316 Mr. Meikle's reply to Mr. Ivory. 



after it had not a foot left to stand upon. This is bringing suc- 

 cour to the distressed, with a witness ; and evinces the heroism 

 of the champion who had purposely come forward to answer 

 the charges in my paper. 



Mr. Ivory's pretended ignorance of what I had previously 

 written on these subjects, must appear in no small degree para- 

 doxical to those who examine his papers in the Phil. Mag. 

 for February, March, and April, 1827. These papers bear in 

 such a way upon the chief points discussed in my previous 

 writings, as can neither be ascribed to blind chance, nor ex- 

 plained by the doctrine of probabilities. Of this, I shall now 

 give an instance or two. In the articles just cited, Mr. Ivory 

 shows an anxiety he had never till then manifested, for impress- 

 ing his readers with the belief, that the common mode of gra- 

 duating the air-thermometer forms a true scale of temperature. 

 Now, ^* how could it benefit science" to press such a doctrine, 

 without at the same time adducing so much as a new shadow 

 of proof in its favour, if no person had been recently calling it 

 in question ? For, so far as I know, no one had done so, for a 

 long while, till I took up the subject, a few months before Mr. 

 Ivory appeared with such zeal in its defence. Out of several, 

 I shall add another instance. Neither Mr. Ivory, nor any one 

 else, had questioned and rectified a certain integration in book 

 xii. of the Mecaniqiie Celeste^ or in Mr. Poisson's Memoirs on 

 the same subject, till I did so ; and then, Mr. Ivory was ready 

 to question them too — with this very notable difference, how- 

 ever, in attempting to correct the error, that my view of the 

 matter is quite consistent, whereas Mr. Ivory's is full of con- 

 tradiction, and directly opposed to some of the most familiar 

 facts : he having precipitEited himself into far greater errors 

 than those he was pretending to correct. This difference only 

 strengthens the evidence, because Mr. Ivory would not be be- 

 holden to me for any assistance in correcting an error, possess- 

 ing, as he did, such ample resources of his own. 



The greater part of the answer consists of extracts, which 

 Mr. Ivory brings from his own papers. How the repetition or 

 copying of these, and that too in the same Journal, " could 

 benefit science, one is at a loss to find out ;'" more especially 

 after it had been clearly shown, that the doctrines which they 



