42 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



him. We all reverenced his gigantic intellectual power and were proud of all that 

 he did for the advancement of science, but the charm of his buoyant and unselfish 

 nature won our hearts from the very first." 



Sympathetic letters were received not only from friends but from 

 associations and corporations such as the Master and Fellows of Peter- 

 house, Cambridge, and the Students' Representative Council of Edinburgh 

 University. 



Full and appreciative notices of Tail's career and scientific work 

 appeared in the leading newspapers, for the most part accurate, although 

 here and there disfigured by some wild imaginings on the part of the 

 writer. The able article in the Glasgow Herald is specially worthy of note. 

 My own contribution to the Scotsman of July 5 was put together at a few 

 hours' notice and was not of course seen by me in proof. I am not aware 

 of anything inaccurate or misleading in the notice, although there were 

 many points necessarily not touched upon. Professor Chrystal's article in 

 Nature (July 25, 1901) gives an admirable sketch of his colleague's life and 

 labours, with a sympathetic reference to the sincerity and honesty of purpose 

 which were so characteristic of the man. Dr G. A. Gibson, who along 

 with Sir Thomas R. Fraser attended him in the last illness, wrote a graceful 

 biographical notice in the Edinburgh Medical Journal (1901). 



Dr Alexander Macfarlane contributed to the pages of the Physical 

 Review a sympathetic sketch of his old master ; and Dr J. S. Mackay 

 (mathematical master in the Edinburgh Academy) supplied a short 

 biographical note to t Enseignement mathe'matique (January 1905). 



J. D. Hamilton Dickson's sketch in the Magazine of the Peterhouse 

 Sexcentenary Club for the Michaelmas Term, 1902, gives, in addition to 

 other matter, some interesting Peterhouse details as to Tail's under- 

 graduate days. 



Appropriate references were minuted by all the important organisations 

 with which he was associated the University, the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, the Scottish Meteorological Society, the Gumming Club, the 

 Scottish Provident Institution, etc. 



After recording the main facts in connection with Professor Tail's 

 labours as an official of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Council 

 placed on record the following appreciation : 



"This is not the occasion for an analysis of Professor Tail's work and influence. 

 That will, no doubt, be given in due time by those specially qualified. What the 



