London Days

riage started, and he recollected that fact just as he reached the door and had put on his overcoat. Another man, almost any other, would have idled while the five minutes passed, and most men

ulled the memorandum book from his coat pocket, where

mary anatomy was not, in his case, reinforced by an ingenious system of electrical conductors through which a mysterious energy was driven by his dynamic mind. Like all great teachers he was ever learning. But it would be difficult to say when he began to learn, f

siderate of the abysmal ignorance of the fellow creatures with whom he came into contact, could not be imagined. He was a plain Scotsman without a pose, without even a Scottish pose, and it would be difficult, maybe impossible, to find a better embodiment of life than that. Scottish h

e should have a reading knowledge of French, should be able to translate Latin and easy Greek authors, and should have some acquaintance with German. Having learned the meaning of words, a boy should study Logic. I never found that t

James, the father, was born on a farm near Ballynahinch, County Down. His Scotch ancestors had planted themselves in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That farmer's boy had a huge hunger for knowledge. When he was eleven or twelve years old he taught himself, having no teacher to aid him, the principles of the sundial, so that he could make dials for any latitude. Also, from books which he contrived to get, he learned the elements of mathematics. By and by he began teaching in a little school. He taught in the summers, and in the winters he studied at Glas

ous life. His had been a life of labour, but it had been congenial labour. He had contributed vastly to the sum of human knowledge; he had invented useful things, to the amazement of pedantic men who think that science should remain with scientific persons and never be applied to the wants of the w

d the manufacture of instruments of precision, the establishment being conducted under White's name, as before, and as possibly it may be to this day. Anyhow, we went to White's, where Lord Kelvin took me into his laboratory and showed me, among other things, his "Siphon Recorder" which was very interesting, albeit very puzzling to the non-technical mind. I a

ty of working across thousands of miles of ocean-bed. One faction declared it "beyond the resources of human skill." Robert Stephenson said the project could end only in failure. Of course, the moneyed men were timid. Most of them were more than timid; they were scared. Faraday had found tha

undland the transmission of a signal would require six seconds. This meant a dismally limited service. Only a few words could be cabled in an hour. The croakers were pleased. The men whose habit it is to say "I told you so" were joyous. The financiers would use their capital for other purposes. But Cyrus Fi

raph. Glory to God in the highest, and

and submerge a cable that would endure. In 1866 the difficulties were overcome. The world congratulated itself and the men who had worked the "miracle." Lord Kelvin told me the story as if it had been a little affair of the day before. "There has be

ectricity for power and lig

dred miles

r and lighting current had been successfully conveyed over much greater distances than Kelvin had suggested, an acquaintance of mine asked h

al purposes. The limit was improved by time and circumstance, not by Nature. Ten years ago we could not build the machinery that is built to-day, nor, on

said the would-be inves

s' day. You will remember that they failed to pr

who had been a pupil of Kelvin, said that it "lent emphasis to his amusing class demonstration of 'uniform velocity' when he, Kelvin, marched back and forth behind his lecture-bench with as

stration and his vigour of language prevented that. Lecturing one day on 'Couples', he explained how forces must be applied to constitute a Couple and illustrated the direction of the forces by turning around the gas-bracket. This led to a discussion on the miserable quality of Glasgow coal-gas and how it might be improved. Following ag

nd natural philosopher. The hall in Burlington House was filled. Had an earthquake swallowed the hall then, the world would have been deprived instantaneously of dozens of men who were doing its thinking for it. The subject of the discourse was not thrilling, nor could the lecturer

o fast for them; he must have surmised it from the expressions on their faces, for while he announced theories, discoveries, and drew conclusions, they, with all their knowledge and experience, would look as blank or bewildered as schoolboys, and he would step back from the table and, with a winning smile, remark, "It's this way", or "After all, it's simpler than it seems", or "I think it would be demo

o do so. This was when everybody else thought electric lighting a luxury, but his purpose was to prove it a necessity. That was his way. Whenever he acquired new knowledge he applied it forthwith to the betterment of the human lot. He tho

wrest from the sea some of its secrets. For twenty years he went sailing every summer, living aboard weeks at a time. He held the certificate of a master navigator. I

nd assistant, Doctor J. T. Bottomley. The first electrically lighted house in the world was the first in the old world to be connected by telephone for purposes professional, social, personal, and domestic. For ho

ent, and he reminded his learned listeners that Lord Kelvin, whom he alluded to as "the greatest living master of natural science amongst us", was the first to point out that the amount of time required by the advocates of the Darwinian theory for the working out of the process of evolution which they had imagined "could not be conceded without assuming the existence of a

only six thousand years, or went so far as Professor Tait with his ten million, you had, by Kelvin's figuring, a tremendous margin to fill up somehow. Of course the orthodox jumped and squealed. But the geolo

other, or at the blackboard, or at the pointer, as if he were a busy bee extracting honey from the flowers. There was certainty about everything he did; no hesitation, no floundering, no hemming and hawing for a word, or the next act. His lameness merely lent emphasis to the fact that he was walking; it did not prevent his swiftness of movement. Acros

ng Chang. Whatever your profession, trade, interests in life, he would put questions that went to the roots of your matter and revealed on his part a greater knowledge of the problems involved than you dreamed existed. By tireless questioning he learned. But where Li Hung Chang turned the results of his questioning to his own benefit, Kelvin applied them to the good of the world. Yet when, in 1896, they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his professorship at Glasgow he was, I take it, the most surprised m

moon that he used to buckle his shoes; and all his life was simple, wise, and majestic. So it was in Archimedes-always self-same, like the

he has been quoted by many who attempted the larger task from a scientific standpoint. Helmholtz was his intimate friend. Helmholtz said: "He is an eminent mathematician, but the gift to transl

"Tribulation, not undisturbed progress, gives life and soul, and leads to success where success can be reached." I do not know what his tribulations were, but they may have been the tribulations of defeat. He may have faced many defeats, but he won more successes. And the world was more concerned with scientific discoveries during his career than it had been in the time of C

t of energy of one form into energy of another form, and then, reversing the process, reconvert the energy of the second form thus obtained into the original quantity of energy of the first form. In fact, during any transformation of energy from one form into another, there is always a certain portion of energy changed into heat in the process of conversion, and the heat thus produced becomes dissipated and diffused by radiation and conduction. Consequently there is a tendency in nature for all the energy in the universe, of whatever

sun; he determined the rigidity of the earth, the laws of the tides, made far-reaching discoveries

loved truth not celebrity, and work more than its rewards. He was ever the same, whether one met him in Glasgow, London, at sea, or in America, the same simple, straightforw

e most of our coal is lost in smoke; the most of our heat is dissipated in the air. We need patience not less than courage in dealing with our problems." The study was lined with engravings and photographs. Darwin and Joule and Faraday looked down from the walls, an

Then home to lunch. After lunch consulting work on the lighting of a town by electricity. After that an hour in Lady Kelvin's drawing-room, taking tea with friends. Then work in the study over the laws governing the formation of crystals. Then dinner. Then calculations in the study, or writing a paper for one of the numerous societies of which he was a working member. In the intervals, with his secretary's aid, he would attend to his corres