During the height of the French Revolution, which caused the work of the Abbe Haüy to be suspended for a time, although he was fortunately not one of the many scientific victims of that terrible period, there was born, on the 7th of January 1794, in the village of Neuende, near Jever, in Oldenburg, the man who was destined to continue that work on its chemical side. Eilhardt Mitscherlich was the son of the village pastor, and nephew of the celebrated philologer, Prof. Mitscherlich of Göttingen. His uncle’s influence appears to have given young Mitscherlich a leaning towards philological studies, for during his later terms at the Gymnasium at Jever, where he received his early education, he devoted himself with great energy to the study of history and languages, for which he had a marked talent, under the able direction and kind solicitude of the head of the Gymnasium at that time, the historian Schlosser. He eventually specialised on the Persian language, and when Schlosser was promoted to Frankfort young Mitscherlich accompanied him, and there prosecuted these favourite studies until the year 1811, when he went to the university of Heidelberg. For some time now he had cherished the hope of proceeding to Persia and conducting philological investigations on the spot, and in 1813, an opportunity presenting itself in the prospect of an embassy being despatched to Persia by Napoleon, he transferred himself to the university of Paris, with the object of obtaining permission from Napoleon to accompany the embassy. This visit to Paris must have been one of Mitscherlich’s most exciting and interesting experiences. For Napoleon had just returned from the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, and was feverishly engaged in raising a new army wherewith to stem the great rise of the people which was now re-awakening patriotic spirit throughout the whole of Germany, and which threatened to sweep away, as it eventually did, the huge fabric of his central European Empire.