noteworthy contributions by Roscoe to inorganic chemistry are his

study of tungsten compounds, in which he describes for the first time the

existence of the pentachloride WCl₅ and the corresponding pentabromide

WBr₅,[21] and his discovery of uranium pentachloride, UCl₅.[22]

These compounds are of considerable theoretical interest on account of

their “anomalous” character. He also discovered columbium trichloride,

CbCl₃, which he found to have the remarkable property of decomposing

carbon dioxide when heated in that gas with the formation of columbium

oxychloride, CbOCl₃, and carbon monoxide—a reaction not exhibited by

any other metallic chloride (_Chem. Soc. Abstracts_, 1878, 272), and he

determined the vapour densities of the chlorides of lead and thallium

which he showed to be normal.[23]

An examination of the earth metals contained in samarskite proved

that the rare earth-metal announced by Delafontaine under the name of

“philippium” was a mixture of yttrium and terbium.[24]

The spark spectrum of terbium was at the same time mapped by him and

Schuster. An examination of a specimen of oxide which ought to contain

“philippium” in large quantities if that chemical element existed showed

no conclusive evidence of any other metals than yttrium or terbium.[25]

In 1882 he sent to the French Academy a note on a re-determination of

the atomic weight of carbon by the method of Dumas and Stas, using Cape

diamonds, and obtained the value 12·002 (O = 16) as the mean of six

experiments (_Chem. Soc. Abstracts_, 1882, 724). He also showed, with

the assistance of Schuster, that the spectrum of the carbon dioxide

furnished by the South African diamond was identical with that furnished

by other forms of carbon.

So long as he remained in Manchester Roscoe was in the habit of

making occasional contributions to the meetings of the Literary

and Philosophical Society on general or local interest. Among

these communications were papers on arsenic-eating in Styria; on a

crystallizable carbon compound in the Alais meteorite; on the amount of

carbonic acid in Manchester air; on the corrosion of leaden hot-water

cisterns; Dalton’s first table of Atomic Weights, etc.—all of which are

printed in the _Proceedings_ or _Memoirs_ of the Society.

Roscoe was largely instrumental in making spectrum analysis first known

to British men of science and the British public generally. Almost

immediately after the publication of Bunsen and Kirchhoff’s classical

paper in _Poggendorff’s Annalen_, he translated it for the _Philosophical

Magazine_. He also gave many public lectures on the subject, beginning

with that at the Royal Institution on March 1, 1861—one of the most

successful of the many he delivered there. Indeed, there were few of our

larger towns in which he was not invited at one time or other during the

sixties and early seventies to lecture on that astonishing development

of nineteenth-century science. These lectures involved no inconsiderable

effort. They necessitated much bulky and fragile apparatus difficult

to transport. Some of the illustrations could only be shown to a large

audience by means of the electric lantern, and this, in those days,

needed the provision of a large battery of Groves’s cells; electricity

“laid-on” by a public authority was not then, as now, almost everywhere

available.

One of these courses of six lectures given to the Society of Apothecaries

of London in 1868 was subsequently published, with additions, in an

admirably illustrated volume which had a considerable measure of

success—a second edition, still more largely augmented owing to the

extraordinary rapidity with which knowledge on celestial chemistry

increased, being called for within a year. In the preparation of a third

and fourth edition he was assisted by his friend Dr. Schuster. As the

successive editions show, the rate at which literature accumulated round

the subject was altogether unprecedented in the history of scientific

discovery.

Roscoe made an attempt to apply the spectroscope to the Bessemer process

of steel manufacture, and for this purpose caused a long series of

observations to be made, first at Brown’s Atlas works in Sheffield,

and then at the Crewe works of the L. & N.W. Railway Company, when a

considerable amount of information concerning the peculiarities of the

spectrum of the converter-flame was gained, mainly by the observations of

Dr. W. Marshall Watts, a former student and one of his assistants, who

took over the subsequent conduct of the inquiry.

Considering his interest in the subject, comparatively little original

work on spectroscopy was published by Roscoe.

The following is a list of the inquiries with which he was concerned:

“On the Effect of Increased Temperature upon the Nature of

the Light Emitted by the Vapour of Certain Metals on Metallic

Compounds.” By H. E. Roscoe and R. B. Clifton. _Manchester

Phil. Soc. Proc._ II. (1860-1862), pp. 227-230.

“Note on the Absorption-spectra of Potassium and Sodium at Low

Temperatures.” By H. E. Roscoe and A. Schuster. _Roy. Soc.

Proc._ XXII. (1874), pp. 362-364.

“On the Absorption-spectra of Bromine and Iodine Monochloride.”

By H. E. Roscoe and T. E. Thorpe. _Phil. Trans._ CLXVII.

(1878), pp. 207-212.

“Note on the Identity of the Spectra Obtained from the

Different Allotropic Forms of Carbon.” By H. E. Roscoe and A.

Schuster. _Manchester Lit. Phil. Soc. Proc._ XIX. (1880), pp.

46-49.

“The Spectrum of Terbium.” By H. E. Roscoe and A. Schuster.

_Chem. Soc. Jour._ XLI. (1882), pp. 283-287.

The only attempt he was able to make to contribute to our knowledge of

the chemistry of the sun by spectroscopic observations had an unlucky

ending. He formed one of the members of the Government expedition sent

to Sicily to observe the total solar eclipse of December 22, 1870. The

following letters refer to this subject:

VICTORIA PARK, MANCHESTER,

_November 2, 1870_.

Lockyer has asked me to go with him in the American Eclipse

Expedition. I have a good mind to do so, but I have written

to say that I was not sure that I could make the observations

alone (!), and that it would be very desirable that you should

go too! So we shall see what comes of it.

I am unfortunately laid up with an attack of gout, which quite

disables me and reduces me to the level of the beasts that

perish. However, I hope soon to be all right again.

I will write to Francis about the Lisbon paper, which ought

certainly to be out.…

Did Schorlemmer write to you about your attacking the Germans

for attacking the French? He was quite wild, and came up to me

in such a state of excitement that I could scarcely understand

what he said. However, under the influence of cigars and a

bottle of sherry he cooled down again and perhaps has buried

his resentment.

Huxley comes for the first of the Science Lectures on Friday.

I am delighted to hear of your numbers of evening students, and

was much pleased by your Introductory. I have no doubt that the

laboratory will fill too. You must have patience.

* * * * *

OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER,

_November 19, 1870_.

_Of course_ you come to Sicily.… Lockyer thinks of going on

December 8th. Perhaps I may go a day earlier—with you if you

can come—and spend twenty-four hours in Heidelberg.

I send box, stand, papers, and all I can find—except insolation

affairs which cannot yet be got out of H⸺’s hands. He shall

have no peace till they are ready, and they shall then be

sent at once to you. _You_ will be responsible for the whole

apparatus being in order. Look them over carefully.… You know

what is wanted.

Unfortunately H.M.S. _Psyche_, the vessel conveying the party from

Naples, was wrecked off Aci Reale, about a couple of miles to the north

of the classic Cyclops rocks, and under the shadow of Etna, by striking a

submerged and uncharted rock. The ship was badly holed, and rapidly began

to fill, but fortunately the weather was fine and the sea calm, and all

were got safely on shore. The cliffs were scarcely 200 yards away, but

the landing was difficult, the jagged reefs of lava seeming to afford no

sure footing. Eventually all the instrumental equipment was also landed,

in a more or less damaged condition, but much of the personal baggage

was lost. A letter written by one of the members of the expedition which

found its way into a Manchester newspaper thus describes the event:

We formed ourselves into a line to pass the things along the

rocks to the prominence which we had mounted.… Everybody

worked with a will, and laboured like galley-slaves. The ship

had now settled down considerably; the water was up to her

quarter, and the boats pushed off in the expectation that she

would roll off the reef. By this time we had almost stripped

the ship of everything easily movable, and we prepared to get

it to a secure place. The nearest point habitable was Catania,

seven miles to the south, and we got the boats ready to take

ourselves and our things thither.… Roscoe assumed command of

our expedition. Everybody seemed to look to him instinctively.

I shall never forget the sight of him, standing, with his

legs apart to steady himself on a narrow piece of the lava

rock, with his arm stretched out, giving his orders with the

authority of one who seemed born to command. As the gig was

about to push off I saw him look round, and when he saw me he

motioned for me to get into it.… In a few hours the remainder

of the party arrived, and shortly afterwards the luggage and

apparatus.

It was arranged that Roscoe, assisted by the late Sir George Darwin and

Mr. Bowen of Harrow School, should make observations on the spectrum

of the corona from a position on Mount Etna as high as the snow would

permit. On the day before that of the eclipse the party had toiled up

more than 5,000 feet of the mountain with their instruments strapped

on the backs of half a dozen mules, to a deserted hut on the side of

the volcano. The night was spent in a storm of rain and snow, and next

morning, in a piercing wind, the instruments were put together with

benumbed fingers. As the sun was gradually covered, the sky became

clouded over and the upper part of Etna was completely enveloped in fog,

and during the minute of totality a violent hailstorm broke over the

party, rendering all observations impossible.

A number of measurements of the chemical intensity of daylight during the

progress of the eclipse were, however, made by the writer at Catania,

some little distance away, by the method described by Roscoe in the

Bakerian Lecture for 1865. These showed that the diminution in the total

chemical intensity of the sun’s light during an eclipse is directly

proportional to the magnitude of the obscuration of the solar disc.[26]

This matter is referred to in the following letter.

_June 11, 1871._

The results are very interesting, and you have worked them out

in an _admirable_ manner. I had no idea that so much could be

made out.

I am writing at once to Airy and Lockyer to ask them whether

we may not send the paper to the Royal Society (last meeting

on _Thursday next_) so as to have it in series with our other

papers.

I have just heard from Wild, the director of all the Russian

observatories, that he is anxious to adopt the plan over all

the Russias, and wants an automatic arrangement. So I am going

in for it and hope to get a machine made before long. It is

really too important to be delayed.

You deserve great credit for your labours, and by rights the

paper should be _yours alone_, but perhaps we [had] better keep

together. We can do the automatic affair also together if you

like.

The automatic arrangement alluded to has already been mentioned. It was

not proceeded with.

CHAPTER VIII

ROSCOE AND CHEMICAL LITERATURE

Roscoe’s services to chemistry are to be measured as much by his

contributions to its educational literature as by his efforts to enlarge

its boundaries by original inquiry. For there can be no question that his

various text-books, ranging from the most elementary “first-steps” and

primers, through different grades to the most comprehensive of treatises,

have proved of the greatest service to the teacher, and have exercised a

profound influence in the diffusion of chemical knowledge in this country

and abroad.

His “Lessons in Elementary Chemistry,” one of the earliest of Macmillan’s

series of class text-books, was first published in 1866, the fair copy

for the press being written out with characteristic neatness by his

wife. Its appearance so soon after the remarkable report of the Duke of

Devonshire’s Commission which had awakened widespread attention to the

almost universal neglect of all science teaching in our public schools

was most timely. The book went through edition after edition, and

despite the competition of dozens of similar works is still a favourite

class-book.

At the suggestion of his friend Lothar Meyer it was translated into

German by Schorlemmer, and published by Vieweg & Son, and has been

largely used in German schools and colleges. Translations have also

appeared in Russian, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish, in modern

Greek, Japanese, and in one of the Indian vernaculars, Urdu. Concerning

this last translation, Roscoe used to tell an amusing story. The Urdu

work was lithographed, not printed, the page being nearly twice the

size of that of the English original, which was a small octavo. The

illustrations were also proportionately magnified, including that showing

the length of a decimetre and its sub-divisions of centimetres and

millimetres!

Still more successful, as regards its sale, was his “Chemistry Primer,”

published in 1870, and intended to serve as the first step in chemistry

in schools. It also was widely translated, editions having appeared

in Icelandic, Polish, German, Italian, Japanese, Bengali, Turkish,

Malayalam, and Tamil.

He also published two text-books on “Inorganic Chemistry,” one for

beginners, in conjunction with Dr. Lunt; and a larger one for advanced

students, in association with Dr. Harden, each of which has reached a

second edition.

A far more ambitious undertaking was the preparation and publication

of the large “Treatise on Chemistry,” in the writing of which he had

the invaluable co-operation of his colleague Schorlemmer. The first

volume appeared in 1877. It is so well known that no description of it

is necessary. It is an eminently readable work, admirably printed and

beautifully illustrated. Indeed, in style and appearance it is hardly

approached by anything of the kind in the language. It was translated

into German by Schorlemmer, and published by Vieweg & Son, and has now

largely replaced the time-honoured Graham-Otto as a text-book in German

colleges and technical schools. Unfortunately, owing to Schorlemmer’s

death in 1892, the organic section in the English edition was never

finished. It has, however, been completed in the German edition under the

direction of the late Professor Brühl of Heidelberg—a circumstance which

would seem to throw some light on the comparative position of organic

chemistry in this country and in Germany. It ought, however, to be stated

that if the whole of the organic section were compiled with the same

attention to historical detail, and the same fullness of information that

characterizes the inorganic portion, the work would become practically

unsaleable on account of its size. At the time the treatise was planned

the extraordinary expansion of organic chemistry which has occurred

during the past forty years could hardly have been anticipated. It may

be, as old Thomas Fuller wrote, that “learning hath gained most by those

books by which the printers have lost.” But philanthropy is not the first

business of publishers.

The inorganic section of the English work has passed through several

editions, and was thoroughly revised and largely re-written from time to

time with the help of numerous collaborators. The fifth edition on “The

Metals and their Compounds” made its appearance in the autumn of 1913—and

is a goodly volume of nearly 1,500 pages. Roscoe, then in his eightieth

year, worked hard at the revision and read the proofs with all the care

and diligence he expended on the original work.

Some time prior to 1895 he was induced by his friend, the late Sir Wemyss

Reid, to undertake the editorship of the Century Series of Biographies

of Scientific Men, projected by Cassell & Co. To this he contributed a

popular account of the life and work of Dalton under the title of “John

Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry”—a little work which he wrote

with much zest and a thorough appreciation of the fine character of the

grand old Cumbrian Quaker.

Mention has already been made of the “New View of Dalton’s Atomic

Theory,” which Roscoe published in collaboration with Dr. Harden. This

book is of considerable interest and value in regard to the genesis of

a conception which marks a turning-point in the history of chemistry.

From a careful study of Dalton’s manuscripts and note-books which had

been discovered in the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Society

of Manchester, the authors were led to conclusions concerning the origin

of the atomic theory of chemistry which differ fundamentally from

those which had been generally accepted. It had hitherto been supposed

that it was the experimental discovery of the law of combination in

multiple proportions which, in his search for an explanation of this

fact, led Dalton to the idea that chemical combination consists in the

approximation of atoms of definite and characteristic weight, the theory

of atoms being adopted to explain the facts discovered by chemical

analysis. In reality the exact opposite was the case. It was the theory

of the existence of atoms of different weights that led Dalton to the

discovery of the facts of combination in multiple proportions.

The late Dr. Debus, some two years previously in a pamphlet published

at Cassell, had reached a similar conclusion from a study of Dalton’s

published works, but by a different line of argument. As a matter of

priority there is no doubt that to Debus belongs the credit of first

pointing out that the commonly accepted view of the genesis of Dalton’s

atomic theory is erroneous, but it is no less true that the method of

reasoning by which he came to that conclusion cannot be substantiated

even if it is not actually disproved by the evidence from Dalton’s

note-books. Of course the idea of atoms, that is, of small indivisible

particles, did not, as is popularly supposed, originate with Dalton:

it is older than Science itself. How and where it first arose cannot

be exactly stated. Dr. Debus attributes it to Moschus, a Phœnician

philosopher living at Sidon about 1100 B.C. It was resuscitated by

Gassendi in the middle of the seventeenth century, and applied by Boyle,

who speaks of it as the Phœnician philosophy, to the explanation of

chemical phenomena. Newton made use of it to explain Boyle’s law and

the “spring of air.” Dalton almost certainly derived it from Newton,

with whose corpuscular notions he was quite familiar, and employed it

to explain the phenomena of diffusion and absorption. He was therefore

quite ready to extend it to all gaseous phenomena, and indeed to chemical

phenomena in general, to the extent that it seemed applicable.

It has been held that Dalton anticipated Avogadro in assuming that all

gases contain equal numbers of “atoms” (molecules). Dr. Debus adopts

this view, and assumes that Dalton in 1801 made use of it to explain

the phenomena of the diffusion of gases, and that this idea, along with

his early experiments on nitric oxide and oxygen, led to his atomic

theory. Roscoe and Harden, on the other hand, held that Dalton never

definitely held the view that equal volumes of gases contain an equal

number of atoms (molecules), nor had such a conception any bearing upon

his explanation of the facts of diffusion. Dissatisfied with the theory

which he did hold (viz. the repulsion exerted by an atom on all others of

its kind, but not on atoms of a different kind), he was led to consider

the behaviour of atoms of unequal size, and finding an agreement with

the observed facts, he then sought for means of determining whether

or not the atoms were actually of unequal size, and so was led to the

further developments of the theory. The weight of the evidence goes to

show that Dalton arrived at his theory in the latter half of 1803, and

that assumption on which it turned was “that no two species [of pure

elastic fluids] agree in the size of their particles.” There is no

clear indication that Dalton ever imagined that the simple gases were

diatomic in structure, which, of course, is the main point in Avogadro’s

hypothesis. It seems necessary to set out this matter in some detail

as misapprehension appears to exist, especially in Germany, as to the

merits of the controversy which arose after the appearance of Roscoe and

Harden’s work.

* * * * *

Some years after he had reached the allotted span, Roscoe was induced

to think of putting his reminiscences on paper. It was at no time easy

to get him to talk about himself, and the effort of recalling his

recollections with a view to printing them was irksome to him. The

autobiography consequently made no very rapid progress; it ultimately

got into something like a tangle, and was more than once on the point

of being committed to the flames. However, during a particularly stormy

winter at the seaside, when he was confined to the house, a sustained

effort on the part of a determined coadjutor got it into shape, and

under the title of “The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield

Roscoe, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Written by Himself,” it was published

by Macmillans in the spring of 1906. The book was well received. It

was recognized as possessing at least two of the main essentials of a

successful autobiography—something worth writing about and the faculty

of narration. It is written with sincerity and directness, and with, as

one critic said, “a charming simplicity of style and thought, illumined

throughout by a soft glow of kindly humour” eminently characteristic

of its author, and is of interest as a record of a singularly full and

varied career. The gospel of work never had a more strenuous disciple.

It has historical value also as the story of the educational changes,

particularly in science, which he helped to secure or lived to witness.

It reflects many of his noteworthy features: his strong common sense;

his straightforwardness and honesty of purpose; his liberality and

invincible optimism; his geniality and sense of humour. His enjoyment of

a good story makes him tell it even if he is the victim of it. The whole

is a pleasing picture of a uniformly calm, contented, and successful

life—of the life of one who was what the Romans called “a man of good

fortune,” that is, of one whose prosperity was not the result of chance

or accident, but of wisdom and the capacity to bring its aims and efforts

to a successful ending.

CHAPTER IX

ROSCOE AND THE ORGANIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

Roscoe was elected into the Royal Society in 1863, and served on its

Council from 1872 to 1877, and again during two subsequent periods, viz.

1881-1883 and 1888-1890. He was a Vice-President in 1881-1882, and again

in 1888-1890. He gave two Bakerian Lectures, viz. in 1865 and 1868, and

was awarded a Royal Medal in 1873 “for his various Chemical Researches,

more especially for his Investigations of the Chemical Action of Light,

and of the Combinations of Vanadium.”

He joined the Chemical Society in 1855, and was a member of its

Council in 1860-1864, and again in 1871-1873. He was a Vice-President

in 1873-1875, and again in 1877-1880, and was President from 1880 to

1882. His two presidential addresses, “abstracts and brief chronicles

of the time,” dealt mainly with the results of chemical inquiry during

the preceding year, especially in relation to the inorganic section of

the science. On the first occasion it fell to his duty to refer to the

death of Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, a former secretary and president of the

Society, whose friendship, as his autobiography testifies, he valued “as

that of a true, generous, and noble-hearted man.”

Roscoe was the Mæcenas of the Chemical Society. Indeed, he may be said

to have resembled that grand seigneur in the simplicity and cordiality

which, as the poet tells us, characterized his relations to the men of

his circle. Certainly no Fellow of the Society ever showed himself a more

beneficent or more generous patron. The walls of its rooms bear witness

to his kindly thought and constant remembrance. Its library has been

augmented by gifts from him of close upon a thousand volumes, including

rare alchemical and early chemical works, and of complete sets of some of

the most valuable of the serial publications of the science.

It was in grateful recognition of this liberal and warm-hearted

encouragement of the objects for which the Society was instituted that

his old pupils resolved to commemorate his connection with it by placing,

on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, his bust in the library which

he had done so much to enrich, and at the same time to offer a replica of

Mr. Drury’s admirable work to his family.

Roscoe was one of the original members of the Society of Chemical

Industry, and took a leading part in establishing it on its present basis

as a national institution, with local sections in many of our principal

towns, and branches in certain of our colonies, and in America. How it

originated may be gleaned from the following letter. There had been a

previous attempt to establish a local society with special reference

to the South Lancashire district. But Roscoe, with others of its

projectors, had conceived the idea of placing it on a wider plane, and

the meeting referred to was called to ascertain the general feeling as to

the expediency of the action.

THE OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER,

_April 13, ’80_.

We are going to have a meeting _here_ on Monday next, at 7

p.m., of chemical manufacturers and others, to consider the

question of the establishment of a Lancashire Chemical Society,

or of a more General Institute or Society of Chemical Engineers.

If you can come over I should be very glad, as it is likely to

be an important meeting and your opinion would be of value.

I congratulate you (and Mrs. Thorpe) on your completion of the

paper. We are to decide, or begin to decide, about the Chemical

Society Medal on Thursday, and I hope it will be settled to

your satisfaction.

At this gathering it was decided to attempt to establish a society to

subserve the general interests of chemical industry and not merely those

of the South Lancashire district, and to call a meeting in London to

discuss the project. He presided at this meeting in the rooms of the

Chemical Society when the Society was formally inaugurated. He served

as its first President, and was the first chairman of its Manchester

section. He opened the proceedings of its first annual general meeting in

1881 with an account of the reasons for the formation of such a society;

he indicated its proposed scope, and dwelt upon the many advantages to

science and industry that might be expected to follow its creation. What

he said then is not less pertinent now. Perhaps, indeed, it is even more

so. His words were words of wisdom and of warning. Read in the fierce

light of current events, and of present disabilities, we may well

inquire whether the generation that has passed has been as mindful as

he had hoped it would be of its opportunities. If it had quickened its

energies and marshalled its forces as he encouraged it to do, we should

have been better able to meet the strenuous times that are now in store

for us. For upwards of a century—ever since, indeed, the renascence

of chemical science which originated with Lavoisier—far-sighted men

have been preaching the same story. But to the great majority in this

country it has been as seed fallen by the wayside. Not so abroad. Thanks

mainly to a clearer recognition of the part that science plays under the

changing and progressive conditions of modern life, other nations have

been more heedful: the seed with them fell upon more receptive soil. The

catastrophe which has overtaken us has brought a rude awakening. We are

beginning to realize the imperfection of a system of national education

which has no adequate relation to present-day necessities.

Roscoe, one is consoled to think, lived to see the evidence of this

quickening. The doctrine which he preached with an insistency and

pertinacity that never flagged, during more than half a century, is now,

under the stress of necessity, coming home to men’s business and bosoms

as it never did before.

One proof of the Society’s recognition of its indebtedness to its first

President may be seen in the award to him of its medal on the occasion of

the Nottingham meeting in 1914.

In 1909 he was Honorary President of the Seventh International Congress

of Applied Chemistry which met in London in that year. It was his wish

that his friend, Dr. Ludwig Mond, as an eminent industrial chemist,

should be appointed to that office, but Mond declined the position and

proposed Roscoe’s name instead at the preceding meeting in Rome.

To Roscoe, therefore, fell the honour of introducing the Prince and

Princess of Wales—our present King and Queen—to the meeting of three

thousand industrial chemists assembled in the Albert Hall, when the

Prince welcomed the gathering in a felicitous speech. The foreign

delegates were afterwards received in private audience by King Edward

VII, when Roscoe, as Honorary President, had the honour of presenting

them.

Roscoe’s first introduction to the British Association was at the Glasgow

meeting in 1855, when the late Lord Playfair was President of the

Chemical Section, and when he himself acted as the secretary. At this

meeting he read a paper on the results of a joint investigation with

Bunsen on the action of light upon chlorine water, an examination and

extension of Wittwer’s work on the same subject. This was subsequently

published in the _Journal of the Chemical Society_ and in _Liebig’s

Annalen_. As already stated, he acted as one of the local secretaries

at the Manchester meeting of 1861, when he presented a report jointly

with the late Drs. Schunck and R. Angus Smith, “On the Condition of

Manufacturing Chemistry in the South Lancashire District” (_Brit. Assoc.

Rep._ 1861, pp. 108-128). At the Bath meeting in 1864 he gave one of

the evening lectures on the chemical action of light. At the Liverpool

meeting of 1870 he presided over the Chemistry Section.

Then, as now, France and Germany were at war, and that fact naturally

called for reference. But, _Eheu!_ neither the cosmopolitan character

of Science to which he then alluded, nor upwards of forty years of that

comity among those interested in Science and its applications which he

confidently hoped would “render impossible the breaking out of disasters

so fatal to the progress of Science and to the welfare of humanity!” as

he then witnessed, have served to avert an even more fearful disaster.

The small but living fire which he contended would in the end surely

serve to melt down national animosities has been now almost wholly

extinguished by the arrogant pride and lust of power which has obsessed a

nation claiming to be the most enlightened in the world.

In 1884 he again served as President of the Chemical Section at the

meeting in Montreal. In 1887 he was President of the Association at the

Manchester meeting in that year—an honour he prized all the more on

account of his long association with that city. The meeting was notable

as being the largest held since the foundation of the Association, and

was specially characterized by the number of foreign chemists who were

present. He continued to take an active interest in the affairs of the

Association up to the time of his death, and was a constant attendant at

the meetings of its Council.

CHAPTER X

PUBLIC SERVICES—POLITICAL AND PROFESSIONAL WORK

Roscoe’s position in the educational world, and in scientific circles,

coupled with his well-known business capacity and sound judgment,

frequently led to his being invited to place his knowledge and experience

at the service of the State in connection with Royal Commissions and

Departmental Committees. During his tenure of his professorship at

Manchester he served on two important Royal Commissions; the first in

1876, when Mr. Cross, then Home Secretary, nominated him as a member

of Lord Aberdare’s Commission on Noxious Vapours, which led to the

amended Alkali Acts of 1891 and 1892; the second in 1881, when Mr. A.

J. Mundella, then Vice-President of the Education Council, appointed

him a member of Sir Bernhard Samuelson’s Commission on Technical

Instruction—one of the most important Commissions ever issued by reason

of its influence on the industrial history of this country. Roscoe threw

himself heart and soul into its work. The task was thoroughly congenial

to him, for he was profoundly convinced of its importance. It required

long and frequent visits abroad in order to inquire into the methods of

the continental trade-schools and polytechnics, and to judge by direct

observation of their results. The preparation of the Report was a tedious

and complicated business, but with the help of his colleagues, whom he

invited to his holiday-home in the Lakes, it was gradually, as he says,

“licked into shape,” the last touches to its recommendations being made

at the Chairman’s country house in Devonshire.

During the ten years that followed the publication of the Report, Roscoe,

in common with several of his colleagues, addressed innumerable public

meetings throughout the country in order to make its lessons as widely

known as possible. The work of the Commission bore fruit in the Technical

Instruction Act of 1889, and still later and to a greater extent in

the Education Act of 1902. This last measure was preceded by the Royal

Commission on Secondary Education, of which Roscoe was a member under the

chairmanship of the present Lord Bryce. In 1896 he introduced a strong

and representative deputation to urge upon the Lord President of the

Council the desirability of taking steps to enforce its recommendations.

It was then intimated that it was the intention of the Government to

introduce legislation dealing with the organization of our secondary

schools—thus foreshadowing the Act of 1902.

Although more than thirty years have passed since the Report of the

Technical Instruction Commission was issued, it may still be read with

profit. Indeed, the lessons it teaches are singularly applicable to the

present juncture. In spite of what has been accomplished, Roscoe was far

from being satisfied with our national position. In 1906 he wrote: