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you should acquaint yourself with its Contents. It treats of amatter being-, as I believe, füll of interest i. e. of the connexionthat, to my opinion, exists between allotropic and catalyticphenomena. 1

During our rnidsummer vacations I took a trip into thenorth of Germany, to me a "Terra incognita", rambled aboutin Holstein, visited Hamburg and Berlin, saw many scientificand other friends, made new ones, paid my respects to theSenior of the European philosophers at Potsdam in the RoyalCastle, had a very interesting and long conversation with thateminent old man, touchcd a little the Thuringian Forest, mountedthe Wartburg, where the great Reformer Luther fought againstthe Devil, passcd a couplc of agreeable days at Frankfurt,rcturned home highly satisfied with what I call my "North-poleexpedition", and met my family in good health. Before I setout to my journey, I had worked a good deal and have doneso ever since my return, not quite for nothing I trust, for 1have succeeded in finding out a number of novel "phenomenaof contact" 2 which I hope will add, if not much, at least some-thing to our stock of knowledge regarding the Chemistry ofOxigen.

I have already drawn up a voluminous memoir, in whichthe results of my expcriments are described and knowing thatyou take some interest in this kind of researches, I am verysorry to be prevented (by the smallness of the space allowedto a lctter) from entering into details about my late doings.But to give you at least a slight Idea of the nature of thoseresearches let me teil you that they refer to what they callcatalytic actions so far as these concern oxidation. One of the

1 "Ueber den Zusammenhang der katalitisclien Erscheinungen mit derAllotropie." Basel 1856. See also Poggend. Annal. Bd. 100. 1857. S. 1 andPhil. Mag. Vol. 12. 1856. p. 457.

2 "Ueber einige neue Reihen chemischer Berührungswirkungen" München.Abhandl. Bd. 8. 1857. p. 37.