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and I will not conceal it from you that I have made füll useof its vagueness, having thronged all sorts of reflections andqueer ideas into the opusculum.

On account of its motlcy character I should likc youcould read that stränge composition, but it being written ingerman, I am afraid its Contents will never corae to yourknowledge.

It is, however, time to return to yourself and teil you inwhat manner I have written about you. In the above mentionedbook there is a little chapter bearing the title "Fachmänner"gallice "Specialites" and anglice perhaps — but I am unableto translate the word into your language — I mean to denoteby that term Men devoting their whole life and mind to oneobject. By no means admiring what they call universal geniuses,and being convinced that it is the "specialites" to whom weowe every real progress in science, arts etc., I have, with aview of proving the correctness of ray opinion, drawn up fourslight sketches of such "Fachmänner", of Berzelius, von Buch,Cuvier and of — of — but be it spoken out, of Faraday. I hopeyou will not tax me with indiscretion for having taken thatliberty and believe that in doing so your friend has bcenactuated by the best motives.

As to science I have of late done nothing at all and donot recollect to have passed a winter so inactively and lazilyas the last. When spring calls forth again the dormant powersof the earth, I hope I shall then feel too its congenial influence,and be stirred into action, for there is matter enough to workupon and of laborers there are not too man)'.

My collegue Professor Wiedeman : an excellent philosopherhas (partly on my instigations) taken up Electrolysis again,

1 Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann was born in 1829 at Berlin. He wasprofessor of Physics at Bäle, at Braunschweig, Karlsruhe and from 1871 to hisdeath, which took place in April 1899, at Leipzig. From 1877 he was theeditor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, as successor to Poggendorft.