OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
HATH-STAT.
LIFE OF LORD KELVIN
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
/ vL sle 1 1 in -Lirui */UA
j O/fi f/ /-s/tc/ffrM/i/i /// fff/f/rr/t <
THE LIFE
OF
WILLIAM THOMSON
BARON KELVIN OF LARGS
BY
SILVANUS P. THOMPSON
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN S STREET, LONDON
1910
QCiC
MATU-
STAT4
LIBRARY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV
THE "LALLA ROOKH," THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, AND THE
" HOOPER "
PAGES
The Lalla Rookh, 585 ; Refitting for a Cruise, 585 ; Non-sectarian
Education, 590 ; Work on the Yacht, 594 ; Reunion of Comrades
in the C.U.M.S., 597; President of the British Association,
597 ; Introduced by Huxley, 599 ; The Address, 599 ; Effects of
the Address, 609; Helmholtz visits Scotland, 612; Cruising,
614; Experiments on Ripples, 614; Prolongation of Galvano
meter Patent, 619; The Western and Brazilian Telegraph Co.,
624 ; Manufacturing the New Cable, 625 ; A Trip to Gibraltar,
626 ; Elected to Life Fellowship at Peterhouse, 628 ; The
Hooper, 629 ; Scientific Work, 633 ; James Thomson appointed
to the Glasgow Chair of Engineering, 634 ; The Hooper sails,
637 ; The Sounding Machine, 637 ; At Madeira, 637 ; The
Misses Blandy, 638 ..... 585-639
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE SEVENTIES
A Cambridge Examinership, 640 ; President of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, 641 ; Inaugural Address to the Society of Telegraph
Engineers, 642 ; To Madeira again, 645 ; Engagement to Miss
Blandy, 645 ; Announcement of the Marriage, 647 ; " Nether-
hall," 649; Prof. Andrew Gray s Reminiscences, 651; Wreck
of the La Plata, 654 ; Owens College, Manchester, 655 ;
Activities of the Period, 658 ; Lighthouses, 658 ; Visits America
for the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, 668 ; Thomson s
Reports, 670 ; Bell s Telephone, 670 ; British Association Meeting
V
M777326
vi LIFE OF LORD KELVIN
PAGES
of 1876, 673 ; Helmholtz s opinion of Thomson, 677 ; Proposed
as Master of Peterhouse, 679 ; The Compass, 679 ; The Sounding
Machine, 68 1 ; Elected Foreign Associate of the Institut of
France, 682 ; Electric Lighting and Transmission of Power, 683 ;
Work on Elasticity, 686 ; Article on Heat, 688 ; Calculating
Machines and James Thomson s Integrating Mechanism, 692 ;
Refusal of the Cavendish Chair, 694 . . . 640-695
CHAPTER XVII
NAVIGATION : THE COMPASS AND THE SOUNDING MACHINE
Thomson s Love of the Sea, 696 ; His Contributions to Navigation,
697 ; The Kelvin Compass, 697 ; Defects of the Old Marine
Compasses, 698 ; Thomson s Improvements, 702 ; His Account
of the Invention, 705; The Astronomer-Royal s Opinion, 710;
Admiralty Officials Objections and Apathy, 710 ; Adoption in
the Navy, 715; James White, Optician, 717; The Sounding
Machine, 719; The Depth Recorder, 723; Lighthouse Lights,
724 ; The Tides, 729 ; The Tide-Gauge, Tidal Harmonic
Analyser, and Tide Predicter, 730 ; Admiralty Committee on
Ships of War, 731 ; Designs of Dreadnotight and Indomi
table, 735 ...... 696-735
CHAPTER XVIII
GYROSTATICS AND WAVE MOTION
Dynamics of Rotation, 736; Experiments on Spinning - Tops and
Gyrostats, 737 ; Liquid Gyrostats, 740 ; Royal Institution Dis
course on Elasticity, 743 ; The Vortex-Theory of Matter, 744 ;
The Gyrostatic Compass, 745 ; Waves, 745 ; Lecture on Waves
to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 748 . 736-752
CHAPTER XIX
IN THE EIGHTIES
Progress of Electric Lighting, 753 ; First Electrical Measuring Instru
ments, 755; The Standard Electric Balance, 756; The British
Association of 1880, 760; Revision of T and T , 761 ; The
Faure Accumulator, 765 ; Promotion of a Company, 769 ;
CONTENTS vii
PAGES
Thomson withdraws from the Promotion, 7 70 ; Address and
Papers at the B.A. of 1881, 770; The Paris Electrical Con
gress, 775 ; Lighting his House by Electricity, 776 ; The
adjourned Paris Conference, 787 ; Lecture on Electrical Units to
the Institution of Civil Engineers, 792 ; Address to the Midland
Institute, 798 ; Awarded the Copley Medal, 799 ; Further
work on Units, 800 ; Electrical Instruments, 804 ; B.A.
Address at Montreal, 806 . . . . 753-809
CHAPTER XX
THE BALTIMORE LECTURES
The Johns Hopkins University, 810; Invitation to Thomson to
Lecture, 811 ; The Audience, 814 ; Difficulties of accepting the
Wave Theory of Light, 8 1 6 ; Equations of Motion in an Elastic
Solid, 820 ; Difficulties in the Solid Elastic Theory, 822 ; Models
and their Use, 834 .... ,, ..., 810-839
CHAPTER XXI
GATHERING UP THE THREADS
Third Refusal to go to Cambridge, 840 ; The Bangor Address,
845; Electrical Instruments, 846; Professorial Work, 851;
Royal Institution Discourse on Capillary Attraction, 852 ;
Politics : The Home Rule Bill, 856 ; Towage of a Boat, 864 ;
Royal Institution Discourse on Age of the Sun s Heat, 865 ;
Jubilee of the Electric Telegraph, 869 ; Work on the Partition
of Space, 873 ; Doings at Netherhall, 876 ; The B.A. of 1888,
878 ; Presidential Address to the Institution of Electrical
Engineers, 88 1 ; The Paris Electrical Congress and other
Activities, 886; The Niagara Commission, 894; President of
the Royal Society, 897 .... 840-904
CHAPTER XXII
THE PEERAGE
Offer of a Peerage, 905 ; The Name " Kelvin," 907 ; Politics,
911 ; Takes his Seat in the House of Lords, 913; Arms of
Lord Kelvin, 914; Lecture on Navigation, 916; Death of
viii LIFE OF LORD KELVIN
PAGES
Professor James Thomson, 918 ; Helmholtz Medallist, 922 ;
Geological Echoes, 923 ; Account of a Visit to Netherhall, 926 ;
Death of von Helmholtz, 938 ; Geology, 941 ; The Popular
Lectures, 946 ; Centenary of the Institut of France, 947 :
Illness, 953 ; Rontgen Rays, 954 ; The Petroleum Committee,
962 . . . . . . . 905-963
CHAPTER XXIII
THE JUBILEE: RETIREMENT
The Jubilee of Lord Kelvin, 964 ; The Conversazione, 965 ;
Presentation of Addresses, 967 ; Conferring of Degrees, 975 ;
Mascart s Address, 979 ; The Corporation Banquet, 981 ;
Account of the Ceremonies, 988 ; White s Instrument Factory,
994 ; Royal Institution Discourse on Contact Electricity of
Metals, 996 ; The Victoria Institute Address, 997 ; Meeting in
Toronto, 1897, 1001 ; Death of Principal Caird, 1006; The
Marconi Company, 1006 ; Visit to Rome, 1009 ; Retirement,
ion . . . . . . . 964-1011
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREAT COMPREHENSIVE THEORY
Hopes of a Molecular Theory of Matter, 1012; "Failure," 1013;
A noble Ambition, 1013 ; Early Work, 1015 : Suggestion that
Heat and Light are Electric, 1018 ; Electricity an essential
Quality of Matter, 1020 ; Maxwell s Electromagnetic Theory of
Light, 1 02 1 ; Thomson s Views, 1023; The Vortex - Atom
Theory, 1027 ; "Steps towards a Kinetic Theory of Matter,"
1032; The Philadelphia Lecture, 1035; The Baltimore Lectures,
1035 ; B.A. Discussion on Electromagnetic Matters, 1040 ;
Presidential Address to the I.E.E., 1899, 1043; Abandonment
of the Vortex- Atom Theory, 1046 ; The Molecular Constitution
of Matter, 1050 ; Hertz s Work on Electric Waves, 1056 ;
Rontgen Rays, 1061 ; "Failure," 1072; The Electron, 1074;
Sir Joseph Larmor s Theory, 1075 ; Further Work, 1076 ; Com
pletion of the Baltimore Lectures, 1080 . . 1012-1085
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER XXV
VIEWS AND OPINIONS
PAGES
Religious Beliefs, 1086; Views on Life, 1092; Sir Edward Fry s
Reminiscences of Visits to Netherhall, 1095 ; The Henslow
Lectures, 1097; Spiritualism, 1104; Vivisection, 1105; Aversion
from Controversy, 1108; His Humour, mo; Love of Music,
mo; Precision in Language, 1117; Dr. Hutchison s Reminis
cences, 1 121; Metaphysics, 1124; Politics, 1128; On University
Organization, 1131 ; Changes in the Tripos, 1132; On Mathe
matics, 1133; Newton and Kelvin, 1145 . . 1086-1146
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CLOSING YEARS
Phosphorescence, 1147; The End of the Century, 1150; Royal
Institution Discourse on Clouds over Dynamical Theory, 1152 ;
Mastership of the Clothworkers Company, 1154; Firm of Kelvin
and James White, Ltd., 1155 ; The James Watt Oration, 1158 ;
B.A. at Glasgow, 1160; Death of Tait, 1163; Visit to United
States, 1164; Privy Counsellor, 1169; Order of Merit, 1170;
Death of Stokes, 1173; Honorary Degrees at London University,
1175; and at the University of Wales, 1 1 79 ; Chancellor of Glas
gow University, n8i ; Eightieth Birthday, 1181 ; B.A. at Cam
bridge, 1182; Undergoes an Operation, 1187; Unveils Faraday
Memorial, 1191; Presidency of Institution of Electrical Engineers,
1195; B.A. at Leicester, 1200; Illness of Lady Kelvin, 1202 ;
Letters to Mascart, 1 204 ; Last Illness and Death, 1 208 ;
Funeral in Westminster Abbey, 1209 . . . 1147-1213
APPENDICES
A. List of Distinctions, Academic and other . . .1215
B. Part I. Printed Books ...... 1223
Part II. Scientific Communications and Addresses . . 1225
C. List of Patents . ...... 1275
INDEX ........ 1279
CHAPTER XV
THE LALLA ROOKH, THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, AND
THE HOOPER
BY the purchase of the Lalla Rookh, a smart sailing-
yacht of 126 tons, Sir William Thomson became
acquainted with navigation in a new phase. All
his life he had been fond of sailing ; but by the
possession of this craft he acquired at first hand a
most intimate knowledge of seamanship and of its
needs. For many years the cruises of the Lalla
Rookh occupied a considerable part of the six
months between the sessions of the University.
When the end of October 1870 compelled him to lay
her up in the Gareloch for the winter, he left her
with regret. He looked keenly forward to the first
of May when he should be able to join his ship. He
was now planning an expedition to the Canaries, to
be followed by an extensive cruise in the Hebrides
with a party of scientific friends in the coming
autumn, and it became necessary to fit out the yacht
with furniture and bedding. To this end he took
counsel with Mrs. Tait, resulting in a lively and
characteristic correspondence :
VOL. II 585 B
586 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
GLASGOW COLLEGE, March 29, 1871.
DEAR MRS. TAIT The question, cotton or linen, for
the Lalla Rookhs berths has, after anxious consideration
and consultation with naval experts, been decided in
favour of linen. The cotton fabric seems to be too hygro-
metric to be suitable for sea-going places.
Will Glasgow do as well as Belfast for getting such a
number (or area) as is required ?
The area for mattress is approximately rectangular,
and 3 ft. 9 i. by 7 ft. In fixing on the size of sheet I
would wish to avoid an error which seems to have
originated in the Levant prior to 725 B.C. (Isaiah xxviii.
v. 20, second clause * of the v.), and which is still deplor
ably prevalent at sea.
I think I ought to have in all 1 2 pr., and therefore (as
the acct. enclosed shows 4 pr. to be already provided) 8 pr.,
with the proper proportion of pillow slips, would be enough.
The other things which I want are, so far as I can judge :
5 dozen towels, equal and similar to those provided by
you for the N.P.L. [Natural Philosophy Laboratory.]
6 large bath sheets of similar material. Sometimes
bath sheets are made thicker (apparently with the idea
of maintaining a constant proportion of thickness to
length or breadth), which is a mistake.
3^ dozen damask table napkins " double damask," I
understand from T ; , has been decided.
10 tablecloths. I forgot to measure the table yester
day when I was at Greenock to see the L. R., now fresh
coppered and almost ready to be launched, but the
dimensions will be sent to you by Captain Flarty. I
think the best quality of damask should be taken for the
tablecloths, as drops from the skylight, accidents through
want of steadiness of platform, etc., etc., require the
strongest resistance against shabbiness of appearance
that the material can give.
I should also have a proportionate quantity of glass-
1 [The verse in question runs "For the bed is shorter than that a man
can stretch himself on it ; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap
himself in it."]
xv THE "LALLA ROOKH " 587
towels, cook s cloths, and dusters, which, with what I have
already, should be enough to serve for several weeks away
from port
Whatever of the above is to be had best from Belfast,
will you order it for me ? For the rest, any hints you
can give will be gratefully received.
I am not unconscious (but as much as possible the
reverse) that I am asking a very great benefit, and taking
advantage to the utmost of the promise you gave me to
help me, when I write so troublesome a list of wants.
But you must allow me absolutely to restrict your kind
ness to ordering the things for me, and directing that the
hemming and marking be done by the people who supply
them, and who certainly will, if required, find persons
ready to undertake those works.
The Committee on Ships of War will continue its
sittings during May, and I am afraid much of June,
partly in London and partly at sea with the Channel
Fleet. So I must give up Teneriffe for this year, which
I do with great regret. Will you tell Guthrie l that I
hope for another visit from him before May, as we got
scarcely anything of the books done last time, there was
so much time wasted on tops, etc. Could he not come
from Ap. 1 8 to 27, which would include an opening
cruise of the L. R. to Arran, Friday till Monday ? Yours
always truly, WILLIAM THOMSON.
The project of an autumn cruise with a party
of scientific friends is set out in a letter to Helm-
holtz, terminated by a postscript from Professor
Tait :-
GLASGOW COLLEGE, March 30/71.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I hope you will be able to come
to the meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh
in the first week of August. After it is over (and I wish
it were over now, as I have the misfortune to be president-
1 Peter Guthrie Tait, his friend and colleague.
588 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
elect) I want you to come and have a cruise for a few
weeks among the Hebrides and West Highlands in a
schooner of 128 X io 6 grammes, which will be my only
summer quarters besides the new College here. I hope
Tait will come too, but he has a great aversion to being
afloat, and without the inducement of your company he
would scarcely be persuadable. I would also ask Clerk
Maxwell and Huxley and Tyndall, which would reach
nearly to the capacity of the Lalla Rookh. Will you let
me have a line when your plans are fixed ?
Many thanks for your last letter. I hope the remaining
anxieties of the campaign in respect to your son soon
ceased, and that he has got through unhurt. I say nothing
just now in reply to what you said about the sympathies
of England. Believe me, yours always truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
On the last page of this letter Professor Tait
wrote :
DEAR PROF. HELMHOLTZ As Thomson has sent
this through me, doubtless for some great moral purpose,
I beg to add that I have no aversion to being afloat, but
that I prefer to spend my few holidays in active physical
work, such as the game of golf. Yours truly,
P. G. TAIT.
GLASGOW COLLEGE, April 9, 1871.
DEAR MRS. TAIT Many thanks for your kind letter.
I do not know the dimensions of the pillows, and could
not well get them till Wednesday, as they are in store at
Gourock. I think it would be safe to make the pillow
slips of the same size as for land pillows, which, I sup
pose, are something less than 3 ft. 9 in. long. If you
think so you might let them be made accordingly. But
in any case I shall have the dimensions of the actual
pillows despatched by post from Gourock, addressed to
you, on Wednesday. For the sheets I think 2^ yards
might be rather short for Guthrie when he comes on a
xv THE "LALLA ROOKH " 589
cruise with me. At sea it is desirable to have rather
more of the sheet to turn over at the top than in beds
less exposed to acceleration. Three yards would be a
safe length. Two yards will be a very good breadth,
sufficient even for sleeping through several tacks.
I am very sorry to hear that Guthrie has been so ill.
I cannot think it was good for him to allow Dr. Crum
Brown to pull out a tooth. We regretted very much his
not being here to meet Maxwell, Joule, etc.
Do not let him shirk the August cruise with Helm-
holtz, Huxley, Tyndall, and Maxwell, who I hope will all
come.
If the boat race is to be at all, it is right that Cam
bridge should win, and they seem to have pulled splendidly
last time. [April I, 1871.]
I forgot that you had asked about the tablecloths. I
am in a difficulty about them. I understood from
Guthrie that the breadth determined the length, each
being made one and indivisible in certain absolutely
fixed proportions. I think the length 5 f. 4 i. must be
when the table is at its shortest. But it is capable of
prolongation, and I believe about 4 can sit on each side.
The breadth you have is accurate. I shall write to you on
Tuesday giving the maximum length. Believe me, yours
very sincerely, W. THOMSON.
^
WESTERN CLUB, GLASGOW,
Tuesday evening [April 1 1].
DEAR MRS. TAIT The L. R. table is, I find, of
invariable length, and the values of the constants which
you have are correct. Those of the T-cloths which you
proposed are therefore no doubt perfectly right.
The pillow-slip question is more difficult. An expert
who has been employed on board told me that the
pillows are presumably of the full breadths of the berths.
If so there will be several different sizes. Captain Flarty
will send you the length and breadth of each from Gourock
as soon as possible, by to-morrow evening s post, I hope.
I write in the greatest haste, as I am just going to sit
590 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
(in the chair) at a meeting to promote united-non-sectarian-
compulsory education on the same model as the Irish
national education, which Roman Catholics, Presbyterians,
and Church-people would not give fair play to in Ireland.
The gathering referred to was a great public
meeting in the City Hall. From Sir William s
speech, as chairman, as reported in the Glasgow
Herald, the following extracts are taken. After
reading apologies for absence from influential
representatives of the Free Church and the United
Presbyterian Church, he said :
He believed the feeling was very strong in these Churches
generally in favour of the views to be advocated that night.
What the meeting really desired was something very much
analogous to that which had been given to England in the bill
for national education which had now become law in that part
of the United Kingdom. There were certain blots, undoubtedly,
in the Scottish Education Bill, for what reason he knew not. It
seemed to be supposed that Scotland required a more denomina
tional, a more sectarian system of education than England.
No mistake could be greater than this. Scotland, of all
countries in Christendom, was the one most prepared, most
ready to accept a united non - sectarian national system of
education. Scotland was prepared to make this a thoroughly
religious system. We were not here in Scotland to have a god
less education. It would not be a godless education that would
be supported by the Free Church, the United Presbyterian
Church, and by the Established Church for the people of Scotland.
What was desired was, in the first place, education in these
elements of knowledge and art which were necessary for any
religious education whatever. What was desired was to make
religious education possible in the first place by the universal
teaching of the arts of reading and writing, and to make this
part of the national education compulsory. It seemed that
opinion in England was strongly divided with reference to the
question " compulsory or non-compulsory " ; but, on the other
hand, it seemed that in Scotland there was a very strong feeling
indeed among the people that compulsory education was desir
able. If the people of Scotland desired compulsory education,
xv THE "LALLA ROOKH " 591
he felt very confident indeed that they had only to say so, and
it would be provided for them by Parliament. It was quite
clear, however, that if education was to be compulsory, the
national system of education in connection with which com
pulsory statutes were founded must be unsectarian. There was
one other point upon which Scotland desired something different
from that which had ever been provided in England, and that
was a degree of elasticity in the national system, in virtue of
which it should not be confined merely to reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Scotland did not desire schools from which the use
of the globes should be excluded. A school without maps
would not be satisfactory in any parish of Scotland, nor would a
school be satisfactory without music.
Later, in reference to one of the motions proposed, he said :
The motion before the house did not propose to exclude the
Bible from the schools. The Bible was truly and avowedly
national, and he desired to ask the meeting to say that the
motion which demanded a provision that no religious
catechism, or formulary which is distinctive of any particular
denomination, should be taught in the schools did not apply
to the Bible.
At the conclusion the chairman said he wished to call
attention to the danger that hung over Scotland at present.
Was Scotland, he asked, to be made the stepping-stone from
the system of mild denominationalism in England, to utter and
destructive denominationalism in Ireland ? Unless they resisted
strenuously the efforts to carry the denominationalism proposed
in this bill, Scotland would bitterly rue her part in such a
matter.
DEAR MRS. TAIT ^ About April 23
The L. R., unfortunately, was not ready for my proposed
cruise at this time owing to the weather, which made
communication with the shore at Gourock difficult. I
trust she will be ready by Friday, but ready or not I sail
on Friday southwards, and hope the E. wind will not
stop till I reach Land s End. If the linen is not ready
to cross from Belfast on Thursday it might come leisurely
to the Admiralty, where I shall be on Wed. week, ditto
fortnight, do. etc.
Excuse great haste, and believe me, yours always
W. THOMSON.
592 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
[P.5.] Tell Guthrie I have no time to answer his
letter to-day as I am overdue to go out to the Rouken.
On May 5 he was at the Admiralty, but left
that evening for Plymouth to sail in Plymouth
Sound.
L. R. t DARTMOUTH, May 8 [1871].
DEAR MRS. TAIT Since writing the above I have
arrived in London. I made my first attempt to get a
quiet forenoon of work yesterday in the L. R. (it being
now Tuesday the pth) which, you may tell Guthrie, was
very promising, although it only resulted in the miserable
fiasco of twelve letters all " business," and of the most
trivial but inevitable kind. However, I hope for better
things. The only interruption in the course of three
hours was a great trawler fouling me. The cutter and
gig had both gone to shore, one for water and the other
to land J. T. B. and his father, who went to take a walk
and leave me quiet. The captain, steward, and cook
were shoving her (the trawler) off when I came on deck
on hearing the noise, and soon after we got her clear.
" I hope there s nothing broke, sir ? " " No " (replied
Captain F.). " I am glad to hear it, sir," were the last
words from the trawler. I intended to write and give
you a history of the voyage from the Clyde to Penzance,
and how thoroughly enjoyed it was by J. T. B. and
David King, the latter faintly denying that he would
have enjoyed it still more if she had been on the slip at
Greenock all the time. J. T. B. was more reticent, but
I believe felt as deeply. I should also, if I had achieved
my project of writing to you on board, have given you
many details of a trip to the Eddystone and a voyage
from Plymouth to Dartmouth against strong east wind.
D. K. being replaced by J. T. B. s father. The latter
remarked that the best thing about yachting was going
on shore, an opinion in which I by no means concur.
But all such matters rapidly lose importance, and the
" log " that is not written during the voyage is never
xv THE "LALLA ROOKH " 593
written at all. The one unforgettable thing is the linen
and the marking of the kitchen towels, than which
nothing could be better. I never attributed the marking
to Guthrie, but only the address on the parcel from
Edinburgh.
Your most kind letter about the B.A. reached me
here (London to-day). The five reasons are, each
separately, irresistible. I shall certainly stay at 17
Drummond Place if I am able. I shall write as soon as
I know. Tell Guthrie I am here (London) three days
of every week l (address Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall).
Therefore he may give high praise to the L. R. if I get,
as I intend, two good working days weekly. Tell him
also that I met Dr. Lyon Playfair just now, who told me
that he had quite lately seen Dr. N. Arnott, and that the
latter intends to give 1000 to each of the Scotch Univ ies ,
but that he has taken a crick, and though Mrs. N. A. had
strongly urged Ed. as well as Glasgow (on account
of the work done in the P. L? there) he was stiff about
beginning with Glasgow for a trial. He remarked that
I had not called the last time I was in London. I hope
Guthrie s cold is better. Tell him that a good cruise in
the L. R. will be requisite to brace him against these
recurring attacks, which seem to be partially (if not
wholly) due to overdoing the links. Will you not bring
him with you to London when you come? Even that
would do him good, and if you would both come from a
Friday till Wednesday to the L. R. the cure would be
complete.
Monday Morning [May 15, 1871]
TRAIN, WEYMOUTH TO LONDON.
DEAR MRS. TAIT On receiving your most kind
letter I wrote immediately to my sister 3 to ask if I might
accept your invitation. I do not mean that I put it
exactly in that way, but I pointed out forcibly how much
1 (Four days this week to-day for Admiral Halstead s fleet, and Sir
Joseph Whitworth s ordnance.) Wed., Thurs., Frid. (from 12 till 5 in the
Admiralty, except when it is II to 5 on account of extra tediousness of
witnesses, or 9 till 6 Shoeburyness expedition as last week).
2 [Physical Laboratory.] 3 [Mrs. King, then resident in Edinburgh.]
594 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
better she would be without me, and I said that you had
very kindly invited me to stay at 17 D. P. [Drummond
Place]. I received her answer just before setting out on
a short tour on the Continent, from which I am now
returning, and which has prevented me from earlier
writing to you. I think that as I promised last Septem
ber to stay with her, and she has Dr. Gladstone only,
and says she would be greatly disappointed if I did not
come, I am not free to do otherwise. I could easily
prove this is a great advantage to you and Guthrie, but
your letter disarms me, and I can only say that unless it
were to be very different from all my visits to Greenhill
Gardens and previous ones to D. P., it would have been
one of the few pleasures that remain pleasures to me, to
have the prospect of being at D. P. during the impending
meeting.
Often when kept in Glasgow by affairs or by
his laboratory work, Sir William Thomson would
retreat for the week-ends to his yacht to gain
quiet and rest. If he had no relations or friends
on board he would take his secretary with him,
that he might get on with work. Rising early he
would take a plunge, before breakfast, in the sea,
swimming round the yacht, and in spite of his lame
leg climb with agility on board by the rope. When
there were no observations or soundings to take he
would sit for hours with green book and pencil in
hand working at calculations and meditating over
his problems ; or he would pace the deck smoking
a quiet cigar. Often he would work on far into the
night. He was a daring navigator, and would sail
far into the season when other yachts were laid
up, sometimes in darkness and in severe weather.
Once when he was sailing in the teeth of a gale
xv THE "LALLA ROOKH " 595
his assistant John Tatlock, who often was with him
as amanuensis, heard Captain Flarty saying half-
aloud in Sir William s presence : " You will not
rest till you have your boat at the bottom." He
took no notice. He never seemed to tire. With
all the sailors he was extremely popular ; their only
grievance was that he would sometimes pop up on
deck in the small hours of the morning to make
sure that the watch was at his post and awake. In
all the operations of sailing he took the keenest
interest, and became a most expert navigator.
Happy though he was to be thus alone, he was
still happier if he could secure for a few days cruise
his brother or some member of their related families,
nephews or nieces, many of whom retain the most
joyous recollections of the days spent on board the
Lalla Rookh.
Two short extracts from letters to Miss Jessie
Crum show the use he made of his yacht :
May i 5. Train, Weymouth to London. Monday morn
ing. I received your letter on Friday afternoon just as
I was leaving the Admiralty, and read it in the train on
my way to Southampton to the L. R.
May 1 7, Wedy. Athenceum. . . . Soon after daybreak
(last) Saturday I sailed for Cherbourg ... to Portland
on Sunday morning. Lord Dufferin is ordered by the
Queen to Balmoral for 3 weeks, and the Committee is
therefore adjourned until after the loth of June. I sail
for Lisbon to-night.
From Lisbon he sent Miss Crum a long letter
about his doings there. The Lalla Rookh had
596 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
sailed from Portland to the bar of Lisbon in 6 days
23 hours. On his return he wrote to Helmholtz :
THE ATHENAEUM, June 14, 1871.
MY DEAR HELMHOLTZ I have only this morning,
on returning to London from a cruise to Lisbon and
back in the Lalla Rookh, received your letter of the iith
May. I am very sorry you will not be able to be at
the meeting of the Association in Edinburgh and many
others will be sorry also. But I am glad that you will
come and sail with me in the West Highlands, and I shall
take care to have the Lalla Rookh in a convenient position
(probably in the Clyde or possibly Oban), at whatever
time suits you. I asked Huxley and Tyndall to come
for a cruise immediately after the meeting, but, unfortun
ately, neither of them could accept, and I shall therefore
most probably remain chiefly at the College in Glasgow
after the meeting until your arrival. You must arrange
to spend as much as possible of your holiday in Scotland,
and if you wish to mix a little work with it as you did
before in Arran, you will find writing not impossible in
the Lalla Rookh.
I congratulate you and M me> Helmholtz most sincerely
on the safe return of your son from the war. Believe me,
yours very truly, WILLIAM THOMSON.
On June 24th he writes from the India Office,
where he has been attending a meeting of the
Examiners for the India Telegraph Service, telling
of the progress of his Admiralty work. He is just
going down to Portsmouth with William Froude to
sail in the Lalla Rookh to Torquay. He has been
staying in London with Dr. Gladstone ; J he has
also given a party, of which he tells Miss Crum,
1 Dr. John Hall Gladstone, F.R.S., who had married the eldest daughter
of Dr. David King.
XV
THE "LALLA ROOKH " 597
bringing together several of his old comrades in the
C.U.M.S. :
Blow, and Shedden and his wife completed the
number, six in all. Pollock played the hautboy, Blow
accompanied on the piano, and Blow played on the
violin, unaccompanied. He did not play very much, as
he had been playing in the Crystal Palace (last day of
Handel Festival) " Israel in Egypt," and was tired, and
only got up to London for 7.30 dinner. I had succeeded
in getting the room James Bottomley recommended (as
the one in which his chemical monthly dinners had taken
place) and all went off very well. It was a strange
reunion, like a return from the other world Shedden,
Blow, Pollock, and myself, who had not been all together
since the end of 1846, when Pollock, then a new-comer to
Cambridge, quickly began to be intimate with Blow,
Shedden, and me, just before Blow and Shedden were
leaving Cambridge. I have often looked forward to
such a reunion merely as an occasion when the music
would have been a happy enjoyment. We had a visit
from Blow at the Langham Hotel, but could not get any
opportunity for music. It can never again be what it
was, and it is too full of sadness for the present.
On July i, he writes from Cowes that in the
previous week he had sailed on Monday to Torquay,
thence up to Southampton. On Wednesday he
had run up to London to stay the night with
Pollock at Hampstead. Lord and Lady Dufferin
have come down to Cowes to yacht with him. " I
have," he adds, " however, really found the L. R.
the quietest and best place attainable for work."
Work meant here the preparation of his Inaugural
Address as President of the British Association, to
be held on August 2nd, at Edinburgh.
59 8 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
To his brother-in-law, Alexander Crum, he
wrote :
L. R., HURST ROAD, SOLENT, July n.
My B. A. address destroys everything now. I cannot
write a word of it, but it effectually prevents me from
writing or doing anything else. . . . Helmholtz is coming
from Germany for the sole purpose of a cruise about the
1 2th or 1 5th [of August]. . . . Shedden and his wife,
W. Young, and a young man (Roberts) from the Nautical
Almanac office, who has been calculating tides for me (as
Brit. Ass. Committee) for four or five years, came down
with me on Saturday for a few days cruise.
July 1 8. Tuesday (Athenceuni}. . . . landed at
Portsmouth this morning on my way to London.
I have made some slight beginnings of actual writing
for the Address, and have a great mass of matter, greater
than I shall find space for, to bring in. My difficulty
will be to get proper arrangement and condensation, and
I feel as if it must necessarily be a very unsatisfactory
thing at best. I had George King with me from Satur
day till to-day. . . . George began the day by reading
a number of chapters of ist Corinthians, and spent a
great part of the remainder in writing for me, 1 towards
the Address. I have taken some of the proceeds to the
printers to-day, and hope to give some more instalments
this week.
I dine with Huxley alone to-day to talk over Asso
ciation and other matters for the sake chiefly of my
Address.
I shall be here daily till Saturday, but am staying at
Pollock s, Hampstead. On Sat. I go to the L. R. for
quiet.
Sir William Thomson s Presidency of the British
Association, at Edinburgh, on August 2, 1871, was
1 [Mr. George King remembers how Sir William paced up and down the
deck, dictating a few words at intervals, very slowly, making many corrections,
while the yacht lay becalmed off Bournemouth.]
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 599
an event of great importance. His Address was
awaited with expectancy, for he was to be introduced
by none other than Huxley, with whom he had
crossed swords with knightly courtesy indeed, but
with deadly earnest, in the matter of Geological
Time ; and he was known to be opposed to some
of the developments of the doctrines of Evolution
that for a decade had been revolutionising men s
minds as to the origin of things. Nor were the
expectations of the assembled men of science dis
appointed ; for the Address, though somewhat
lengthy and discursive, proved of surpassing inter
est. The assembly was a brilliant one. Huxley,
the retiring President, was accompanied on the
platform by the Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil, and
by a crowd of most distinguished savants, British
and foreign, also by a number of the leading Pro
fessors of the Scottish Universities. On rising to
vacate the chair, he expressed cordial thanks to the
officers and members for the support given to him,
and congratulated the Association on the good work
accomplished during the past year. Then turning
toward the President-elect, he introduced him with
exquisite courtesy in the words already quoted on
p. 550 above.
Sir William Thomson s address began with a
reference to the origin of the British Association
and the aims of its founders, in particular Brewster
and Herschel, the latter of whom had passed away
but two months before. He also referred to the
recent death of De Morgan ; to the work of the
6oo LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
Meteorological Observatory at Kew since its estab
lishment by the Association in 1842 ; and to the
need of national laboratories for research. Our
Government, he declared, fatally neglected the
advancement of science. Glancing at the Reports
on different branches of science, which had formed
a conspicuous feature of the Association s past
work, he particularised Cayley s Report of 1857
on Theoretical Dynamics, and Sabine s Report of
1838 on Terrestrial Magnetism, as having been
of utmost service to scientific men, as well as of
practical utility. He suggested the establishment
of a British Year-book of Science as a need of the
time. Then, turning to recent advances in par
ticular branches, he pointed out that many of them
owed their origin to protracted drudgery. " Accu
rate and minute measurement," he said, "seems to
the non-scientific imagination a less lofty and dig
nified work than looking for something new. But
nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have
been but the rewards of accurate measurement and
patient, long-continued labour in the minute sifting
of numerical results." He instanced, as cases in
point, the discovery of the theory of gravitation by
Newton, that of specific inductive capacity by Fara
day, that of thermodynamic law by Joule, and that
of the continuity of the gaseous and liquid states
by Andrews. Then he turned to the labours of
Gauss and Weber, who had founded the absolute
system of measurement of magnetism and electricity,
and Weber s resulting discovery that the ratio of
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 601
the electromagnetic and electrostatic units is a
velocity. Maxwell he eulogised for his discovery
that this velocity is physically related to the velocity
of light. This led him to reflect how much science,
even in its most lofty speculations, gains in return
for benefits conferred by its application to promote
the social and material welfare of man. " Those,"
he declared, "who perilled and lost their money in
the original Atlantic Telegraph were impelled arid
supported by a sense of the grandeur of their enter
prise, and of the world-wide benefits which must
flow from its success ; they were at the same time
not unmoved by the beauty of the scientific prob
lem directly presented to them ; but they little
thought that it was to be through their work that
the scientific world was to be instructed in a long-
neglected and discredited fundamental discovery of
Faraday s." Next, dealing with the kinetic theory
of gases, which he described as the greatest achieve
ment yet made in the molecular theory of matter,
he particularly praised Clausius for having thus
given the foundation for estimates of the absolute
dimensions of atoms, and of their rates of diffusion.
Maxwell had completed the dynamical explanation
of the known properties of gases by bringing in
viscosity and thermal conductivity. No such com
prehensive molecular theory had ever been imagined
before the nineteenth century ; but Sir William
Thomson was not satisfied. Definite and complete
as it seemed, it was yet but a part of a still more
comprehensive theory in which all physical science
VOL. II C
602 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
would be represented with every property of matter
shown in dynamical relation to the whole. But
there could be no permanent satisfaction to the
mind in explaining heat, light, elasticity, diffusion,
electricity, and magnetism by statistics of great
numbers of atoms, if all the while the properties of
the atom itself are assumed. " When the theory, of
which we have the first instalment in Clausius and
Maxwell s work, is complete, we are but brought
face to face with a superlatively grand question,
What is the inner mechanism of the atom ? " This
at once led to a sketch of the arguments by which
he himself, in independence of Loschmidt and of
Johnstone Stoney, had arrived at ideas about the size
of atoms. He scorned to enter into any questions
of priority in this affair. " Questions of personal
priority, however interesting they may be to the
persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the
prospects of any gain into the secrets of nature."
The atom must henceforth not be regarded as a
mystic point endowed with inertia and attraction,
nor as infinitely small and infinitely hard. It must
be regarded as " a piece of matter with shape,
motion, and laws of action, intelligible subjects of
scientific investigation." The prismatic analysis of
light here came in to reveal new facts as to atomic
constitution. The observational and experimental
foundations were the discovery by Fraunhofer of the
coincidence of certain dark solar spectrum lines
with bright lines in flames ; the rigorous test of
this by Miller; the identification of the D-lines as
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 603
belonging to sodium ; the discovery of Foucault
(see p. 224) that the voltaic arc can emit the
D-rays on its own account and at the same time
absorb them when they come from another quarter ;
the teachings of Stokes (see p. 300) as to the physical
significance of the spectrum lines, and the inherent
isochronism of the vibrations of an atom ; the in
ferences from the dark lines as to the chemistry of the
sun ; the prodigious and wearing toil of Kirchhoff,
and of Angstrom, of Pliicker, and of Hittorf, in
preparing spectrum maps and in identification of
spectra under various physical conditions. The
chemists, following Bunsen, discovered new metals ;
biologists applied spectrum analysis to animal and
vegetable substances ; and the astronomers, led by
Huggins, carried spectroscopic research to the stars
and comets. Well might the lecturer point out
that " scientific wealth tends to accumulation accord
ing to the law of compound interest." Solar and
stellar chemistry had garnered great results. Rarely
before in the history of science had enthusiastic
perseverance, directed by penetrative genius, pro
duced within ten years so brilliant a succession of
discoveries. We were now to have a solar and
stellar physics : for Miller, Huggins, and Max
well had shown that the spectroscope afforded a
means of measuring the relative velocity with which
a star approaches to or recedes from the earth, and
had found that not one of them had so great a
velocity as 315 kilometres per second to or from
the earth, a most momentous result in respect to
604 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
cosmical dynamics. Then came a brief review of
the nebular hypothesis of the solar system a
hypothesis invented before the discovery of thermo
dynamics, otherwise the nebulae would not have
been supposed to be fiery. Helmholtz s supposi
tion of 1854, that mutual gravitation between the
parts of the original nebula might have generated
the heat of the sun, had been extended by his own
further suggestion that gravitation might account
for all the heat, light, and motions in the universe ;
while recent spectroscopic observation had shown
that Tait s theory of comets, in which the head of
the comet is regarded as a group of meteoric stones,
furnished at least a probable explanation of that
feature of their constitution. Astronomy and
cosmical physics, therefore, well illustrated the truth
that the essence of science consists in inferring,
from phenomena which have come under? actual
observation, the conditions that were antecedent,
and in anticipating future evolutions. Even
naturalists of the present day were not appalled
or paralysed by the prodigious difficulties of acting
up to this ideal. They were now struggling, boldly
and laboriously, to pass out of the mere " Natural
History stage," and to bring Zoology within the
range of Natural Philosophy. But science brought
a vast mass of inductive evidence against the
hypothesis of spontaneous generation, to confute
the idea that dead matter might have run together
or crystallized or fermented into organic cells or
germs or protoplasm. " Careful enough scrutiny
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 605
has in every case up to the present day discovered
life as antecedent to life. Dead matter cannot
become living without coming under the influence
of matter previously alive." " This," said Sir
William, " seems to me as sure a teaching of
science as the law of gravitation." " I confess to
being deeply impressed by the evidence put before
us by Professor Huxley ; and I am ready to adopt,
as an article of scientific faith, true through all
space and through all time, that life proceeds from
life, and from nothing but life." The passage
which followed startled even the most advanced
thinkers present. " How, then, did life originate
on the Earth ? Tracing the physical history of the
Earth backwards on strict dynamical principles, we
are brought to a red-hot melted globe on which no
life could exist. Hence, when the Earth was first
fit for life there was no living thing on it. There
were rocks, solid and disintegrated, water, air all
round, warmed and illuminated by a brilliant sun,
ready to become a garden. Did grass and trees
and flowers spring into existence, in all the fulness
of ripe beauty, by a fiat of Creative Power ? or did
vegetation, growing up from seed sown, spread and
multiply over the whole Earth ? Science is bound,
by the everlasting law of honour, to face fearlessly
every problem which can fairly be presented to it.
If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary
course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke
an abnormal act of Creative Power. . . . When a
volcanic island springs up from the sea, and after a
606 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
few years is found clothed with vegetation, we do
not hesitate to assume that seed has been wafted to
it through the air, or floated to it on rafts. Is it
not possible, and, if possible, is it not probable, that
the beginning of vegetable life on the Earth is to be
similarly explained ? Every year thousands, prob
ably millions, of fragments of solid matter fall upon
the Earth. Whence came these fragments ? What
is the previous history of any one of them ? Was
it created in the beginning of time an amorphous
mass ? This idea is so unacceptable that, tacitly or
explicitly, all men discard it. It is often assumed
that all, and it is certain that some, meteoric stones
are fragments which have been broken off from
greater masses and launched free into space. . . .
Should the time when this Earth comes into
collision with another body, comparable in dimen
sions with itself, be when it is clothed as at present
with vegetation, many great and small fragments,
carrying seed and living plants and animals, would
undoubtedly be scattered through space. Hence
and because we all confidently believe that there
are at present, and have been from time im
memorial, many worlds of life besides our own, we
must regard it as probable in the highest degree
that there are countless seed - bearing meteoric
stones moving about through space. If at the
present instant no life existed upon this Earth, one
such stone falling upon it might, by what we blindly
call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered
with vegetation. I am fully conscious of the many
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 607
scientific objections which may be urged against
this hypothesis, but I believe them all to be answer
able. . . . The hypothesis that [some] l life [has
actually] originated on this Earth through moss-
grown fragments from the ruins of another world
may seem wild and visionary ; all I maintain is
that it is not unscientific [and cannot rightly be said
to be impossible]." A brief peroration touched the
then burning question of Evolution versus Design.
" From the Earth stocked with such vegetation as
it could receive meteorically, to the Earth teeming
with all the endless variety of plants and animals
which now inhabit it, the step is prodigious ; yet,
according to the doctrine of continuity, most ably
laid before the Association by a predecessor in this
chair, Mr. Grove, all creatures now living on earth
have proceeded by orderly evolution 2 from some
such origin." He then quoted from the conclusion
of Darwin s great work on The Origin of Species, a
couple of sentences about the numerous forms of
life plants, birds, insects, worms different, inter
dependent, yet " all produced by laws acting around
us," and about the " grandeur in this view of life
1 The words in brackets were added by Lord Kelvin himself when he
reprinted the address in 1 894 in vol. ii. of his Popular Lectures and Addresses.
2 Professor Huxley, in a later discourse, gently brushed aside the im
portance of Thomson s suggestion in the following words : "I think it will
be admitted that the germs brought to us by meteorites, if any, were not ova
of elephants, nor of crocodiles ; not cocoa-nuts, nor acorns ; not even eggs of
shell-fish or corals, but only those of the lowest forms of animal and vegetable
life. Therefore, since it is proved that from a very remote epoch of geological
time the earth has been peopled by a continual succession of the higher
forms of animals and plants, these either must have been created or they have
arisen by evolution. And in respect of certain groups of animals, the well-
established facts of palaeontology leave no rational doubt that they arose by
the latter method."
608 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
with its several powers having been originally
breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into
one, from which endless forms, most beautiful and
most wonderful, have been and are being evolved."
Then he continued : " With the feeling expressed in
these two sentences I most cordially sympathise. I
have omitted two sentences which come between
them, describing briefly the hypothesis of the origin
of species by natural selection, because I have always
felt that this hypothesis does not contain the true
theory of evolution, if evolution there has been, in
biology. Sir John Herschel, in expressing a favour
able judgment on the hypothesis of zoological evo
lution, with, however, some reservation in respect
to the origin of man, objected to the doctrine of
natural selection that it was too like the Laputan
method of making books, and that it did not
sufficiently take into account a continually guiding
and controlling intelligence. This seems to me a
most valuable and instructive criticism. I feel
profoundly convinced that the argument of design
has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent
zoological speculation. Reaction against frivolities
of teleology, such as are to be found, not rarely,
in the notes of learned commentators on Paley s
Natural Theology, has, I believe, had a temporary
effect in turning attention from the solid and irre
fragable argument so well put forward in that
excellent old book. But overpoweringly strong
proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie
all around us ; and if ever perplexities, whether
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 609
metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them
for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible
force, showing to us, through nature, the influence
of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings
depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler."
Received with great applause, this address evoked
many perplexities in its hearers. It was known
that Sir William did not accept the doctrine of
natural selection ; and many of the orthodox
Scottish clergy, who looked to him for some pro
nouncement, were aghast to find him appealing to
the principle of continuity, and to discover that
he was an evolutionist who, if he put back the
origin of life on this earth to some distant globe or
planet whence it had been meteorically introduced,
would by an equal logical necessity put it back from
such globe or planet to one yet more distant, and so on
ad infinitum ; and they were disposed to regard him
as a greater sinner against the then popular theology
than even Darwin himself. Others seemed to regard
the hypothesis of the meteoric introduction of life as
a huge scientific joke. 1 Maxwell made it the subject
of one of his rhyming jeux d esprit, which was sung
at the Red Lion dinner. For two successive weeks
Punch poked good-humoured fun at him in verse.
The issue of August 12, 1871, contained a poem by
Tom Taylor, entitled : " The Truth after Thomson,
as versed by a Modern Athenian," a really clever
summary of the address, from which we cull the
following sample :
1 Vide, for example, St. Paul s Magazine, Sept. 1871.
6 io LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
But say, whence in those meteors life began,
From whose collision came the germs of man ?
Still hangs the veil across the searcher s track,
We have but thrust the myst ry one stage back.
Below the earth the elephant we ve found,
Below him of the tortoise touched the ground ;
But what the tortoise bears ? Dig as we will,
Beneath us lies a deep unsounded still :
Sink we with DARWIN, with ARGYLL aspire,
Betwixt angelic or ascidian sire,
Though ne er so high we soar, or deep we go,
The infinite s above us and below :
Beyond the creeds and fancies of the hour,
Looms, fixed and awful, A Creative Power.
In several successive years at the Association
meetings Sir William reiterated his view. At
Plymouth in 1877, when a certain meteorite (or
model of it) was shown, he was keen to explain
how, though the stone presented marks of fusion
on the surface, the interior might have remained
quite cool, so that if there had been in some deep
crevice of it a bit of moss it would not have been
burned; or if there had been lurking there a Colorado
beetle it might have survived to become the father
of a numerous progeny. Whereupon the witty Dr.
Samuel Haughton remarked that he would not
much mind the father-beetle coming in the crevice
of a meteoric stone if only it had had the foresight
to leave the old mother beetle at home !
The following letter of Feb. n, 1882, shows that
Sir William persisted in his views.
nth Feby. 82.
DEAR DUKE OF ARGYLL I am much interested to
see that independently you have come to the same con
clusion regarding the source of all our terrestrial energy
xv THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 611
as I had been forced to come to a long time ago. You
will see the thing referred to on page 22 of the enclosed
address. It is more fully developed in an article under
the title " On Mechanical antecedents of Motion, Heat,
and Light," which is published in the British Association
Report for 1854.
As to the extract from The Times, which I return,
the writer does not seem to have noticed that while saying
that ardent faith in the existence of numerous inhabited
worlds throughout space, such as Sir David Brewster had
expressed, was more sentimental than scientific, I had
myself expressed a very strong conviction, not only that
there is life in other worlds than this, but that some of
the life in this world is in all probability of meteoric
origin ; and that I returned to the subject again and
again in the British Association Meeting at York, and
obtained the appointment of a Committee to investigate
meteoric dust, chiefly with a view to ascertaining whether
any of it contains either traces or actual specimens
of life. . . . Believe me, yours very truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
Sir William Thomson also took part in the
proceedings of the sectional meetings of the Asso
ciation, and in presenting the Report of the Com
mittee on Tidal Observations, added an extempore
statement as to the determination of the amount of
tide in the solid body of the globe, which he pro
nounced to be far more rigid than a globe of glass
of the same size would be.
The Association over, Sir William Thomson
hastened to the quiet of his yacht. During calm
days he made some extremely interesting observa
tions on the sets of capillary ripples which are
originated in water streaming past a fixed narrow
612 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
obstacle, such as a fishing line. These he described,
with the theory of them, in letters to Tait, dated
Aug. 1 6 and 23. They are reprinted in Appendix
G of the Baltimore Lectures, 1904. On the 24th
he was joined by Helmholtz, who came from
Germany too late for the meetings. Helmholtz s
letters to his wife give so graphic a picture of his
Scottish friends and their activities, that a few
extracts must be given. The extracts are taken
from letters ranging from August 20 to Sep
tember 14 :
St. Andrews has a splendid bay, with fine sands which
slope sharply up to the green links. The town itself is
built on stony cliffs. There is a lively society of sea-side
visitors, elegant ladies and children, and gentlemen in
sporting costumes, who play golf. This is a kind of ball-
game, which is played on the green sward with great
vehemence by every male visitor, and by some of the
ladies : a sort of ball game in which the ball lies on the
ground and is continuously struck by special clubs until
it is driven, with the fewest possible blows, into a hole,
marked by a flag, about an English mile distant. The
entire round over which each party wanders amounts to
about ten English miles. They drive the ball enormously
far at each blow. Mr. Tait knows of nothing else here
but golfing. I had to go out with him ; my first strokes
came off after that I hit either the ground or the air.
Tait is a peculiar sort of savage ; lives here, as he says,
only for his muscles, and it was not till to-day, Sunday,
when he dared not play, and did not go to church either,
that he could be brought to talk of rational matters. The
Browns are also here, and he (Crum Brown) will accompany
me to-morrow to Sir William. At dinner we had a
chemist, Andrews, from Belfast, with his wife and daughter,
and to-day Professor Huxley, the famous evolutionary
xv HELMHOLTZ PAYS A VISIT 613
zoologist, all pleasant and interesting people. From Sir
William we had yesterday two telegrams and two letters,
to-day two telegrams with changing directions. The
yacht squadron will sail earlier, and the latest instructions
are that we go to-morrow evening to Glasgow to sleep in
Thomson s house at the College, and on Tuesday join the
yacht squadron at Inveraray on Loch Fyne. W. Thom
son must be now just as much absorbed in yachting as
Mr. Tait in golfing.
(INVERARAY, Aug. 24, 1871.) I came yesterday with
Professor Crum Brown, who luckily stuck to me till we
reached the Lalla Rookh, in order to witness here the festivi
ties of the clans-folk belonging to the Duke of Argyll at the
reception of their future chieftainess, the Princess Louise.
On Sunday we had dinner with Crum Brown, with whom
is staying a great mathematician from London, Sylvester,
in aspect extremely Jewish, but otherwise an important
and presentable person. After dinner we had to leave
the ladies and retreat to the smoking-room ; Tait would
not allow anything else, but we got on well. Mr. Sylvester
has been treated by Mr. Gladstone about as badly as
could have happened at the hands of a Prussian Cultus-
minister or even worse ; and there was great indignation
about it expressed by the company. As to their attend
ance at worship, they all excused themselves, as also did
the ladies, on account of the rain. On Monday after
noon I travelled with Prof. Crum Brown to Glasgow.
In Glasgow we slept in College, where a nephew of
W. Thomson did the honours. The interior of the house
was not yet finished, neither carpeted nor painted, full
of old furniture not yet put into place, and it produced
an indescribably sad impression, as if no one cared about
it, in contrast to the old house which Lady Thomson had
managed. In one corner of the dining-room hung an
exceedingly fine and expressive portrait of her, and below
it the couch where she used to lie, and her coverlet. I
was very sad and could scarce restrain my tears. It is
very sad when men lose their wives, and their life is left
desolate. . . . There are about forty yachts assembled
614 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
here, slender and elegantly built ships, and some of them
tolerably large. Thomson s belongs to the larger sort, is
a two-master, and is quite commodious. At the moment,
besides Professor Crum Brown and myself, there are, on
the yacht, Thomson s two sisters-in-law, another relation
Houldsworth, and a London physicist Gladstone. My
cabin is just about so large that I can stand upright in it
beside the narrow bed : the rest of the space is less lofty,
yet it contains wash-table, dressing-table, and three
drawers, so that I can arrange my things well. For
washing the space is rather small, particularly when the
ship rolls and one cannot stand firm. To-day we began
the morning by running on deck wrapped in a plaid and
sprang straight from bed into the water. After that an
abundant breakfast was very pleasant. Then came visits
to the other yachts, and so the day has up to now passed
very pleasantly in spite of the rain.
(GLASGOW COLLEGE, Sunday evening, Aug. 27.) Thurs
day was still worse : we went to lunch on shore although
the waves were already so high that the yachts began to
be unsafe at anchor. We saw some Highland sports and
dances. . . . Yesterday morning there was less wind,
but sun and rain alternately. The morning was passed
in preparations for departure, which was accomplished
about one o clock. Thomson and his men manoeuvred
the ship very cleverly, and the afternoon was passed
with tolerably good weather, while we sailed back slowly
along Loch Fyne. But then the wind caught us, and we
went at a surprising speed the last two-thirds of our course
to Greenock, the port for Glasgow. This evening we are
to go with two nieces of Thomson s to Largs ; Monday
to Belfast.
On board the yacht they studied the theory of
waves, "which," says Helmholtz, "he (Thomson)
loved to treat as a kind of race between us."
When Thomson had to go ashore at Inveraray for
some hours, as he left he said : " Now, mind,
xv A YACHTING CRUISE 615
Helmholtz, you re not to work at waves while I m
away."
On Aug. 3ist Sir William wrote to his sister,
Mrs. King, from the yacht in Bangor Bay, County
Down :
I am just going to land along with Prof. Helmholtz,
and Dr. Andrews, who came down last night and slept in
the L. R.j to see a regatta to-day and accompany us to
Clandeboye, Lord Dufferin s. We shall be at Clandeboye
till after dinner to-morrow night, and then sail for Skye.
Post Office, Portree, and, care of Professor Blackburn,
Roshven, Fort William, are the best addresses. . . . We
dined with James on Thursday after Helmholtz had an
opportunity of seeing Dr. Andrews in his laboratory. . . .
On Friday morning a party of twelve came down (Dr.
and Mrs. Andrews and two daughters, Prof. Everett,
and James and his family, and Mary Bottomley) making
seventeen in all. . . . Late in the evening, a wonderfully
beautiful moonlight night, Dr. A., J. T. B., Helmholtz,
and I, drove down to Cultra and got on board the
L. R. about midnight. We went on shore to breakfast
with W. B. at Cultra this morning, and had a fine sailing-
day for the regatta since.
A U * 3 1 ) BELFAST. We arrived off Holywood about
one o clock this afternoon. We do not leave till Sunday
night about midnight, Lord Dufferin having asked Prof.
Helmholtz and me to come to his house on Saturday
to stay over the Sunday.
After a very pleasant visit to Clandeboye they
sailed from Belfast on Sunday night, but had very
bad weather, which prostrated them all "even
our Admiral," says Helmholtz. The party con
sisted of Sir William, his brother, his brother-in-
law, two nephews, and the Geheimrath. They
visited Oban, Loch Etive, and Tobermory. Thence
616 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
to Roshven, whence Heimholtz wrote on Sept.
9th :
W. Th. was very eager to arrive here, where his
colleague Mr. Blackburn, Prof, of Mathematics in
Glasgow, has a lonely property, a very lovely spot on a
bay between the loneliest mountains. The Atlantic
showed itself this time very friendly, and we came quickly
here, so that in the afternoon we could take an excursion
with the family and dined with them. ... I expect
that in the next day or so we shall abruptly begin
our return, for Sir W. is very undecided as to the north
side of Skye. . . . Mrs. B. has a remarkable talent for
painting animals. She fashions all her doings and house
hold ways to suit her professional tastes. ... It was
all very friendly and unconstrained. W. Thomson
presumed so far on the freedom of his surroundings
that he always carried his mathematical note-book about
with him, and as soon as anything occurred to him, in
the midst of the company, he would begin to calculate,
which was treated with a certain awe by the party. How
would it be if I accustomed the Berliners to the same
proceedings ? But the greatest naivete of all was when
on the Friday he had invited all the party to the yacht,
and then as soon as the ship was on her way, and every
one was settled on deck as securely as might be in view
of the rolling, he vanished into the cabin to make calcula
tions there, while the company were left to entertain each
other so long as they were in the vein ; naturally they
were not exactly very lively. I allowed myself to seek
amusement in balancing myself up and down on the deck,
in wavering grace, and occasionally setting cataracts of
sea-water to run off my waterproof.
After cruising in the Sound of Skye they
returned through the Sound of Mull, where,
being becalmed, they made experiments on the
velocity of propagation of the smallest ripples
ill
xv WAVES AND RIPPLES 617
that can be formed on water, and so back to
Glasgow.
L. R., LARGS BAY, Oct. 29, 71.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I have too long omitted to
write to Du Bois Reymond in acknowledgment of the
notice he sent me of my having been elected to the
Berlin Academy. I received it on my way through
Glasgow to the L. R. after the British Association, and left
it in the house, which is now all in confusion, being handed
over to painters and paperhangers. It may be some
time yet before I can find the official intimation, and as I
am anxious not to delay writing to Du Bois Reymond,
you would oblige me much by telling me what is the
proper designation of the Academy ? Imperial ? Royal ?
Berlin Academy of Sciences, I presume ; also what is
the designation of my own appointment corresponding
member ? foreign member ?
I hope you found all well at home when you arrived,
and that all " went well " in respect to the marriage. I
suppose you are now fairly launched on your University
" Semester." Our " session " commences to-morrow week,
and by this day week the Lalla Rookh will be at her
winter moorings in the Gareloch. I have lived on
board ever since you left (not merely because my house
has been uninhabitable), but except two trips to Loch
Fyne and two to Arran I have been chiefly between
Largs and Greenock, and working hard at my reprint
etc. of Electrostatics and Magnetism, which I am anxious
to get launched before Christmas. It has been " on the
stocks " for about five years.
You should look at Cauchy and Poisson on Waves,
the Concours de 1815, when you have time. The point
lies in the evaluation of the function
I
cos mx* cos (/ ijgm)dm
(for the case of motion in two dimensions) ; considered as a
function of x it is a fluctuating function of a very curious
character. We must have it tabulated by the British
VOL. II D
618 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
Association s Function -calculating Committee. Cauchy
makes the thing very clear. Poisson I don t know
so well yet. Both would be greatly improved by
diagrams showing the forms of the waves and the laws
of variation at different depths, etc. I was under a
misapprehension when I spoke to you lately on the
subject. I thought that a single disturbance at a point
or along an infinite straight line, such as is produced
by dipping a solid into water and not raising it out, but
leaving it at rest, could not cause oscillations. What
it does really is to cause a positive swell to spread out
in each direction, followed by a series of undulations,
negative and positive, finer and finer, and at any one
place of the water, becoming finer and finer in length from
crest to crest ultimately in proportion to ^ After ten or
twenty waves have passed a point at distance x from the
place of disturbance, the wave length (in the case of
motion in two dimensions) is very approximately
X
or iirx\
gt*
where x must be a large multiple of the diameter of the
disturbing body, but a small fraction of \gfi.
Did you meet Strutt * when you visited his family in
England ? I hear that he would have been the new
professor in Cambridge if Maxwell had not accepted.
Believe me, yours always truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
On Nov. 2, still cruising off Largs, he wrote to
Professor Andrews that he was awaiting Napier
to make trials of his pressure - log, after which
the yacht was to sail to winter quarters in the
Gareloch.
At the end of the cruising season he wrote to
Dr. J. Hall Gladstone:
1 Lord Rayleigh.
xv END OF THE YACHTING SEASON 619
LALLA ROOKH,
GARELOCH, Nov. 4, 1871.
MY DEAR GLADSTONE You have heard from my
sister that I am to be in London this day week. Even
should it not be convenient to you to let me stay with
you this time, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you
in the course of the few days that I shall be in London.
I do not, however, wish to delay so long answering about
the Tidal Committee in reply to Mr. Unwin s letter. The
present Committee of the British Association on Tides is
a new one, which was appointed about four years ago,
and has been continued from year to year since that time,
with grants of money for calculating results of observa
tions such as those given by tide-gauges, and generally
for promoting the investigation of tides. . . .
The Committee will be glad to receive the curves of
the Calcutta Tide-gauge, and to apply the method of
reduction which we have been following if we find that it
can be done with advantage. . . .
I am now on the point of " flitting," as we say in
Scotland, from my summer quarters on board the Lalla
Rookh to the College. I am alone with one man on
board waiting for my train, the others having just sailed
away in the " cutter " and " gig " for Greenock to leave the
boats there for the winter, and to find places, chiefly
no doubt in foreign going ships, for themselves. . . .
Believe me, yours always truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
The business in London was a petition for the
prolongation of the patent for the mirror galvano
meter. Sir John Karslake, Q.C., was counsel for
the petitioner ; Mr. Archibald for the Crown. Six
weeks later Sir William wrote to his assistant, Mr.
Leitch, who was in charge of the recorder at Suez :
Dec. 14, 1871.
MY DEAR LEITCH . . . Ten days ago the Privy
Council gave me a prolongation for 8 years of my
620 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
1858 patent. My formal petition for the prolongation
was made last summer, and the three cis-Indian and the
three ultra - Indian Companies all lodged objections.
They, however, withdrew their objections before the
petition was heard, and promoted rather than opposed
my case. I also got assistance from Sir C. Lampson,
who was deputy -chairman of the Atlantic Telegraph
Company, and from Mr. Saward, their secretary. Also
Mr. Willoughby Smith, Sir James Anderson, Sir Daniel
Gooch, Captain Sherard Osborne, Mr. Fender, and other
influential people in the companies were favourable. . . .
Yours truly, W. THOMSON.
Further details are given in a letter to Miss
Jessie Crum, then abroad :
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY, Dec. 12, 1871.
DEAR JESSIE I have been hearing of you all in
several indirect ways, the last of which was Mary s letter
to Dr. Rainy, which he brought to me one day. I hope
you are getting on well, and feeling comfortable in your
villa. I should be much obliged by a letter from either
you or Mary, when you have time to write. You must look
upon this simply as a begging letter. I cannot give any
thing in return for what I have been asking, as the things
I have been kept incessantly busy with are dull and
uninteresting, except so far as getting through little by
little what must be done is interesting.
I was in London again from Saturday last till Wed
nesday about my petition for prolongation of my 1858
patent. I had been warned by Grove (who was my
counsel until he was promoted to be a judge) to expect
nothing, and to consider that even a prolongation for one
year would be a good result. The Privy Council gave
8 years. The case altogether went off very well. The
judges early intimated that they did not require any
more evidence as to the " merits of the invention," and
they showed a liberal spirit in respect to accounts, etc.
xv PROLONGATION OF PATENT 621
Varley had prepared an admirable apparatus for illus
trating the action of my mirror instrument, and showed it
in action to the judges, which had a very good effect.
The Telegraph Companies (8 now in all) with whom I
have come to agreement are all very pleasant and friendly,
and the new instrument is making its way eastwards
(now as far as Suez, and going off to-day to Aden and
Bombay). Until the time when I was coming home from
Brest, when we were at Barra House, there was nothing
settled. As soon as anything should be settled, it went
into unsettlement, with another prospect of a lawsuit, again
up till that time. I well remember the warm congratula
tions and sympathy we had when we hurried home from
Kissingen the year before, and things seemed to be settled
in London. Then I went off again, and all the winter
we were in Edinburgh it was a subject of anxiety to my
dearest Margaret. It was not till the August following
that I could tell her it was all settled. Since that time
those things have gone as prosperously in every respect as
possible ; but she only knew the perturbations and toils,
from some of which she suffered greatly by over-fatigue
going to Valencia in 1858. Near the end of April, when
very good accounts of the new instrument came from St.
Pierre, and the Indian Companies were all wanting to
have it, she said, " It is just the fruit of your labours."
I must stop now, and go on with my book on
Electricity, which is chiefly compiled from things written
more than twenty years ago, and some which I wrote in
Edinburgh the last winter we were there. Macmillan is
pressing me to get it out by Christmas, if possible, and I
am at it every moment of spare time.
With love to your mother and Mary, I am, yours
always affectionately, WiLLIAM THOMSON.
In January 1872 Sir William was busy over the
proofs of his reprint of papers on Electrostatics and
Magnetism, which had been on hand for four years.
In February he was in London with Dr. Gladstone ;
622 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
then went to Edinburgh to work with Tait at proofs
of the smaller Elements of Nat^lral Philosophy, for
the Oxford Press (see p. 472).
On March 29 he wrote of his doings to
Miss Jessie Crum : new cable schemes, trials of
telegraph instruments old and new, correspond
ence "with my old friend De Sauty, and several
others of the old Atlantic people, who are all
much taken up with the recorder, and (under
instructions from Sir James Anderson) doing their
best to get it to work well." He is proposing a
short spring cruise before session ends, and then
to sail to Gibraltar to see the recorder working
there. He has a prospect, after the British Asso
ciation is over, at the end of August, of going to
Quebec with Dr. Norman Macleod, but the project
was cut short by the death of Dr. Macleod in June.
Two of his nephews will be required as lieutenants
in the new Atlantic cable scheme. " There is
quite an epidemic amongst the laboratory students
of desire to become telegraph engineers."
Then comes a commercial shadow across the
path.
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY, 3 April, 1872.
DEAR JENKIN I am sorry to hear what you tell me.
I have no confidence in B , and would require any
statements as to the use of the mirror to be very carefully
sifted before we can admit them. It would be necessary
for him actually to have used the mirror on the cable,
and also at a time found inconsistent with my claims,
before we could admit any weight to the objection to our
rights. Find out, if possible, taking whatever law advice
is necessary, to what extent experimental use of an
xv MORE CABLE PROJECTS 623
invention in that way, confessedly mine, can invalidate
my claim. If he only experimented with it on the cable,
and did not use it for practical working on the line, I do
not believe his objection will be valid. Try, however, if
possible, should the case look bad against us, to make
a compromise, as the companies no doubt admit the
moral right. Of course we know that directors can t be
generous with their shareholders money, but the proper
mixture of generosity and worldly wisdom, escaping
litigation, and procuring us as allies and assistants to
their signalling arrangements, may commend itself to
them. We have another string to our bow in the
recorder. For all their lines it must cut out the mirror,
and that speedily. But be cautious in using or showing
this string. If we can get our terms for the mirror con
sented to, we can make more use of our recorder rights
than if we put them forward now. In the course of six
months, I believe, I could give thorough good recorders
for their lines. You may feel confident as to this, and
use it as you think best. Yours truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
By April 1 1 he is able to send word to Leitch
that Sir James Anderson now considers the re
corder to be the instrument for all their cable
stations.
On April 28 he writes again, from London, he
has been suddenly called up on business of the
" Great Western Telegraph Co."; that he intends
to go to J. T. Bottomley s marriage at Belfast ;
and that on Friday he hopes to be at rest on his
yacht in the Gareloch, ready to put to sea. He is
wishing to sail for Gibraltar as soon as possible,
that he may be free to go later to Bermuda. " On
Friday I got the last MSS. of the book out of
hands."
624 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
The Great Western Telegraph Company was a
project to lay a cable via Madeira and the Bermudas
to Boston and to the West Indies ; but later by
arrangement with the earlier companies the project
was altered, though the cable for this work had
been manufactured and the ship Hooper specially
designed for laying it ; and it became merged in the
Western and Brazilian Telegraph Co., which laid
cables in five sections from Para to Rio Janeiro,
touching at Pernambuco. Eventually this and
other South American cables were taken over by
the London Platino- Brazilian Telegraph Company.
About June ist Sir William wrote to Helm-
holtz :-
50 GROSVENOR PLACE, LONDON, S.W.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I am going to Scotland
to-night, and return to London about the middle of next
week, to spend two days in this house (of Mr. Spottis-
woode, President of the London Mathematical Society).
On Saturday the 2ist I hope to sail from Torquay
for Gibraltar, and to call at London on my way back,
visiting the telegraph stations at both places, my recorder
being now in constant use there.
There is now a great telegraph project in the course
of execution to lay cables from England to Bermuda, and
then to New York and St. Thomas. The manufacture
of the cables has commenced, and Fleeming Jenkin and
I being engineers to the Company are obliged one or
other of us to be very frequently in London. We have
a great deal of electric testing to do insulation, electro
static capacity, and resistance of the copper conductor,
also testing the strength of the iron wire and of the
finished cable. The laying will not be commenced till
this time next year. I am living chiefly on board the
Lalla Rookh) off the south of England, and coming up to
XV
THE "HOOPER" 625
London when necessary. I can only get mathematical
work done in the yacht, as elsewhere there are too many
interruptions.
A few days ago I despatched the very last of my
volume of Electrostatics and Magnetism to the printers,
except the preface, and I am now getting to work on
Vol. II. of the Natural Philosophy, and the reprint of
Vol. I.
I hope you have been well, and your family all well,
since we parted at the " Albert Quay." Is your new
laboratory finished or making satisfactory progress ? I
hope it will turn out in all respects satisfactory to
you. Believe me, yours very truly,
WILLIAM THOMSON.
By this time the new company was fairly afloat,
and the partners had to keep a staff of electricians
at work, some at Millwall, others at Mitcham under
David T. King, to superintend the manufacture.
Sir William had to spend two or three days each
week at the works. He has a way of turning up at
the Millwall works on a surprise visit, arriving once
at 2 A.M. in a dripping mackintosh, with a black bag
in his hand, "for all the world like a tea-traveller,"
as one of the assistants writes. He is living the
rest of his days on his yacht, cruising round
Torquay, or taking his friends Dr. Gladstone,
Mr. Varley, and Dr. Siemens trips to Sheerness
or Margate. He varied these amusements by
reading to the London Mathematical Society a
paper on the reduction of Polynomial Quadratics,
which he had worked out in the quietude of his
yacht.
On June 24th he wrote to Lord Rayleigh, from
626 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
Torquay, respecting certain paragraphs of " the
book " :
I am on the wing for Gibraltar (and other telegraph
stations Lisbon, Brest if time before the B. A., Brighton,
Aug. 14, permits). I hope to despatch from Gibraltar all
I have to say in the way of additions or amendments to
the first two or three sheets of Vol. I., so that the reprint
may go on forthwith. Meantime, or as soon as possible,
amendments or suggestions for early parts or any part of
the volume sent to Tait will be thankfully received.
Then he sails for Gibraltar one Sunday morning
from Gravesend. But just as they weigh anchor
the " Thames Mission " boat comes up, and Sir
William orders Captain Flarty to stop the yacht
while the minister conducts service for them on
board. By June 24th he has got to Torquay, and
has taken aboard the new recorder for Gibraltar,
and some new instruments for sounding and for
measuring speed at sea. While he is away affairs
at home do not flag. White is pushing on with im
proved recorders; and Donald MacFarlane, writing
him to report progress of the laboratory work in
the new building of the University, says : " I have
taken possession of the spare room above the stair
case (without leave), and in one corner of it I have
stowed all the packing-boxes which were always in
the way."
Returning to England, August ist, he writes in
the train, from London to Torquay, to his sister-in-
law a detailed account of his tour :
I have had a very pleasant and satisfactory cruise, and
xv A MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE 627
made useful as well as interesting visits to the three tele
graph stations, Gibraltar, Lisbon, and Porthcurno (though
only three hours at the last in consequence of a letter,
reinforced by a telegram, summoning me to attend a
meeting of the " Great Western Tel." Board in London
yesterday). At Gibraltar my old enemy, but now very
good friend, De Sauty, who was at the other end of the
cable in 1858, has managed admirably with the recorder,
and has entirely given up the mirror in all the work of
the station. I found him as agreeable and obliging as
possible in every way. We were almost constantly at
work in the telegraph office from the Sunday * morning,
when I arrived, till the Saturday morning, when I sailed
for Lisbon. . . .
The rest of the letter is full, moreover, of lively
details about the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar
that came early in the morning to visit the telegraph
station there ; of his trip towards Algiers in the Lalla
Rookh with De Sauty on board ; and of his voyage
home via Lisbon. To-morrow he will sail from
Torquay to Cowes for the R. Y. S. Regatta.
Brighton was the scene of the British Associa
tion meeting of 1872, and Sir William went there
for three days to introduce his successor, Dr.
Carpenter, into the presidential chair, and to read
two papers one on the Identification of Lights at
Sea, the other on the Use of Steel Wire for Deep
Sea Sounding. In the latter he narrates how in
the Bay of Biscay he has corrected the charts, using
1 " Particularly the Sunday, which at all the stations of submarine lines is
the great day for testings and adjustments, lawful on the ground of necessity
and mercy. About five o clock on the Sunday the cable has generally done
its week s work, and is nearly at rest till about eleven on Monday forenoon ;
but for three weeks together it has been never once clear, which is about as
bad as Mr. Pickwick s cab horse,"
628 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
a lead sinker of only thirty pounds at the end of a
three-mile line of thin pianoforte wire.
At the Mathematical and Physical Section, in
proposing a vote of thanks to the president, who
had referred to Professor Zollner s electric theory
of comet s tails, he told how some time since, at a
workmen s philosophical institute at Millwall, an
intelligent man produced a glass tube which
cracked when an iron wire was laid along its
inside. The workmen were puzzled by the fact,
but at last agreed that it must be electrical ! The
same merit lay at the bottom of Zollner s theory,
namely, omne ignotum pro electrico.
More cruising about the Clyde completes the
holiday, and in September he is back at the
University.
In October 1872 Sir William Thomson was
elected to one of the two life Fellowships at Peter-
house, founded for men distinguished in Science
or Letters ; the eminent Greek scholar, Richard
Shilleto, having been elected to the other in 1867.
There was now big work in hand over the
manufacture of the new cable, and the building of
the cable-ship for laying it. He seeks advice from
his engineering brother :
GREAT WESTERN TEL. Co.,
103 CANON STREET, LONDON,
Oct. 30, 1872.
MY DEAR JAMES Hooper s Telegraph manufactur
ing company have ordered for cable laying a ship
350 ft. long, 55 ft. beam, 36 ft. moulded depth; builders
measurem 1 = 4940 tons.
XY THE "HOOPER" 629
Jenkin and I both strongly urge a hydraulic arrange
ment to give power of manoeuvre that is to say, a pump
and water pipes to give means of
discharging water perpendicu-
larly across the length at any
one of four places, A, A , B, B ,
or at two of them simultaneously. I calculate that
water discharged through an aperture of J square metre
(say 2^- square feet) at a velocity of 6^ metres per
second, that is to say, -5 or i~ tons per second, would
4 16
give a pressure of one ton. I would wish to be able to
give at least I ton simultaneously at A and B, and
therefore would need to be able to discharge not less
than 3^- tons per second, or 728 gallons per second, or
say 44,000 gallons per minute. The head of water
corresponding to the discharge velocity of 6j metres per
(6 1 ) 2
sec. is g = 2 metres. I should be much obliged by
your telegraphing to me to above address on Friday
morning your opinion as to the centrifugal pump and
water-ways that would be required for this, and your
opinion regarding Gwynne s pumps, of which I send you
printed prospectus by same post with this. You might
also write to me on Friday, addressing St. Peter s College,
Cambridge. . . . The ship is to be made by Mitchell,
Newcastle, and it is to be finished and round in the Thames
by 26 April, subject to 100 penalty per day for delay
after that date.
I was made a Fellow of Peterhouse under a new statute
which allows men eminent in literature or science to be
elected independently of marriage. I shall go back to
Cambridge on Saturday on my way to Glasgow. Your
affectionate brother, W. THOMSON.
GLASGOW COLLEGE, Nov. 5, 1872.
DEAR JAMES I think the hydraulic thwart ship
propeller, according to the data of your telegram, will do.
I spent yesterday at Newcastle with the shipbuilder (Mr.
630 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
Swan of " Mitchell and Co."), and he has found a place
for it ... [here follow ten octavo pages of details] . . .
The thing is of extreme urgency, as in three weeks the
plating of the ship about the stern will have commenced.
Many of the frames are up already. I only heard on
Thursday last that she was to be built. I wish they had
told me beforehand, and I would have had a thwartship
propeller in the original plans, which would have saved a
good deal of money on what will have now to be spent to
get it applied. Your professional charge and expenses
must be charged, with the wheel and work of the ship
builders putting it in, to Hooper s Company. If we can
get a practicable scheme, it is, I think, certain that the
Company will adopt it In haste, your affec 1 brother,
W. THOMSON.
UNIVERSITY, EDINBURGH, Monday
\Nov. 1 8, 1872, Post-mark].
DEAR JAMES Thanks for your telegram. Mitchell s are
quite confident about thwartship screw below main screw
shaft, 6 ft. diameter of screw. Three blades to be driven
by a wire rope round grooved rim 6 ft. diameter surround
ing blades of screw. You will receive in a few days from
me (or from Mr. Froude) their drawings.
The engine is to be on deck, and I have a telegram
from them to-day (scarcely time to have read it yet) to
effect that we may have 60 Ibs. pressure, and no limit to
size of cylinders. Yours, W. T.
Great haste.
Sir William was at this time living in his half-
furnished residence in the professors court at the
University, his nephew, James T. Bottomley, resid
ing with him and acting as assistant in his laboratory
work and teaching. A well-known feature of his
household was " Dr. Redtail," a grey parrot with
red tail feathers, who had been bought in Seven
Dials. Of this favourite bird many stories are told.
xv AN INVITATION TO HELMHOLTZ 631
The best authenticated is his greeting of his master
as he hurried in from the laboratory to join an in
vited party at lunch : " Late again, Sir William !
Late again ! "
At the end of the year he has a proposal to convey
to Helmholtz :
ATHENAEUM CLUB, LONDON,
Dec. 2, 1872.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I enclose a letter of Dr. Cookson,
Master of Peterhouse and Vice-Chancellor of the Uni
versity of Cambridge, which he requested me to transmit
to you. It is written in consequence of a suggestion I
made to him when I saw him three days ago at Cambridge,
that he should ask you to give the " Rede Lecture " for
1873. I hope you will accept. You would choose your
own subject anything upon which you would like to
speak for an hour, or an hour and a half, to a cultivated
audience. It is given annually in the Senate House of the
University, and the authorities are always anxious to have
a man of high distinction. So far as I know, no one not
a British subject has hitherto been asked to give the lecture.
You would probably, if you accept, prefer to have the
lecture fully written out, and to read it to the audience.
It is desirable that it should be afterwards published.
In 1866 I was asked to give the "Rede Lecture." I
accepted, and chose for my subject the " Dissipation of
Energy." I did not succeed in getting it written out,
and it has not been published, but I hope sometime to
write it out (with, no doubt, many changes and additions)
and to publish it. I hope very much you will be able
and willing to accept. I would make a point of being
at Cambridge at the time. Dr. Cookson will be glad to
hear from you as soon as may be in reply. Address,
The Rev. Dr. Cookson, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
I hope all goes well with you at Berlin. I should be
glad to hear from you.
I am here for a few days on telegraph business, and I go
632 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
to-morrow to Cornwall to test a new cable which has been
just laid from the Lizard to Bilbao. I shall be in Glasgow
again by next Monday, I trust. I shall send you very
soon a printed paper describing the best way I have
found for managing the large tray battery, which has
been doing well. I am getting a battery of eighty trays
of larger size l than those you have, and I expect to get
a very powerful electric light from it. Believe me, yours
always truly, WILLIAM THOMSON.
P.S. With trays the same size as yours, I get the
resistance of each cell as low as -12 of an ohm.
GLASGOW COLLEGE, Jan. 8, 1873.
MY DEAR HELMHOLTZ We are very sorry that you
are unable to undertake the " Rede Lecture." I cannot
share your misgivings about success in interesting the
audience had you been able to undertake it, but only
regret that your engagements in Berlin make it impossible
for you to do so.
You have heard, no doubt, before now of the sad loss
we have had in the death of Rankine. I send you by
this post a copy of the Glasgow Herald (Dec. 28), con
taining an article on his life and scientific work by Tait ;
also a copy of the same newspaper for Dec. 26, containing
two articles, all of which I think will interest you. We
lost Archibald Smith, 2 too, in the same week, whose name
you may know from the great work he has done for
navigation in respect to correcting the compass error in
iron ships. He was a very old and excellent friend of
mine. He has been a hard-working Chancery barrister
almost ever since he took his degree at Cambridge as
"Senior Wrangler" in 1836, or else he must, with his
great mathematical powers and inclination for physical
science, have been one of the foremost men of science of
this country.
I have urged my brother, James Thomson (who is at
present Professor of Engineering in Queen s College, Belfast,.
1 The zincs 22 inches square.
a [See Obituary Notice by Sir W. T., Proc. Roy. Soc. xxii., pp. i.-xxiv.]
xv SOCIETY OF TELEGRAPH ENGINEERS 633
and has been so for many years) to apply for Rankine s
vacant chair. I should feel much obliged by your writing
to me a very short statement of your opinion of my
brother s merits as a scientific investigator, or qualifica
tions for a chair of Engineering. I have received such
letters to-day from Andrews, Tait, and Joule, in answer
to similar requests which I made to them. I expect one
from Maxwell. These four, and one from you if you will
write it to me, shall be laid before Mr. Bruce, the minister
(" Home Secretary ") who has to make the appointment,
and I think should constitute sufficient evidence in support
of my brother s application. I thank you very much for
your corrections and remarks on our Treatise. Some of
the former we had noticed. All will be taken advantage of.
I instructed Macmillan to send you a copy of my Electro
statics and Magnetism^ which was published just before
Christmas. Wishing you and Mrs. Helmholtz " a good
new year " as we say in Scotland I remain, yours truly,
W. THOMSON.
P. S. I am hard at work just now with your
cos \// + cr
sin \/ + T
and trying to help myself by it to find the shape of a
coreless cylindrical vortex couple.
In this winter of 1872-73 Sir William Thomson
sent several technical communications to the newly-
founded Society of Telegraph Engineers, of which
he was a foundation member and vice-president.
These were On a New Form of Joule s Tangent
Galvanometer, On the Measurement of Electro
static Capacity, Tests of Battery, and On a
Tray Battery for the Siphon Recorder. This last
invention was a form created by the necessity of
providing a constant current for the electromagnet
VOL. II E
634 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
of the recorder, and consisted of a pile of lead-lined
shallow wooden trays about a yard square containing
zinc grids and sulphate of copper as a modification
of Daniell s well-known type of cell. In the early
spring he read several papers to the Edinburgh
Royal Society, only the titles of which remain ;
also two communications in March to the Institute
of Engineers in Scotland, on " Signalling through
Cables" (illustrated by a model cable) and "On
the Rope-dynamometer." He was also very full
of the question of distinguishing lighthouse lights
by flashing signals, and on signalling the letters of
the Morse code by flags and by waving lights.
He contributed to Good Words of March 1873 an
article on " Lighthouses of the Future" (see p. 725
below).
The appointment in March 1873 of Professor
James Thomson, LL.D., to the chair of Engineer
ing at Glasgow, as successor to Rankine, was a
great joy to his younger brother. In the summer
of 1873 the James Thomsons lived in Sir William s
College house, and reported to him that the day
after he left for Brazil his parrot, " Doctor Redtail,"
had surprised the household by saying " Sir William
Thomson gone to Liverpool."
GLASGOW COLLEGE, March 15, 1873.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I have delayed too long writing
to thank you for your most valuable letter regarding my
brother s qualifications for the chair of Engineering. It
must, I am sure, have had more influence in promoting
his appointment than almost any other document put
into the hands of Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary. I
xv THE "HOOPER" 635
have now the satisfaction of being able to tell you that
he has been appointed to the chair. He will remain in
Belfast to finish the business of the present session there,
and next November will enter on his duties in Glasgow.
I hope and fully expect that he will have much more
time here for original research than the comparatively
inconvenient arrangement of the " Queen s University "
allows him in Belfast, and he will find my laboratory a
great aid.
I hope all goes well with you as to your new laboratory
and school of experimental science.
Remember me kindly to your wife, and believe me,
yours always truly, WILLIAM THOMSON.
[-P.^S.] I expect a visit from Joule when my brother
comes over in the course of a week or two, to be formally
admitted to the chair. He is President-elect of the
British Association at the meeting appointed for Brad
ford in Sept. next. Is there any chance of your being
present? I am sorry that I shall not be able to be
there as I am to be away in Brazil laying cables.
YACHT LALLA ROOKH,
LARGS, May 25, 1873.
MY DEAR ANDREWS ... I ought sooner to have
written to thank you and Mrs. Andrews for your very
kind invitation, but I waited till I could see my way as
to a possible time for going across to Belfast. I have
had a great deal on hand seeing the new cable-ship
Hooper, and sailing round in her on her first voyage from
the builder s yard at Newcastle to Millwall Dock, etc.,
etc. I have now to get sounding apparatus, and one of
my laboratory students indoctrinated in the use of it,
despatched by a steamer to sail from Liverpool on the
3 ist for Para, and take soundings along the coast of
Brazil from Para to Pernambuco. I hope about ten days
hence to be able to sail across, and to look after the
setting up of an eclipsing arrangement which the Harbour
Commissioners have ordered for the light in Holywood
bank. If I can manage to remain a night in Belfast it
636 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
will be a great pleasure to me to avail myself of your
invitation, should the time, which I am sorry is still
necessarily uncertain, be convenient to you and Mrs.
Andrews. Believe me, yours very truly,
W. THOMSON.
On April 23 Sir William wrote to Miss Jessie
Crum that on the Friday before he had set out on
a three days cruise with his nephew W. Bottomley
and Dr. James Napier. They saw the Ardrossan
harbour light, "an excellent distinguishing light
introduced by Mr. Thomas Stevenson." On May
28 he wrote again from London, where the Hooper
was taking in cable, that he was returning to
Glasgow to sail in the yacht for Liverpool with
Mary and Mr. Watson l to see sounding apparatus
on a ship.
Preparations were now far advanced for the
laying of the new cable from Pernambuco to Para.
He sent word to his brother :
(Post-mark London, S.W., July 16, 1873.)
CABLE-SHIP HOOPER, June 15/73.
DEAR JAMES . . . The cable-ship came out of dock
yesterday, and after about two days here is to sail for
Plymouth. It may be Saturday next, or more probably
a few days later, that we leave finally for Brazil. Having
seen the cable, and arrangements for testing all right, and
the ship away from the factory, I leave her to-morrow
morning, and after a day and a half in London, leave (I
trust) to-morrow afternoon for Cowes, to sail thence west
wards. I have a cable (the " Direct Spanish ") to test at
Lizard before going away in the Hooper, and I hope to
be able to sail there, and possibly further to Porthcurno,
1 Rev. Charles Watson, D.D., who had married Miss Mary Gray Crum.
He was Free Church minister at Largs, and died 1908.
xv THE "HOOPER" 637
and see trials of my new automatic sender there, and,
still sailing in the L. R., get back to Plymouth in time.
If wind does not answer I shall have to take train.
Your affec te brother, W. T.
On Friday, June 2Oth, the Hooper sailed from
the Thames, having on board some 2500 miles of
cable. On the 26th she landed the shore end at
Lisbon, and proceeded westwards with the rest of
the cable. " Here we are," wrote Jenkin to his
wife from the Hooper, on June 29, " off Madeira at
seven o clock in the morning. Thomson has been
sounding with his special toy ever since half- past
three (1087 fathoms of water)." On July 7th Sir
William wrote to his sister-in-law from the Hooper,
then lying in Funchal Bay, that they had been there
a week and would be there a week more. A few
days after leaving Plymouth a fault had been found
in the cable in a length of 543 miles that was coiled
in one of the three tanks ; and as the fault was 400
miles down the coil they had had a prodigious work
in uncoiling, splicing pieces, and recoiling. The
expense to Hooper s Company was some ^200 per
day ; but it was well that the stoppage had been
here, not at Cape Verde or at Pernambuco. He
had been struck by the marvellous beauty of the
island. "It has been impossible," he added, "to
keep off Darwinism, and although Madeira gave
Darwin some of his most notable and ingenious
illustrations and proofs (!) we find at every turn
something to show (if anything were needed to
show) the utter futility of his philosophy."
638 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
An incident related by R. L. Stevenson in his
memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, deserves mention :
I shall not readily forget with what emotion he once
told me an incident of their associated travels. On one of
the mountain ledges of Madeira, Fleeming s pony bolted
between Sir William and the precipice above ; by strange
good fortune, and thanks to the steadiness of Sir William s
horse, no harm was done ; but for the moment, Fleeming
saw his friend hurled into the sea, and almost by his own
act : it was a memory that haunted him.
A month later Thomson wrote a further account
of the events of the voyage :
Aug. 8, Friday.
PLA^A DO COMMERCIO, RECIFE, PERNAMBUCO.
We hope to be under weigh for Para, paying out cable
from the stern of the Hooper, before dark this evening. . . .
I have bought a parrot, green, with splendid red tips
to his wing shoulders and end-wing feathers, dark blue
outer wing feathers, light blue and white head, brilliant
yellow breast. 1 The colouring is as rich and varied as
Mrs. Bowden Fullarton s dress, and even more harmonious
in general effect . . .
Tell Mary that we have had a great deal of dot and
dash practice between the Hooper and the Paraense, both
by lamps at night and (with far more difficulty) by various
other means in the day-time, to be ready to receive her
soundings, and tell her where to go next in choosing out
track for Para. We had some admirable lamp signalling
several evenings at Funchal between the Hooper and Mr.
Blandy s house, about i^ miles distant. The Miss
Blandys learned " Morse " very well and quickly, and
both sent and read long telegrams the first evening they
tried it, to the admiration of France and other old tele
graphers on board.
1 This parrot, named " Professor Papagaio," lived many years in the
College House. When he died he was stuffed, and is now in the Hunterian
Museum in Glasgow University.
XV
THE "HOOPER" 639
The ladies in question were the daughters of
Charles R. Blandy, Esq., one of the principal
residents of Madeira, at whose villa Sir William
was welcomed. The delay to the expedition lasted
over a fortnight, but at last the repairs were
completed. An eye-witness has recounted how,
when the anchor was weighed, and the Hooper
steamed slowly out of Funchal Bay, a figure was
seen waving a floating streak of white drapery from
a window of the house on the hill high above the
port. " G-O-O-D-B-Y-E " was spelled out. " Eh !
What s that? What s that?" said Sir William,
adjusting his eye-glass the better to catch the
signals. " Good -bye, good-bye, Sir William
Thomson." And as the ship s hull dipped beyond
the horizon the white streak still fluttered " Good
bye."
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE SEVENTIES
HOLDING his fellowship at Peterhouse, Sir William
Thomson now frequented Cambridge more often ;
and on returning from Pernambuco he paid a visit
there on his way north. He wrote to his sister,
Mrs. King :
ST. PETER S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
Oct. 22, 1873.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH ... I am here till the 29th,
when there is an important College meeting which I
should have had to come back from Glasgow to attend
if I had been there. Meantime I am very busy, having
(in consequence of having been re-elected to a fellowship)
accepted the office of " additional examiner " for the
Senate-house examination of next January. Making
questions and meeting with the other examiners and the
moderators is my present occupation. Then in January
there will be some days of hard work examining the
answers. Since coming here last week I have been again
rowing in an eight-oar (the first time since 1 846) with the
" ancient mariners," of whom Fawcett, the (blind) member
for Brighton, is a chief.
David (jun 1 ") 1 has been doing very well indeed. He is
not to go out in the Hooper this trip (to lay the Pernambuco-
Bahia-Rio Janeiro sections, for w h she leaves the Thames
on 3rd of Nov.), but will remain in charge at Millwall.
1 David Thomson King, who was drowned at sea (see p. 655).
640
CH. xvi IN THE SEVENTIES 641
This, I think, will be better for his progress afterwards
than going to sea just now would have been, as it makes
him known to Mr. Heugh and others as holding a
responsible position. He will probably go out on the
Para -St. Thomas (a very important part of the work)
next spring. I shall try to get him a short holiday soon.
I shall be in London from the 3Oth Oct. till the 3rd Nov.
to make final arrangements and see the Hooper off. Your
affec 6 brother, W. T.
In December 1873 Sir William read a paper to
the Royal Society of Edinburgh on a new method
of determining the material and thermal diffusion
of fluids.
He wrote on Christmas day from Knowsley to
Mrs. King :
Yesterday I came here on a visit to Lord and Lady
Derby for a few days. On Saturday or Monday I go to
Mere Old Hall, near Knutsford, William Crum s place, to
remain till the end of the holidays. I have to be at the
Royal Society, Edinburgh, on Monday week to " read " a
paper, which, however, will not, I fear, be written till after
the reading. As Mrs. Johnstone told you, I shall have
to be there after this winter, having been elected to be
President.
My Cambridge work (as one of the examiners l for the
" Mathematical Tripos" of 1874) will keep me very busy
till the end of January, when it will be over. I have
brought the examination papers here (a very large heap)
for revisal, etc. About the 2Oth of January I shall have
to go there and remain till the list showing the result is
given out.
A letter to Dr. King followed :
1 As examiner for the Mathematical Tripos Sir William Thomson intro
duced various changes to give greater width of studies in the direction of
Natural Philosophy. That these reforms did not please all the Cambridge
mathematicians was natural ; but Maxwell, who had paved the way for them,
rejoiced.
642 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
CAMBRIDGE, /#;/. 27/74.
MY DEAR DAVID
I should have written sooner, if only to say so much ;
but that I have been absolutely overwhelmed with ex
amination papers (answers to our printed questions) for
the " Mathematical Tripos," that is to say, the Cam
bridge University examination for mathematical honours.
The work is exceedingly interesting to me, but most
laborious and wearisomely plodding. For my share of
one sitting of the candidates I got io|- Ibs. of papers of
written answers. I have had seven such hauls, and
scarcely any of them less than 5 Ibs. By the same post
with this (or by to-morrow s) I shall send a specimen of
our printed papers of questions w h it may interest you
to see. The questions marked with roman numerals in
it are mine, the " arabic " by another examiner. I shall
enclose it in a number of the Telegraphic Journal con
taining a report of an " address " I was obliged to make
in London on my way here. I had only (after enormous
labour with Tatlock in two days) succeeded in getting
enough written to occupy 4 MINUTES, and the prospect
had made me feel as if I had a millstone round my neck
for a fortnight before the day. So after I read the little
beginning piece, the rest was a " leap in the dark "
altogether. I had really not an idea of what I was going
to say, so I was thankful when it was all over. I was sur
prised a few days later with a copy of the Telegraphic
Journal containing the report, which had been taken (very
well as I thought) by a shorthand writer. It seems to
contain every word I said, with only a few errors. . . .
I would like very much to make a cruise in the
Mediterranean, but next May and June I shall in all
probability not be free to do so.
The Society of Telegraph Engineers, destined
later to blossom into the Institution of Electrical
Engineers, was then not three years old. Sir
XVI
IN THE SEVENTIES 643
William Thomson, as its president, in his inaugural
address l dealt chiefly with the reflected benefits
which science gains from its practical applications,
and the benefit of the systems of measurement
that grew up out of the requirements of the prac
tical telegraphist. Terrestrial magnetism was still,
so far as its cause was concerned, a mystery ; so
was that of terrestrial electricity. But telegraph
engineers, by investigating the facts over the globe,
could help to solve these mysteries. He regarded
the Telegraph Engineers as a society for establishing
harmony between theory and practice in electrical
engineering, and in electrical science generally, by
organized co-operation.
Within a month he gave another presidential
address to the Glasgow Geological Society on the
Influence of Geological Changes on the Earth s
Rotation, and communicated a paper on Deep-sea
Sounding. At Edinburgh he read an important
paper on the Kinetic Theory of the Dissipation of
Energy.
On April 10 he took a preliminary cruise of
four days on the yacht with a party including Jenkin
and some former students.
To Charles Abercromby Smith (now Sir Charles),
of Cape Town, he wrote :
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY, April 28, 1874.
MY DEAR SMITH You know by this time that I am
again a colleague of yours, as Fellow of Peterhouse. It
1 See The Telegraphic Journal, vol. ii. p. 67, Jan. 15, 1874 ; Soc. of
Telegr. Engineers Journal, iii. pp. 1-15, 1874; Pop, Lectures, ii. p. 206.
644 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
is pleasant to be again associated with a former pupil
and friend, though we are pretty nearly at two extremities
of a diameter of the earth. Do you remember Tatlock ?
at all events he remembers often hearing about you, and
of your thermo-electric experiments in the laboratory of
the old College. . . . This is written in his hand. As I
have so many engagements, and so much laboratory
work that I am kept constantly standing and walking
about, I can seldom sit down to write anything, and
am obliged to do nearly everything I wish in black and
white by dictation.
I examined for the mathematical tripos last January,
which gave me a good deal of work from about this time
last year till the beginning of February, first composing
the questions, and then having all the heavy labour of
examining the answers. I was at Cambridge in all at
different times about five weeks, and enjoyed this very
much, as it was very pleasant for me to live once again in
the old College, which by the way, as you perhaps know
too, has been greatly improved and beautified at much
expense. . . . This will be delivered to you by Mr. Coles,
who I believe is already known to you. He is, I believe,
to disclose to you, and others who may be interested, a
new form of cable which has been designed by Hooper s
Telegraph Works Company for connecting the Cape with
Aden and Mauritius. It is a form of cable in which I
have great confidence. The hempen insulation is of the
general character which both Professor Jenkin and I have
long advocated as being the most suitable for a deep-sea
cable, but it is a very great improvement indeed on any
thing of this kind that we ever either designed ourselves
or have seen designed by others.
He was already making plans for the summer.
On March 26 he wrote to Froude that he must be
in London on 2Oth of April for a soiree of the Tele
graph Engineers, and that he intended to sail from
Falmouth on 2nd of May for Madeira. The Lalla
xvi IN THE SEVENTIES 645
Rookk was ready. He left instructions to have put
into his Glasgow house a new heating stove to give
next winter a heat " like Madeira," and to procure
plants and flowers to decorate it in the autumn, and
departed almost gaily for the trip. But this time it
was not cable-laying that took him to Madeira.
Soon he wrote to Mrs. King, then in Florence :
L. /?., FUNCHAL BAY, MADEIRA,
Tuesday, May 12, 1874.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH I believe you heard from
Lizzie that I intended to sail from Falmouth for
Madeira on the 2nd of May. The Lalla Rookh has done
well taken me to the island, 1200 sea miles from Fal
mouth, in 6f days. I anchored exactly at noon on
Sunday in Funchal Bay, an hour before the Hooper,
which I had left at Greenhithe on Friday week after
testing the cable on board, and which sailed from the
Thames on the day following. Yesterday I was answered
Yes to a question which I asked very soon after the
English people came out of forenoon church on Sunday.
I was here for sixteen days last June and July on account
of a fault in the cable. Otherwise this greatest possible
blessing could not have come to me, that is as we see,
but surely it is " not chance." When I came to
Madeira in the Hooper it had never seemed to me pos
sible that such an idea could enter my mind, or that this
life could bring me any happiness. I thank God always
that I was brought here. When I came away in July I
did not think happiness possible for me, and indeed I
had not begun even to wish for it. But I carried away
an image and impression from which the idea came, and
before I landed at Dover in October I had begun to
wish for it. Hope grew stronger till yesterday, when I
found that I had not hoped in vain. I cannot write
more just now, but I send this because I do not wish a
mail now on the point of leaving to go without bringing
the good news. When you know Fanny you will be
646 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
able to really congratulate me. Even now I think you
will be glad for my sake. . . . Your ever affectionate
brother, WILLIAM THOMSON.
The next letter is to Helmholtz :
YACHT LALLA ROOKH > FUNCHAL BAY, MADEIRA,
June 23, 1874.
DEAR HELMHOLTZ I am to be married in Madeira
to-morrow. I enclose a photograph, and I hope you will
know the original before very long. Let me have a line
addressed Athenaeum Club, London, to say if you are to
be at the British Association in Belfast. I do not intend
to be at the meeting, but if you are to be there we might
see you on your way to or from it. We think of sailing
from Madeira in the Lalla Rookh about the middle of
July, but have not made up our minds whether to make
as short a passage as we can to England, or to touch at
Gibraltar, Lisbon, Vigo, Corunna, on our way, or to keep a
more westerly course and make a little cruise among the
Azores. The future mistress of the Lalla Rookh promises
to be a very good sailor, having already been out a good
many times for a day s sail, one of them round the
Desertas (about 70 miles) and always hitherto escaped
sea-sickness. Still it remains to be seen whether a yacht
cruise on the open Atlantic is a pleasure in direct or in
inverse proportion to its duration.
My present happiness is due to a fault in the cable
which kept the Hooper for sixteen days in Funchal Bay
last summer. I hope you and Mrs. Helmholtz and your
children are all well. With kind regards, I remain, yours
always truly, WILLIAM THOMSON.
He wrote the same day a similar letter to Dr.
J. Hall Gladstone, adding a congratulation on his
election to the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry
at the Royal Institution : " To be Faraday s suc
cessor is indeed an honour. I am sure you will
find the post most congenial to you."
xvi IN THE SEVENTIES 647
The Glasgow Herald of July 4, 1874, contained
the following announcement :
MARRIAGES.
At the British Consular Chapel, Funchal, Madeira,
on the 24th ult., Sir WILLIAM THOMSON, Professor
of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow,
to FRANCES ANNA, daughter of CHARLES R. BLANDY,
Esq., of Madeira.
To his sister Sir William wrote :
ST. ANNA, MADEIRA,/*/// 5, 1874.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH
On the 24 th we rode away in the afternoon to a place
called St. Antonio de Serra, about 4 miles ride from
Funchal, and 2000 feet above the sea level. We lived
there in a house belonging to an uncle of Fanny s for a
few days and then came across to this place. We have
been taking rides and walks every day and enjoying to
the utmost the beauties of Madeira. On Thursday next
we return to Funchal, and remain about 10 days in Mr.
Blandy s house before sailing away in the Lalla Rookh.
-Your affe c brother, W. T.
The homeward voyage in the yacht was
shortened, for off Finisterre she broke her main
gaff, and finished the voyage under top-sail to
Cowes for repairs. Sir William and Lady Thom
son paid a hurried visit to London, returning to
Cowes for further cruising between engagements
in town, which prevented them from going to
the British Association at Belfast. Here James
Thomson was to be president of the Engineering
section, and to him, on August 1 2, Sir William wrote,
from the Great Western Hotel, Paddington :
648 LIFE OF LORD KELVIN CHAP.
MY DEAR JAMES
We left Cowes on Friday to come here on business.
I have been overwhelmed with arrears of correspondence
reports of recent expeditions. The Hooper is expected
home about the 1 8th, and I must be here for some time
after that to decide what is to be done with the defective
cable which the Hooper brings home (which was to have
been laid between Cayenne and Demerara, but is brought
back because defective). I don t know how long this
may keep me, but it may be that for several weeks yet I
must be within call of London. We return to the Lalla
Rookh at Cowes to-morrow to remain " at home " in her
until we return to London for the Hooper. . . .
W. Bottomley tells me you are going to refer to the
eclipsing system of distinguishing lighthouses. I trust
the one on Holywood Bank will be in action and giving
practical proof of the plan. You can scarcely be too
strong in expressions, as the NEED for distinction in REAL
experience, though sailors a 
