228 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



" His lectures now before us, from their nature, belong to the class of composition 

 for which we avow our predilection. They were delivered extempore to a scientific 

 audience, and printed from short-hand notes. They lose nothing of their vigour, to use 

 an expression of Lord Macaulay, by translation out of English into Johnsonese. We 

 are allowed to seize the thought in the making, and if it loses anything in grace, the 

 loss is more than counterbalanced by power. 



" Those who wish thoroughly to understand the subject of this paper should study 

 Professor Tait's lectures on the sources of energy, and the transformation of one sort of 

 energy into another. Matthew Arnold's phrase, ' let the mind play freely round ' any 

 set of facts of which you may become possessed, often recurs to the mind on reading 

 these papers. There is a rugged strength about Professor Tait's extempore addresses 

 which, taken together with their encyclopaedic range, and the grim humour in which the 

 professor delights, makes them very fascinating. They have another advantage. Men 

 not professionally scientific find themselves constantly at a loss how to keep up with the 

 rapid advance which has characterised recent years. One has hardly mastered a theory 

 when it becomes obsolete. But in Professor Tait we have a reporter of the very newest 

 and freshest additions to scientific thought in England and on the Continent, with the 

 additional advantage of annotations and explanations by one of the most trustworthy 

 guides of our time." 



The second edition of Recent Advances was translated into German by 

 G. Wertheim (Braunschweig, F. Vieweg und Sohn, 1877); into French by 

 Krouchkoll (Paris, Gauthier Villars, 1887); and into Italian by D' Angelo 

 Emo (Fano, Tipografia Sonciniana, 1887). 



After the publication of Recent Advances Tait became occupied with 

 the preparation of the second edition of " T and TV In the preface to the 

 second volume which appeared in 1883 it is stated that the continuation 

 of the great work had been abandoned. Tait accordingly turned his attention 

 to the production of a series of elementary text-books, more in the line of 

 what he originally intended before Thomson joined him in 1861. 



In 1884 and 1885 Tait brought out three books on Heat, Light, and 

 Properties of Matter. 



What gives the book on Heat its distinguishing features are the 

 introductory chapters, especially Chapter iv. After a rapid historic survey 

 of the growth of the modern conception of heat, Tait introduces the First 

 Law of Thermodynamics. Typical examples are given of the effects and 

 production of heat, leading up to the great principle of Transformation and to 

 the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Then follows Kelvin's definition of 

 absolute temperature. By thus early introducing the true conception of 

 temperature he is able to discuss all the familiar thermal changes in volume 



