344 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



The month of August was spent in Burntisland, as 

 reasons, to be found in subsequent letters, made it unsuit- 

 able for him to be at a distance from town. A letter to 

 Mr. Charles Tomlinson, London, written on paper with the 

 University stamp, gives one reason : 



"BURNTISLAND, August 3, 1859. 



" CARISSIME CAROLE, See, my dear friend, what a pass 

 the Emperor of the French has brought us to ! The Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh transferred to Burntisland, which after 

 all is not an island, and therefore not a burned one, but 

 only a Trappean Peninsula, which looks out from the 

 Kingdom of Fife, across the Firth of Forth, to Arthur Seat 

 and Edinburgh, and invites the latter to dip its hot face and 

 sun-stricken brains beneath its cooling waters. In short, as 

 there can be no manner of doubt that the French are by 

 this time half-way across the Channel, the University of 

 Edinburgh has thought it proper to put its valuables ia 

 safety, and accordingly but modesty prevents me enlarging 

 on the topic the Professor of Technology is secure here 

 for this current month." A more sober reason given is, that 

 " the lease of my laboratory has expired, and the New 

 Buildings are not (Hibernice) begun, so that I have before 

 me the formidable horrors of a flitting. The bother of this 

 is very considerable, and is one reason for my keeping so 

 near Edinburgh." "We in Scotland call a removal 'a 

 flitting,' " he tells Mrs. John Gladstone, " I suppose on the 

 antithetic principle that it is a process as totally unlike the 

 flitting of a butterfly or a bird as can well be conceived ; 

 and when all the contents and machinery of a laboratory 

 must be transported, it is no easy matter. But fancy, 

 further, that whilst turned out of my old den in the middle 

 of September, I have no new one to go to. A* butterfly 



