ii EARLY LIFE IN LONDON 39 



Stanley Jevons, whom I have before mentioned, 

 entered the laboratory. Graham, who had then 

 become Master of the Mint, sent for me one day 

 and offered me the post of Assayer in the Mint at 

 Sydney, which had just been established. It was 

 worth ,600-700 a year, and was a post which many 

 young men would have jumped at. I felt, however, 

 that I could not leave my mother and sister, as they 

 did not wish to go to Australia, so I declined it with 

 thanks, but told him that I knew a young man who 

 was singularly well fitted for the position, and who I 

 believed would accept it. This young man was 

 Stanley Jevons. Graham saw him, was pleased with 

 him, and gave him the appointment. How he fitted 

 himself for the work and how he carried it out is told 

 in the memoir written by his wife. On this point one 

 letter written to me from Australia by Jevons has an 

 interest of a special kind : 



I suppose that you get along famously in your rather 

 responsible place, and accordingly congratulate you on the 

 fact. Would that I had such another berth ! I feel an utter 

 distaste for money-making ; but, on the contrary, ever become 

 more devoted to my favourite subjects of study. I told you 

 long since that I intended exchanging the physical for the 

 moral and logical sciences, at which my forte will really be 

 found to lie. I like and respect most of the physical sciences 

 well enough, but they never really had my affections. I have 

 almost determined to spend a year at college before looking 

 out for any employment in England : it might be worth 

 while to take my B.A. (If I had had this degree before 

 coming to this colony I would vastly have improved my 

 position in, as well as outside, the Mint.) I wish especially 

 to become a good mathematician, without which nothing, I 

 am convinced, can be thoroughly done. I daresay it is the 

 general opinion of my friends in England that I am inex- 

 cusably imprudent in resigning ^630 per ann. I am sure it 

 will grievously offend some of my relations. But, I ask, is 

 everything to be swamped with gold? Because I have a 

 surety of an easy, well-paid post here, am I to sacrifice every- 



