74 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he was for me 

 a mirror of things perished ; it was only in his memory that I could see the huge 

 shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, and the watchers, as they fed 

 the fire, lay hold unscorched of the windward bars of the furnace ; it was only thus 

 that I could see my grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road 

 from Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry drawing up to speak good- 

 humouredly with those he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone also ; inhabits 

 only the memory of other men, till these shall follow him ; and figures in my 

 reminiscences as my grandfather did in his." 



James Lindsay retired from his College duties in 1872, after having acted 

 as mechanical assistant since 1819 when Sir John Leslie became Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy. He had for the five previous years acted as Leslie's door- 

 keeper at the mathematical class room. He had thus been connected officially 

 with the University for fifty-seven years ; and his memory went back to the 

 days when Carlyle was still a student. He was a native of Anstruther ; and 

 to quote from an obituary notice which Tait himself supplied to the Scotsman 

 of January 5, 1877 "during the summer months, for at least the half of his 

 life, he pursued the arduous occupation of a fisherman, in order to eke out his 

 scanty income ; and even in later years, when unable to go to sea, the position 

 he had deservedly acquired among the fishing population of the district, led to his 

 being employed during the herring season as an agent in the interests of some 

 of the great fish curers. In this position his punctuality and rectitude were as 

 much displayed at the pier head as in the Natural Philosophy class room." 

 Under Leslie he became wonderfully dexterous in many difficult experimental 

 processes, especially excelling in glass-blowing ; and he rendered most 

 efficient and indeed valuable aid both to Leslie and to Forbes in their experi- 

 mental investigations. For twelve years he continued to assist Tait in the 

 lecture experiments ; and after he had trained his son Thomas to all the 

 duties of the post, he retired to spend his last days in his native village. 

 After his retirement he used occasionally to pay a visit to the scenes of his 

 scientific labours, and I remember him on one such visit expressing great 

 indignation at the careless way in which a box-full of small differential 

 thermometers had been allowed to gather dust in a dark corner. These he 

 had made with his own hand ; and he had not realised that the thermopile 

 and galvanometer had completely displaced the differential thermometer as a 

 delicate instrument of research. 



The following letter to Thomson touches on several pieces of experimental 

 work which were engaging Tail's mind in the early years of the Laboratory. 



