746 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



the Royal Academic Institute of Belfast, was the son of a small 

 farmer at Ballynahinch, in County Down, where his ancestors had 

 settled about the year 1641 when they migrated from the lowlands 

 of Scotland. James Thomson had early shown a taste for mathe- 

 matical studies, and by study of books had mastered the art of mak- 

 ing sundials. He had then been sent to a small school in the district 

 to learn classics and mathematics, rising wliile still a youth to the 

 position of assistant teacher. During the winters he followed the 

 courses in the University of Glasgow, crossing back to Belfast for 

 the summers to resume teaching at school. After thus attending 

 Glasgow University for five years he was appointed professor of 

 mathematics in 1815 at the Belfast Academic Institute. His eldest 

 son, James (Lord Kelvin's elder brother), was born in 1822, and 

 William (Lord Kelvin), as already stated, in 1824. In 1830, when 

 William was 6 years old, his mother died. His father would never 

 send his boys to school, but taught them himself. In 1832, when 

 William was 8 years old, Professor Thomson was offered the chair 

 of mathematics at Glasgow, and he with his family of six children 

 accordingly removed from Belfast. He was in many ways a remark- 

 able man. He made several original contributions to mathematics 

 and produced several sound text-books, including one on the differ- 

 ential and integral calculus. But his range of accomplishments 

 was wide. He was an excellent classical scholar, familiar with both 

 Latin and Greek, and able, on occasion, to give lectures in the classics 

 to the university students. After his removal to Glasgow he still 

 kept the education of his sons in his own hands, and so it happened 

 that in 1834 William Thomson, when in his eleventh year, matricu- 

 lated as a student in the university without ever having been at school. 

 He early made his mark by his progress in mathematics and physical 

 science, and in 1840 produced an essay " On the figure of the earth," 

 which won him the university medal. He also read Greek plays 

 with Lushington, and moral philosophy. To the end of his life 

 he was in the habit of bringing out quotations from the classic 

 authors. His fifth year as a student at Glasgow (1839-40) was 

 notable for the impulse toward physics which he received from the 

 lectures of Prof. J. P. Nichol and from those of David Thomson (a 

 relation of Faraday), who temporarily took the classes in natural 

 philosophy during the illness of Professor Meikleham. In this year 

 William Thomson had systematically studied the Mecanique An- 

 alytique of Lagrange and the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace, both 

 mathematical works of a high order, and had made the acquaint- 

 ance — a notable event in his career — of that remarkable book, Fou- 

 rier's Theorie de la Chaleur. On May 1 he borrowed it from the 

 college library. In a fortnight he had read it completely through. 



