348 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



LL.D. 1 , D. Douglas, F.R.S.E., J. F. Maclennan 8 , Alex. Nicolson 2 , Aeneas 

 J. G. Mackay 2 , John Maitland 2 . These promoters of the Club, by personal 

 appeals among their friends, quickly gathered together more than a hundred 

 names of those willing to become members. Tail received the following 

 characteristic response from Macquorn Rankine, whose propensity for 

 forming Greek derived words was irrepressible : 



59 ST VINCENT STREET, 

 GLASGOW, 



2<)th October, 1869. 



My dear Tait 



I shall be very happy to join your Capnopneustic Club (as it may 

 appropriately be termed). I beg pardon for not having answered you sooner ; but 

 I have been greatly engrossed by business, both engineering and academic. 



Believe me, 



very truly yours, 



W. J. MACQUORN RANKINE. 



In 1870 the membership was 140, and in 1874, 150, including many 

 of the more prominent Edinburgh lawyers, artists, physicians, clergymen, 

 teachers both in college and school, bankers, commercial men, publishers, 

 engineers, etc. There was also a selection of members not resident in 

 Edinburgh, such as Professor Lewis Campbell, St Andrews, Sir M. E. Grant 

 Duff, Professor T. M. Lindsay, Glasgow, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, 

 Professor Nichol, Glasgow, Professor G. G. Ramsay, Glasgow, Sir George 

 Reid, R.S.A., then living in Aberdeen, Professor W. Robertson Smith, 

 Aberdeen, Sir William Thomson, Glasgow, Principal Tulloch, St Andrews. 



The Club met every Saturday and Tuesday evening and on Monday 

 evenings immediately after the statutory fortnightly meetings of the Royal 

 Society, for purely social intercourse, cards and serious subjects of debate 

 being taboo. During the first twelve years of its existence Tait 

 frequently attended the gatherings. The roll of guests introduced by 



1 Editor of Chambers' Encyclopaedia. 



2 Advocate. Maclennan was the author of Primitive Marriage. Mackay was afterwards 

 Professor of History. 



