TO HIS FATHER.
Trin. Coll., Saturday, 21st April 1855.
[Date in John C. M's hand.]
ots of men are going in for the
H.E.I.C.S.
examination,—Pomeroy, B.,
C., D. (the best double degree for many years), E. (Senior
Wrangler),
etc., so I suppose the competition will be pretty active; but it is
evident
that these men will be totally different judges, etc., tho' they
may be all good in examination subjects.
Pomeroy is a genial giant, generous
and strong, but
hasty in condemnation
tho' slow to wrath. B., intelligent and able to detect any
humbug,
but his own; but excitable, and impudent in the extreme to people he
does
not know. C. has strong feelings and affections, with a
great
amount of sympathy for all cases, but it is repressed for want of
courage,
and he is left with somewhat of a sneaking virtue of his own, always
trying
to put on the manners which
suit those he is with. D. is a good man of business, using up every
scrap of his time most successfully, and honest, I
believe.
E. is what I don't know, but I can conceive him reduced by
circumstances
to act the part of Sir Elijah Impey in India; but I hope
circumstances
may be different, and then he may be a harmless mathematician or
scientific
referee, and leave a high reputation behind him.
Trin. Coll., Vesp. SS. Philipp. & S. Jac. 1855.
I have been working at the motion of
fluids, and have
got out some results.
I am going to show the colour trick at the Philosophical on
Monday. Routh has been writing a book about Newton in conjunction with
Lord Brougham. Stokes is back again and lecturing as usual.
Saturday, 5th May 1855.
The Royal Society have been very
considerate in
sending me my paper
on colours just when I wanted it for the Philosophical here. I am
to let them see the tricks on Monday evening, and I have been there
preparing
their experiments in the gas-light. There is to be a
meeting in my rooms to-night to discuss Adam Smith's "Theory
of
Moral Sentiments," so I must clear up my litter presently. I am working
away at electricity again, and have been working my way
into
the views of heavy German writers. It takes a long time to reduce to
order
all the notions one gets from these men, but I hope to see
my way through the subject and arrive at something intelligible in
the
way of a theory.
Trin. Coll., 15th May 1855.
The colour trick came off on Monday,
7th. I had the
proof sheets of
my paper, and was going to read; but I changed my mind and
talked instead, which was more to the purpose. There were sundry men
who
thought that Blue and Yellow make Green, so I had to undeceive
them.
I have got Hay's book of colours out of the Univ. Library,
and am working through the specimens, matching them with the top. I
have
a new trick of stretching the string horizontally above the top,
so as to touch the upper part of the axis. The motion of the axis sets
the string
a-vibrating in the same time with the revolutions of the top, and the
colours are seen in the haze produced by the vibration.
Thomson
has been spinning the top, and he finds my diagram of colours agrees
with
his experiments, but he doubts about browns what is their
composition.
I have got colcothar brown, and can make white with it, and blue
and green; also by mixing red with a little blue and green and a great
deal of black, I can match colcothar exactly.
I have been perfecting my instrument
for looking into
the eye. Ware
has a little beast like old Ask(8), which sits quite steady
and seems to like being looked at, and I have got several men who have
large pupils and do not wish to let me look in. I have seen the
image
of the candle distinctly in all the eyes I have tried, and the veins of
the retina were visible in some; but the dogs' eyes showed
all the ramifications of veins, with glorious blue and
green
network, so that you might copy down everything. I have shown lots of
men
the image in my own eye by
shutting off the light till the pupil dilated and then letting it on.
I am reading Electricity and working
at Fluid Motion,
and have got out
the condition of a fluid being able to flow the same
way for a length of time and not wriggle about.
Trin. Coll., Eve. of H. M. Nativy.
Wednesday
last I went with
Hort and Elphinstone
to the Ray Club, which met at Kingsley of Sidney's rooms.
Kingsley
is great in photography and microscopes, and showed photographs of
infusoria,
very beautiful, also live plants and animals, with oxy-hydrogen
microscope.
. . . I am getting on with my
electrical
calculations now and
then, and working out anything that seems to help the
understanding thereof.
FROM HIS FATHER,
Glenlair, 21st May 1855.
Have you put a burn in fit condition
to flow evenly,
and not beat on
its banks from side to side? That would be the useful practical
application.
TO HIS FATHER.
(After the Meeting of the British Association at Glasgow).
Holbrooke, by Derby, 24th Sept. 1855.
We had a paper from Brewster on the
theory of three
colours in the spectrum,
in which he treated Whewell with philosophic pity,
commending
him to the care of Prof. Wartman of Geneva, who was considered the
greatest
authority in cases of his kind, cases in fact of colour-blindness.
Whewell
was in the room, but went out, and avoided the quarrel; and
Stokes made a few remarks, stating the case not only clearly but
courteously.
However,
Brewster did not seem to see that Stokes admitted his experiments to
be correct, and the newspapers represented Stokes as
calling
in question the accuracy of the experiments.
I am getting my electrical mathematics
into shape, and
I see through
some parts which were rather hazy before; but I do not find
very much time for it at present, because I am reading about heat and
fluids,
so as not to tell lies in my lectures. I got a note
from
the Society of Arts about the platometer, awarding thanks, and offering
to defray the expenses to the extent of £10, on
the machine being produced in working order. When I have arranged it
in
my head, I intend to write to James Bryson about it.
I got a long letter from Thomson
about colours
and electricity.
He is beginning to believe in my theory about all colours
being
capable of reference to three standard ones, and he is very glad that I
should poach on his electrical preserves.
Trin. Coll., 27th Sept. 1855.
. . . It is difficult to keep up
one's interest
in intellectual
matters when friends of the intellectual kind are scarce.
However,
there are plenty friends not intellectual, who serve to bring out the
active
and practical habits of mind, which overly-intellectual
people
seldom do. Wherefore, if I am to be up this term, I intend to
addict
myself rather to the working men who are getting up classes, there to
pups.,
who are in the main a vexation. Meanwhile there is the
examination
to consider.
Trin. Coll., 5th October 1855.
You say Dr. Wilson has sent his
book. I will
write and thank him.
I suppose it is about colour-blindness. I intend to
begin
Poisson's papers on electricity and magnetism to-morrow. I have got
them
out of the library; my reading hitherto has been of
novels,—Shirley
and The Newcomes, and now Westward Ho.
Trin. Coll., 10th October 1855.
Macmillan proposes to get up a book of
optics, with my
assistance, and
I feel inclined for the job. There is great bother in
making
a mathematical book, especially on a subject with which you are
familiar,
for in correcting, it you do as you would to pups.—look if
the principle and result is right, and forget to look out for small
errors
in the course of the work. However, I expect the work will
be salutary, as involving hard work, and in the end much
abuse
from coaches and students, and certainly no vain fame, except in
Macmillan's
puffs. But, if I have rightly conceived the plan of an
educational
book on optics, it will be very different in manner, though not in
matter,
from those now used.
FROM
HIS FATHER.
Glenlair, 10th October 1855.
The book sent by Dr. Wilson is the
full edition about
colour-blindness,
with notes and appendices, containing your letter to
him and notices of your communications to him on the subject.
TO HIS FATHER.
Trin. Coll., October 1855.
The lectures were settled last Friday.
I am to do the
upper division
of the third year in hydrostatics and optics, and I have
most
of the exercising of the questiouists.
FROM HIS FATHER.
Glenlair, 20th October 1855.
If you do a book for M'Millan on
optics, do not let
him hurry it on.
Take full time to yourself to revise and re-revise the MS.,
and let anything published be creditable. Do nothing in a careless
manner,
and so get a bad name. A first work especially should be
very
carefully got up.
When you are set to lecture on
hydrostatics and
optics, have you
any apparatus for illustration?
TO HIS FATHER.
Trin. Coll., 25th October 1855.
I have refused to take pupils
this term, as I
want to get some
time for reading and doing private mathematics, and then I
can bestow some time on the men who attend lectures.
I go in bad weather to an
institution just
opened for sports of
all sorts—jumping, vaultings, etc. By a little
exercise
of the arms every clay, one comes to enjoy one's breath, and to sleep
much
better than if one did nothing but walk on
level
roads.
1st
November 1885
I have been lecturing two weeks
now, and the
class seems improving,
and they come up and ask questions, which is a
good sign.
I have been making curves to show the
relations of
pressure and volume
in gases, and they make the subject easier. I think I
told you about the Ray Club. I was [220] elected an associate last
Wednesday.
. . . We had a discussion and an essay by Pomeroy
last
Saturday about the position of the British nation in India, and
sought
through ancient and modern history for instances of such a relation
between
two nations, but found none. We seem to be in the position
of having undertaken the management of India at the most critical
period,
when all the
old institutions and religions must break up, and yet it is by no means
plain how new civilisation and self-government among people so
different
from us is to be introduced. One thing is clear, that if we neglect
them,
or turn them adrift again, or simply make money of them, then we must
look
to Spain and the Americans for our examples of wicked management
and consequent ruin.
FROM HIS FATHER.
11th November l855.
The platometer will require much
consideration,
both by you and
by any one that undertakes the making. You need
hardly
expect the details all rightly planned at the first; many defects will
occur, and new devices contrived to conquer unforeseen
difficulties
in the execution. I would suspect £10 would not go far to get it
into anything like good working order. If the instrument
were
made, to whom is it to belong? And if it succeeds well, for
whose
profit is all to be contrived? Does Bryson so understand it as to be
able
to make it? Could he estimate the cost, or would he
contract
to get an instrument up? Fixing on a suitable size is very important.
TO HIS FATHER.
Trin. Coll., 12th November 1855.
I attended Willis on Mechanism to-day,
and I think I
will attend his
course, which is about the parts of machinery. I was
lecturing about the velocity of water escaping from a hole this
morning.
There was a great noise outside, and we looked out at
a magnificent jet from a pipe which had gone wrong in the court. So
that
I was saved the trouble of making experiments.
I was talking to Willis about the
platometer, and he
thinks it will
work. Instead of toothed wheels to keep the spheres
in
position always, I think watch-spring bands would be better.
Trin. Coll., 25th November 1855.
I think I told you that Pomeroy was
ill. He has had
rather a sharp attack
of bilious fever. His mother has come up. He was
getting
round on Thursday, but he saw too many people, and was rather the worse
of it. However, the doctor says that the recovery
simply
requires attention, and patience, and no hurrying.
I have been reading old books of
optics, and
find many things
in them far better than what is new. The
foreign
mathematicians are discovering for themselves methods which were well
known
at Cambridge in 1720, but are now forgotten.
I have got a contrivance made
for expounding
instruments. It is
a squared rod, one yard long, on which slide pieces which
will
carry lenses. Each piece has a wedge which fixes it tight on the rod,
and
a saw-shaft, with holes through it, for fastening the
pasteboard frame of the lens. By means of this I intend to set up all
kinds
of models of instruments.
TO HIS FATHER.
Trin. Coll., 3d December 1855.
I had four questionist papers
last week as my
subjects come thick
there; so I am full of men looking over papers. I
have
also to get ready a paper on Faraday's Lines of Force for next Monday.
[222]
Pomeroy is still very ill, but to-day
he feels easier,
and his mouth
is not quite so dry and sore. He gets food every two
or three hours, and port wine every time. I go up in the morning and
look
after the getting up and bedmaking department along with
the
nurse, after which Mrs. Pomeroy comes, and the nurse goes to bed.
Maurice was here from Friday to Monday, inspecting the working
men's education. He was at Goodwin's on Friday night,
where we met him and the teachers of the Cambridge affair. He talked of
the history of the foundation of the old colleges, and how
they were mostly intended to counteract the monastic system, and
allow
of work and study without retirement from the world.
Trin. Coll., 11th December.
Last night I lectured on Lines
of Force at the
Philosophical.
I put off the second part of it to next term. I have been
drawing
a lot of lines of force by an easy dodge. I have got to draw them
accurately
without calculation. Pomeroy has been improving slowly, but
sometimes stopping. He is so big that it requires a great deal to get
up
his strength again. I saw Dr. Paget at the Philosophical
to-day,
and he seemed to think him in a fair way to recover.
