It is interesting to connect the name of our philosopher with a great institution such as the establishment of the penny post. In 1840 Sir Rowland Hill tells us in his autobiography that he was sorely puzzled to find an ink that, having obliterated the postage stamps, should not be removable. "In my anxiety," he says, "I went so far as to trouble the greatest chemist of the age. Kindly giving me the needful attention, though in an extremely depressed state of health, the result of excessive labour, a fact, of course, unknown to me when I made the application, Mr. Faraday approved of the course which I submitted to him: viz., that an aqueous ink should be used both for the stamp and for obliteration." Referring to this same year we find an interesting entry in Crabb Robinson's Diary. "_May 8th._--Attended Carlyle's second lecture.... It gave great satisfaction, for it had uncommon thoughts and was delivered with unusual animation.... In the evening heard a lecture by Faraday. What a contrast to Carlyle! A perfect experimentalist, with an intellect so clear! Within his sphere, _un uomo compito_. How great would that man be who could be as wise on Mind and its relations as Faraday is on Matter!" Faraday's life as a scientific experimentalist and discoverer is divided into two periods by an interval of four years, during which he did but little, or, compared with his previous performances but little, work. Such a time of rest was indeed rendered absolutely necessary by loss of memory and giddiness, which had troubled him occasionally before, and which now put a stop to his experiments. This period of partial rest commenced with a three months' trip in Switzerland, where he was accompanied by his wife and her brother. Dr. Bence Jones says, "In different ways he showed much of his character during this period of rest. The journal he kept of his Swiss tour is an image of himself. It was written with excessive neatness, and it had the different mountain flowers which he gathered in his walks fixed in it as few but Faraday himself could have fixed them. His letters are free from the slightest sign of mental disease. His only illness was overwork, and his only remedy was rest." A few passages from this Swiss journal are all that can be given. The first stay of any length was made at Thun, whence many walking excursions were undertaken, sometimes indeed Faraday walking as much as forty-five miles in the one day, a sufficient proof that he was not at all bodily ill. The journal gives us many a word-picture of the scenery and of the people, with now and then quaint observations and humorous reflections; let the following passages speak for themselves:--