v.] PROFESSORIAL LIF1-. 105 



to its present advanced condition, which are largely 

 attended by non-professionals, and I hope that the 

 success which has attended them may in some small 

 degree be of use in retarding, for we can do no more, 

 the downfall of solid literature. 



' I was much interested by your account of the 

 Poissonian demonstration, I knew it was remodelled, 

 but have not examined the book, though I have it. J, 

 too, have been dabbling lately in rotation, and a con- 

 founded subject it is : though I have only studied it 

 le.ntarily: I shall be very glad to see what light 

 you throw upon it. I discovered a most notable error, 

 which my learned predecessor annually inculcated, on 

 rolling bodies ; and as I learned from his assistant, 

 annually tried to illustrate by experiments, and fancied 

 he succeeded ! ' 



Not long before the close of his first session, he thus 

 n writes to the same correspondent : 



'March 29fA, 1834. 



' I find the greatest advantage from having been 



obliged to study these subjects in a way necessary to 



convey a precise idea of them to others ; which I 



feel that almost no other circumstance would have 



induced me to spend so much labour upon. And I 



find what is natural enough, that in the course of last 



summer, wh-n I worked very hard, I had prepared such 



a treatise <n Mechanics as would almost have required a 



course to n-,i through, without anything else. 



. . . But to return to your paper. In general, 1 think 



lie much at one. 1 am still disposed to adhere much 



y<>ii in a lett<T lust year, and which I 



employed in expounding the subject to my more advanced 

 far you accede to my views in what I 

 think an impoitant point, the d.-rivatioii of the pro- 

 yelocity to Force, that force l>ein^ 



';d methods with which the student. 



Lmeo to IM- familiar; which ^ave what I called 



the definite amount ol FoFC .' and which 



