Toiling Upward.

WILLIAM HYDE WOLLASTON, M.D.

Ir is a common notion that great talents and great genius are inherited. All great men-so runs the dictum-have been descended from mothers if not fathers intellectually great. Examples are given from the days of Cæsar downwards of warrior, poet, statesman, and divine, to prove the truth of the assertion. Whether this be so or not is very doubtful: as in the case of omens, dreams, and superstitions generally, while much is always made of the seemingly strong cases, we hear little or nothing of the cases in which the supposed law fails; and it is quite immaterial, since each man's life must be judged not by what he does owe or is supposed to owe to others, but by his own individual exertions, by the manner in which he has worked out that life for the good of the human race in the sight of God and of his fellow-men.

William Hyde Wollaston, the subject of our present article, was one of a numerous family. The Rev. Francis Wollaston, rector of Chiselhurst, in Kent, and of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, as also precentor of St. David's Cathedral, was the father of seventeen children, and of these William was the second son. They are descended from an ancient family in Staffordshire. Of the father nothing very remarkable is recorded beyond the fact that, from his own observations, he made an extensive catalogue of the northern circumpolar stars, which, with an account of the instruments employed, and tables for the reductions, was published in 1800, under the title of "Fasciculus Astronomicus." The grandfather, William Wollaston, is celebrated as the author of the "Religion of Nature Delineated," which, as in the generality of theological works, and especially of unfinished ones, exposed the author to a great deal of bitter controversy and severe censure, alike unmerited and undeserved. William Hyde first saw the light on the 6th August, 1766. After passing through the sorrows and pleasures of schoolboy life as it was a century ago, he entered at Caius College, Cambridge. It is certain that his youth had been well spent, for we find that at the university he was noted as a diligent, hard-working and it will be generally found that idle men have been idle boys and youths, and that notwithstar ding the many who have by almost herculean labour succeeded in some measure in atoning for misspent youth, the number is few compared with the many who never do so; so that

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Young Wollaston abandoned the profession of his father and grandfather for that of medicine, and took his degree of M.D. in 1793. He had already, while at Cambridge, made himself a man of mark, for in this same year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and soon after, in 1797, began the first of that long list of contributions on almost every subject within the range of science which adorn the Transactions of the society, and shed a halo of glory around the name of Wollaston. But all was not smooth sailing with Wollaston. He had commenced his professional career at the small town of Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, but soon yielded to the attractions and superior advantages of the metropolis, and accordingly removed to London. Trouble and disappointment awaited him, as it has done many others who, if they do not believe the metropolis to be paved with gold, believe that there, if anywhere, a man will get on. True it is that the metropolis draws to it the superior talent of the country; but then-and this is seldom thought of this talent is so abundant, that the supply is greater than the demand, and the price at once falls. Besides, citizens pay orship to stars and suns when in their zenith, not to poor adventurers who are still far below the horizon of fame. Wollaston's success as a London physician fell far below his expectations, and it was doubtless with a view of obtaining a position and name that he canvassed energetically for the appointment of Physician to St. George's Hospital, then vacant; but in this he was also disappointed, the office being conferred on Dr. Pemberton. Wollaston was intensely mortified thereat; but it is probable that had he succeeded in his wish, the world would have heard very little more of him, almost certainly he would never have attained the fame he did,-so little does short-sighted man know or perceive what is for his own best interests. Wollaston, in the first burst of his vexation, vowed to abandon the study of medicine altogether, declaring he would never write another prescription were it required for his own father. He so far kept to his purpose that he ceased practice, and devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of natural philosophy. This is certainly a kindred subject, and whether Wollaston had at any previous time felt a greater inclination for this than for medicine proper, or whether he thought he could in this way benefit mankind to a greater extent, is uncertain; but he entered on it with a zest, and pursued it with a success and vigour, which goes a great way to atone for his perversity and apparent want of self-reliance in the earlier part of his career. His acts on this occasion, as being the result of a disappointed, peevish, dejected spirit, cannot be commended. He is the true hero who looks upon life as a sacred duty, and in the working out that life meets courageously and undauntedly every adverse blow of fortune. Wollaston, however, laboured well and zealously in his new vocation, going on from strength to strength, being actuated by a love of truth for its own sake, and having ever at heart the benefit of the human race.

Henceforth we must look upon Wollaston as the philosopher,

and it was no well-fitted-up laboratory which he deemed essential to success. He was emphatically a self-helper and a self-worker, and has left an example to all who wish to follow in his steps. The whole of the apparatus with which some of his most remarkable and successful experiments had been performed could be contained on a tea-tray. In chemistry he was distinguished by the extreme nicety and delicacy of his observations, by the quickness and precision with which he marked resemblances and discriminated differences, the sagacity with which he devised experiments and anticipated their results, and the skill with which he executed the analysis of the fragments of new substances often so minute as to be scarcely perceptible by ordinary eyes. And like all truly great men, he was neither arrogant nor dogmatic in his assertions, but was content to let Truth abide her perfect time, knowing that as truth is great, yea, all-powerful, it will and must in the end prevail. He was, we are told, remarkable for the caution with which he advanced from facts to general conclusions, a caution which, if it sometimes prevented him from reaching at once to the most sublime truths, yet rendered every step of his ascent a secure station from which it was easy to rise to higher and more enlarged inductions. His motto, like that of his great predecessor, Newton, was "Work and wait." Like every philosopher who has attained any distinction in these latter days, he was thoroughly impregnated with the Baconian philosophy, and was content to work slowly on step by step,tead of rushing at once, over chasms of every sort, to those general and dogmatic conclusions, crowned and apparently confirmed by brilliant experiments, which has been the practice of the soi-disant philosopher in all ages. Whether it was to this unassuming manner in himself, or to the consciousness in his auditors and readers that he was a man who would not advance what he could not prove to the satisfaction of all, we know not; but certain it is that Wollaston was not embittered by those controversies, false judgments, and false accusations, which generally fall to the lot of every man who by his own hard work, talent, and clear-sightedness, makes or endeavours to make head above his fellows, and to lead them on in new and untried paths of science and art. In former days the inventor seldom reaped the fruit of his own labour. Thanklessly received, often violently opposed in his own lifetime, the invention often lay dormant, while the body of its begetter lay dormant too beneath the lilies of the valley, till the need for some further mechanical or chemical appliance has directed attention to the despised and forgotten inventor. The work has been cleaned from the cobwebs of years, brought into action, and contributed to the enriching of the very men who scouted the inventor a few years before, and laughed at his invention. How much, alas! of this is still too true at the present day! The old, old tale. The present age seldom understands its great men, and only when the icy hand of death has removed the great but neglected mortal ones from sight do they perceive that there has indeed been a prophet among

them. Such, however, was not the fate of Wollaston; since, from his different discoveries, and particularly from that of a method of manufacturing platinum, he is said to have obtained a considerable fortune-over £30,000. No one, however, could have better deserved the rewards due to genius and industry; for not only were the qualities of his mind of a high order, but his application to philosophical investigations and experiments was unremitting.

But it is time to notice some of those discoveries which have made Wollaston's name famous, and conferred such benefits on science and on mankind. They were in general communicated to the Royal Society, and to the Transactions of that body we must look for an account of them. The first, as previously noticed, appeared in 1797. It was on "Gouty and urinary concretions," and was read June 22nd, in which he announced the discovery of several new compounds connected with the production of those maladies.

This paper is the only one, with few exceptions, which has direct reference to the medical profession, and may doubtless be taken as an exponent of the careful, observant eye with which he noted everything when in practice. The next, which was not read till 6th March, 1800, shows that Wollaston was by this time completely devoted to natural science. It is "On double images caused by refraction." After alluding to the various accounts received of this phenomenon, he declares it to be his intention,

"Ist. To investigate theoretically the successive variations of increasing or decreasing density to which fluids in general are liable, and the laws of refraction occasioned by them.

"2nd. To illustrate and confirm the truth of this theory by experiments upon fluids of known density.

And, lastly, To ascertain, by trial upon the air itself, the causes and extent of those variations of its refractive density on which the inversion of objects and other observed phenomena appear to depend.”

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It is a rather lengthy paper, full of experiments, and close mathematical reasoning therefrom; and shows us what great strides science has made during the last half-century, chiefly through the exertions of such men as Davy, Young, and Wollaston. A year after, June 25th, 1801, Wollaston read a paper containing experiments on "The chemical production and agency of electricity.' this paper he shows what of course all agree to now, viz., that the oxidation of the metal is the primary cause of the electric phenomena observed; and also that galvanism and electricity are only modifications of the same phenomena. This he did by the decomposition of water. In this paper, also, he shows us on how small a scale he conducted his experiments for considering "that the decomposition must depend on duly proportioning the charge of electricity to the quantity of water," and not to the size of the vessels. He employed a small capillary tube and very fine gold wire in place of the Leyden jar hitherto employed, and the result, he says, exceeded his anticipations.

On the 24th June, 1802, he read a paper on "A method of examining refractive and dispersive powers by prismatic reflection;" and as showing that the observations of one philosopher are but the germ for the discoveries of future ones, he declares that he has been led to this method by a consideration of Sir Isaac Newton's prismatic eye-glass. On the same day, as a corollary to the foregoing, a paper of his was read on the refraction of Iceland crystal, in which he supports Young's theory of light in opposition to Newton. These papers possess interest for the scientific reader only; but on the 10th November of this same year we find him delivering the Bakerian lecture, in which, availing himself of his previous observations and experiments on refraction, he chose as his subject, "Observations on the quantity of horizontal refraction; with a method of measuring the dip at sea.' This is, of course, of the utmost importance to astronomers and to seafaring men, and is one of those lectures which, though apparently uninteresting and abstruse, have been pregnant with results for the good of mankind. The same may be said of his next paper, read June 24, 1804, in which he announces his discovery of a new metal, called rhodium, from the rose colour of a solution of its salts. This metal is found in crude platina; and he also declares that the new metal palladium is contained in the ore of platina. This is a very interesting paper, and was followed, on July 4, 1805, by one further illustrating the properties of palladium, and its claim to be considered one of the elementary substances. In 1806, Wollaston was appointed joint secretary of the Royal Society with Davy, having previously, on November 14th of the preceding year, delivered his second Bakerian lecture, on 'The Force of Percussion." This, which is essentially a mathematical lecture, illustrates well the range and versatility of Wollaston's mind. The next year we find the distinguished mathematician and chemist descending from his lofty seat to explain, in a paper read March 12th, 1807, "The origin of fairy rings." But perhaps a great man is never better employed than when he endeavours to remove superstition or to replace a falsely assigned cause by the true one. Wollaston's account, which is now generally adopted, is so well known that it need not be repeated. His next paper, read January 28th, 1808, on Superacid and subacid salts," shows him in a very dignified character. From a perusal of the paper we gather that he had anticipated Dalton in his discovery of the law of multiple proportions for combinations of salts; but not having published would not take any credit to himself, but gave it all to his distinguished but ill-requited friend. The next two years appear to have been busy ones to Wollaston, and were distinguished by remarkable discoveries. On March 22nd, 1809, he read a paper "Platina and native palladium from Brazil;" followed, on June 8th, by one in which he proved the identity of columbium and tantalum, thus unwillingly depriving Ekesberg, the Swedish chemist, of his claim to the discovery of a new metal. On the same day was read the description of a reflective gonion eter, which has since

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