Dmitri Mendeleev

Once there lived and existed a great learned man with a beard almost as long as God's. And one day the people came to this man and said 'Go to the Lord, and tell him of our misery.' 'I will go,' said the man. So he caught a great bubble, and sat down on top of it, and flew up and up until he pierced the heaven above us. And there he saw …

…Classification of Elements and Its Applications, Proceedings of the Symposium held at IIT Kharagpur to celebrate the centenary of Mendeleev's Periodic Classification, Hindustan Pub. Co., Delhi-110007, India, 1973. 18. T.E. Thorpe, "Scientific Worthies XXVI. Dmitri Ivanowitsh Mendeleeff", Nature , 1889, XL, 193-197. 19. W.A. Tilden, Famous Chemists, The Men and their Work, Books for Libraries, Freeport, New York, 1921 (rep. 1968) pp. 240-258. 20. S.E. Vides Lemus, Clasificacion Periodica de Mendelejew, Editorial del Ministerio de Educacion Publica, Guatemala, 1959, pp. 25-27.