776 GEORGE GABRIEL STOKES. 



ciate. A generous tribute is given by Lord Kelvin " of his own 

 indebtedness, and a further one by an anonymous writer,'^ who tells 

 that though he was previously quite unknown, some work of his 

 attracted the attention of Stokes and a correspondence was started in 

 the course of which on one particular day he received as many as 

 three letters and a telegram ! It is unnecessary to say a word on the 

 quality of the assistance given. It was the same throughout; knowl- 

 edge and time were always at the disposal of small and great. 



It has been said that much of Stoke's work was given to others, 

 and indeed some of it was never published in scientific journals at all. 

 An instance of this occurs with reference to the transformation of a 

 line integral into a surface integral which he put as a question in a 

 Smith's 2)rize examination paper in 1S54. Again, he had thought 

 out the physical basis of the solar spectrum some seven years before 

 KirchhoU', and had been in the habit of lecturing on it. Stokes 

 deprecated any attempt to obtain for himself the credit of this dis- 

 covery, saying that he had failed to take an essential step in tlie proc- 

 ess. It is i^ossil^le that the papers he left behind Avill tell even more 

 of his own work than we know now, and they will doubtless add 

 much to the scientific history of the second half of the last century. 



Amongst other honors, Stokes received the Rumford medal in 

 1852, the Copley medal in 1803, was Burnett lecturer 1883-1885, 

 Gifford lecturer 1890-1802, and was created a baronet in 1889 when 

 Lord Salisbury was i)rime minister. 



In 1855 Stokes received the highest scientific honor which England 

 land has to bestow — the presidency of the Koyal Society ; this he held 

 until 1890. From 1887-1891 he represented the University in Parlia- 

 ment. Being still Lucasian professor, he thus attained the unique 

 distinction of holding the three positions simultaneously. Only once 

 before had one man, Isaac Newton, occupied them all, and in his case 

 the tenures were at different ])eriods of his life. In 1899 Cambridge 

 University fittingly celebrated the jubilee of his election as professor, 

 inviting rejiresentatives from all parts of the world and publishing a 

 memoi-ial vohnue of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society — a l)ody to which many of his paj^ers had been communi- 

 cated. Although at this time about to enter his eighty-first year, he 

 seemed able to endure fatigue without showing signs of his advanced 

 age. On the chief day set apart by the university he attended morn- 

 ing and aftci'noon congregations of the senate, a lunch, and a late 

 banquet, and the following day was early in London to attend a com- 

 mittee, only closing his labors on various matters late that night. 



A word must be said concerning Stokes's relation to religious ques- 

 tions, partly because Ihey evidently entered much into his thoughts 



a Nature, February 12, 1903. & Ibid., February 19, 1903. 



