vi.] PROFESSORIAL LIFE. 117 



at your leisure to have your opinion upon it. Setting 

 on foot a six months' course of experimental lectures 

 has been, you will believe, a laborious task. It has 

 occupied most of my time since I saw you last, but 

 is now nearly over. I made a short tour in England 

 summer, but was kept in a state of excitement by 

 preparing for the Association meeting here, which went 

 off well, and which you may believe interested me 

 much. I suppose your Cambridge friends supply you 

 with news from head -quarters, which would make it pre- 

 sumptuous in a hyperborean like me to offer you 

 any. ..." 



To the REV. DR. WHEWELL. 



'EDINBURGH, February 22nd, 1835. 



'. . . I feel quite gladdened at the interest you are 

 disposed to take in the subject polarization of heat 

 for as there is not an individual here capable of fully 

 appreciating it, it is naturally to England, and especially 

 to Cambridge, that I look for that sympathy which is a 

 superadded enjoyment to that of the mere perception of 

 truth. . . . I was sorry to see that Trinity lost the Senior 

 Wrangler, as in May last Goulburn was very confidently 

 pointed out to me. . . . I was so engrossed during the 

 earlier part of our session with my experiments on heat, 



I am obliged to work hard with the business of my 

 course, and am soon to begin optics, which I have not 

 yet lectured upon. I shall imitate Airy in polarizing 

 and tormenting light on the large scale. I continue my 

 tice of lecturing on the higher branches to those who 

 choose to attend, and though often not to more than 

 ten or twelve, I feel myself well repaid. I shall thus 

 be able to introduce the undulatory theory for the first 



in Scotland. Airy's Polarizing Grinder, as he calls 



'Your plan of a fusil >!< surface for detecting rings had 

 OU will see by reading my papT, 

 Id be hopeless from the extreme minuteness of the 

 quantities with which we have to do. 1 



