Letter to George F. Fitzgerald from William Ramsay
Title
Letter to George F. Fitzgerald from William Ramsay
Creator
Date
Identifier
GFF 8/97
Description
Handwritten letter from W. Ramsay to George, F Fitzgerald. Dated 3rd January 1894.
W. Ramsay writes to thank Fitzgerald and to extend New Year wishes to his family. He and a colleague, Young, are critiquing misconceptions in physical chemistry and ask Fitzgerald to consider publishing their enclosed letter in Philosophical Magazine. Ramsay discusses experimental inconsistencies due to temperature issues, molecular weight anomalies in liquid mixtures, and ongoing trials with alcohol-chloroform and fused salts like silver nitrate. He also plans to revisit Trouton’s work on heats of respiration using new apparatus and data. His wife sends her best wishes to Fitzgerald’s family for the new year.
4pp.
Transcription:
My dear Fitzgerald,
I don't know if I can thank you for your last letter; if not, here goes. And I am pretty sure I never wrote to wish you, and your wife, and the family a happy new year, and many of them.
Young and I have been meditating on the rash assertions which are concurrent, not to say rife on the critical point, and we venture to ask you to give the enclosed letter a place in the Phil. Mag., under the heading "Gentlemen!" Will you glance through it, and tell me if you think it worth inserting? I think it is time that attention were called to the many absurdities, especially since the Phil Mag. in its....
Last number contains an abstract and are of the most absurd. I may lay around until a good night, twice I myself published the same abundance in 1881, Proc. R.S. the absurdity is all the result of uneven temperature, and though the method of jacketing with naphthalene [sapon?] some do might, some do right, there must have been some flaw in the execution. The mixtures are coming out enormously. In all cases of mixtures of mono molecular liquids, the mol. weight calculated from the molecular surface energy of the mixture is correct, i.e. is the mean of the liquids taken. But alcohol or benzene are an here pair. They combine, and give huge molecular compliance. So we are now trying alcohol or chloroform, in hopes of better success. Beckmann & the freezing process found that alcohol dissolved in benzene, showed a ridiculously high molecular weight.
I am now trying fused salt, I have began with silver nitrate. It goes pretty easily, and appears to show a very complex molecule. But it is perhaps premature to speak till I have tried others, or done silver nitrate again & better. these things want practice.
You told me that Trouton never published anything on heats of respiration. I suppose you must have told me about his experiments. I have now got the apparatus & will start soon. You may remember that I told you that I had tried the process in 1882, I think, but never followed up. But now that young has given all the data for volumes & vapour pressures and a lot of esters, it appears to me worth while to have a try at the other side of the equation.
My wife desires me to say that she specially salutes her equals. And wishes them "all sorts of things' as a Frenchman would say, (but in a restricted sense, there being many things one would not wish ones's worst enemy) for the new year.
Ever yours sincerely,
W. Ramsay
W. Ramsay writes to thank Fitzgerald and to extend New Year wishes to his family. He and a colleague, Young, are critiquing misconceptions in physical chemistry and ask Fitzgerald to consider publishing their enclosed letter in Philosophical Magazine. Ramsay discusses experimental inconsistencies due to temperature issues, molecular weight anomalies in liquid mixtures, and ongoing trials with alcohol-chloroform and fused salts like silver nitrate. He also plans to revisit Trouton’s work on heats of respiration using new apparatus and data. His wife sends her best wishes to Fitzgerald’s family for the new year.
4pp.
Transcription:
My dear Fitzgerald,
I don't know if I can thank you for your last letter; if not, here goes. And I am pretty sure I never wrote to wish you, and your wife, and the family a happy new year, and many of them.
Young and I have been meditating on the rash assertions which are concurrent, not to say rife on the critical point, and we venture to ask you to give the enclosed letter a place in the Phil. Mag., under the heading "Gentlemen!" Will you glance through it, and tell me if you think it worth inserting? I think it is time that attention were called to the many absurdities, especially since the Phil Mag. in its....
Last number contains an abstract and are of the most absurd. I may lay around until a good night, twice I myself published the same abundance in 1881, Proc. R.S. the absurdity is all the result of uneven temperature, and though the method of jacketing with naphthalene [sapon?] some do might, some do right, there must have been some flaw in the execution. The mixtures are coming out enormously. In all cases of mixtures of mono molecular liquids, the mol. weight calculated from the molecular surface energy of the mixture is correct, i.e. is the mean of the liquids taken. But alcohol or benzene are an here pair. They combine, and give huge molecular compliance. So we are now trying alcohol or chloroform, in hopes of better success. Beckmann & the freezing process found that alcohol dissolved in benzene, showed a ridiculously high molecular weight.
I am now trying fused salt, I have began with silver nitrate. It goes pretty easily, and appears to show a very complex molecule. But it is perhaps premature to speak till I have tried others, or done silver nitrate again & better. these things want practice.
You told me that Trouton never published anything on heats of respiration. I suppose you must have told me about his experiments. I have now got the apparatus & will start soon. You may remember that I told you that I had tried the process in 1882, I think, but never followed up. But now that young has given all the data for volumes & vapour pressures and a lot of esters, it appears to me worth while to have a try at the other side of the equation.
My wife desires me to say that she specially salutes her equals. And wishes them "all sorts of things' as a Frenchman would say, (but in a restricted sense, there being many things one would not wish ones's worst enemy) for the new year.
Ever yours sincerely,
W. Ramsay
Source
RDS Library & Archives GFF collection of letters
Contributor
Rights
Copyright RDS Library & Archives. Publication, transmission or display is prohibited without formal written approval of the RDS Library & Archives.
Relation
RDS Science Archive
Format
Manuscript
Language
English
Type
Coverage
1870-1901
Collection
Citation
Ramsay, W, “Letter to George F. Fitzgerald from William Ramsay,” RDS Digital Archive, accessed July 18, 2025, https://digitalarchive.rds.ie/items/show/2322.