[April] 1847.
“I have identified Descartes’ ovals with mine. His first oval is an oval with one of its foci outside; the second is a meloid with a focus outside. It also comprehends the circle and apioid. The third is a meloid with both foci inside; and the fourth is an oval with both foci inside.”
He says with regard to the last that rays from A are reflected to B, which I can disprove....
[This is interesting as a proof of the complete independence and originality of the communication made to the Royal Society on April 6th, 1846. It is also important as an example of that love of comparing his own results with great authorities, which made Maxwell the most learned as well as the most original of scientific men. See above, p. 74, where Forbes promises to consult books on the subject, and the references to Descartes in the Proceedings. Forbes cannot, however, have made any very careful scrutiny into the history of the matter, else he would have mentioned that Descartes actually figures the cord by which his ovals are described, and his process is precisely that of Maxwell.]
I have made a map of the world, conical projection—
upper A upper C upper D is the one cone, upper B upper C upper D the other; the side upper A upper C equals diameter of the base upper C upper D; therefore, when unrolled, they are each semicircles.
To make the map take upper O upper D equals upper O upper D and upper O upper A equals three fourths of upper O upper D, and describe a circle from normal upper O, with radius upper O upper A; this is the circle of contact. Let the longitude of a point normal upper P equals 60 Superscript ring; take upper A upper O upper C in the map (=30 Superscript ring; let its latitude he 65 Superscript ring; subtract 30 Superscript ring, and take the tangent of 35, make upper A upper B equals tangent. normal upper B is the point.
Mr. Clerk Maxwell made inquiries early in the summer of 1847, with a view to placing his son at College in November. In deciding not to continue his classical training, he appears to have been chiefly guided by some disparaging accounts of the condition of the Greek and Latin classes in comparison with those of Logic, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. The result was that in his seventeenth year Maxwell entered the second Mathematical Class, taught by Professor Kelland, the class of Natural Philosophy under J. D. Forbes, and the Logic Class of Sir William Hamilton. Classical reading, however, was not by any means relinquished, as the correspondence of 1847-50 clearly shows.
[82] The boys’ nickname for the Rector, Archdeacon Williams. Maxwell’s first interview with him was as follows:—Rector: “What part of Galloway do you come from?” J. C. M.: “From the Yale of Urr, Ye spell it o, err, err, or oo, err, err.”
[83] Ditto for Mr. Carmichael.
[85] These pauses in the Rector’s case were often filled, in less guarded moments, with “What you call,” “Yes, yes,” which he had a trick of interposing.
[86] He once said to a nervous boy who had crossed his legs and was sitting uneasily, “Ha, booy! are ye making baskets wi' your legs?”
[87] His turn for versifying may be traced back to his twelfth year, when, in one of his quaint letters to his father, there occur some lines (profusely illustrated) on the death of a goldfinch:—
And in September 1843, as above mentioned, he wrote for the Archers in the “Happy Valley” a page and more of spirited verse.
[88] i.e. A sketch from the antique.
[89] Barbour’s Bruce, B. XX., 11. 507-10.
[90] Viz. for a competition in Scripture Knowledge, which was open to the 5th, 6th, and 7th classes. The prize was gained that year by one of the 7th.
[91] “Mathematical Prize” is added between the lines by Mr. Clerk Maxwell, who writes a P.S. to the letter.
[92] “The trial exercises,” ditto, ditto.
[93] In these competitions we seem to have been allowed to stay till we had done all we knew. Witness the following extract from the Diary:—“1847, July, Mon. 19.—James at Academy trial for Prize for Scripture Knowledge. Worked from 9 to 5. Lewis Campbell and W. Tait worked till 6.”
[94] Sons of Colonel Fletcher of Upper Corsock.
[95] “First Principles of Symmetrical Beauty,” by D. R. Hay, Blackwoods, 1846.
[96] Part of the entry on the same day is:—“Parliament House.—Return with John Cay, called at Bryson’s and suggested to Alexander Bryson my plan for pure iron by electro-precipitation from sulphate or other salt.” It is interesting to observe this revival of his youthful ardour for science in the old companionship, following upon his sympathy with the efforts of his son.
[97] The Optician’s.
[98] See especially Forbes’s paper on the “Viscous Theory of Glacier-Motion” in the Philosophical Transactions for 1846, pp. 143-210.
[99] On his copy of Monk’s Alcestis, which we read in the 6th class (1845-46), the owner’s name is followed by an original distich:—
[100] The following bit of Diary deserves to be quoted in this connection:—“1845, Saturday, December 27.—Jas. dined at Miss Cay’s. I went there to tea, taking Lewis and Robert Campbell. Then we all went to the play—‘Antigone,’ by Miss Faucit.”
[101] I can only compare him to the fraternal spirit that William Blake saw in vision “clapping its hands for joy” (Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, vol. I. p. 59). In the talk of that period a butterfly was always a “flutterby;” and idiotisms such as “used to could ” and “be-you-have yourself!” were in common use.
[102] The present dining-room.
[103] At church he always sat preternaturally still, with one hand lightly resting on the other, not moving a muscle, however long the sermon might be. Days afterwards he would show, by some remark, that the whole service, whether good or bad, had been, as it were, photographed upon his mind.
[104] He lived in Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh.
[105] So far as I can recall the order in which his ideas on this subject were developed, the phenomena of complementary colours came first, then the composition of white light, then the mixture of colours (not of pigments), then polarisation and the dark lines in the spectrum, and about the same time “the art of squinting,” stereoscopic drawing, etc., then colour-blindness, the yellow spot on the retina, etc.
[106] The lecturer was Mr. Nichol, Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow, the father of the distinguished Professor of English Literature in the same University.
[107] See note appended to this chapter (pp. 91-104) containing two papers which must have been written about this time.
[108] Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Session 1879-80. p. 332.