FROM HIS FATHER

                                                                     Glenlair, 10th April 1852.

The Ordnance Surveyors are doing Contour Lines. The line 250 feet above sea-level passes just in front of the   Bees.

                                                                     Glenlair, 25th April 1852.

I . . . congratulate you on your scholarship. You write of entering on the duties,—what are they? and what are the   Privileges and Profits?

                                                                      Glenlair, 12th May 1852.

Is M'Millan the Publisher of the Cambridge and Dublin, whereof William Thomson is editor? Have you sent him   your prop. you were doing at Christmastime?  The gold-fever of Australian type prevails in these parts.

                                                                      Glenlair, 19th May 1852.

[Prop. about resistance of sides and bottom of a meal-ark.]

 . . . The meal, which may be called a fluid as much as a glacier.

Query: Whether by putting bars beneath the bottom at points removed from the middle of the joist, the pressure   would be more advantageously distributed ?

                                                                      Glenlair, 12th June 1852.

                                  [Eve of James C. M.'s 21st birthday.]

l trust you will be as discreet when major as you have been while minor (Prov. x. 1).
Remember me to Tait. I am sorry I did not see him in Edinburgh to wish him joy of his honours. 

                                                                      Glenlair, 29th June 1852.

Did you take to the Geology at all? I suppose that the cliffs at Lowestoft are Tertiary, with plenty of fossils.
 

                                                                      Glenlair, 9th Nov. 1852.

Nativity of the Prince of Wales.

Received yours of St. Guy and William.

The Cambridge Commission as you report of it will not affect you in any way.

What sort of thing is "College Declamation"? You say you have chosen The Scottish Covenanters. Do you take   the part of Advocate or Apologist for them? or do you try the impartial historian? It would be difficult to give the   Scots Prelates their due without offending some of the Order. During the Persecutions both the civil and  ecclesiastical government of Scotland was getting ripe for the Revolution.

                                                                    Glenlair, 11th Novr. 1852.

  It has been said, Had there been two other Leightons instead of Sharp of St. Andrews and —— —— of   Galloway, Episcopacy would have been securely established.

                                                                       Glenlair, 2d Feb. 1853.

 Aunty Jane was saying—a glass of wine daily, port for preference.
 
 

                                                                      Glenlair, 12th Feb. 1853.

 . . . Mathematical Journal, to which you send Props. What props.? The one about the Pendulum?