SKETCH OF PROFESSOR STOKES. 743 



Cambridge, and four years later graduated Bachelor of Arts, at the 

 same time winuiiig the highest honors of the university the Senior 

 Wranglership and the First Smith's Prize. In the same year he was 

 elected to a fellowsliip in his college. In 1849 he was appointed to the 

 Lucasian chair of Mathematics in the university, and thus became the 

 successor of Newton. Mr. Stokes enjoyed the emoluments of his 

 fellowsliip until 1857, when he vacated that position by taking a 

 wife. Later, by an amendment of the statutes of Pembroke, he was 

 reinstated in his fellowship. In 1851 he was chosen Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, and in the following year received the Rumford medal 

 " in recognition of his services to the cause of science by the discov- 

 ery of the change of the refrangibility of light." The "Philosophical 

 Transactions" for 1852 gives an account of this discovery. In 1854 

 Mr. Stokes was elected one of the secretaries of the Royal Society. 

 He was President of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at the Exeter meeting, 1869. In 1871 the University of Edin- 

 burgh conferred upon Prof. Stokes the degree of Doctor of Laws. 



It requires merit of no common order to enable a man to attain 

 the high honor of occupying the chair of Newton, at the early age 

 of thirty. Mr. Stokes's election to the Lucasian professorship was a 

 surprise to the undergraduates of Cambridge, who had expected to 

 see the place filled by some man of European fame. But the wisdom 

 of the clioice was soon made manifest, and the students of Cam- 

 bridge recognized in the new professor not only an exceptionally able 

 and learned man, but also one whose whole heart and soul wei-e de- 

 voted to the advancement of his pupils. How Prof. Stokes won the 

 confidence and love of the students is told by Prof. P. G. Tait, who 

 at the time was himself an undergraduate at Cambridge. In a me- 

 moir recently published in Nature, Prof. Tait writes that, a few 

 months after his election to the chair of Mathematics, Prof. Stokes 

 gave public notice that he considered it j^art of the duties of his office 

 to assist any member of the university in difficulties that lie might en- 

 counter in his mathematical studies. Here was, thought the students, 

 " a sino-le kninlit fishtins: asjainst the whole melk,e of the tournament." 

 But they soon discovered their mistake, and felt that the undertaking 

 was the effect of an earnest sense of duty on the conscience of a singu- 

 larly modest but profoixndly learned man. 



As a mathematician and physicist, Stokes stands in the foremost 

 rank, whether of his contemporaries or of his predecessors. " New- 

 ton's wonderful combination of mathematical power with experimen- 

 tal skill." wn-ites Prof. Tait, " w'ithout which the natural philosopher is 

 but a fragment of what he should be, lives again in his successor. 

 Stokes has attacked many questions of the gravest order of difficulty 

 in pure mathematics, and has carried out delicate and complex experi- 

 mental researches of the highest originality, alike with splendid suc- 

 cess. But several of his greatest triumphs have been won in fields 



