vii.] MARRIED LIVE. 201 



gathering " at Braemar, which would have made it intole- 

 rable. We enjoyed the drive up to Castleton exceedingly. 

 I knew already the neighbourhood of Castleton and In- 

 vercauld, but not the stretch of Deeside, which is truly 

 beautiful. The Queen and her mother have made a 

 happy choice. We spent Sunday at Braemar, but did 

 not go to the Queen's church, being nine miles off. 



lerday, Monday, we mounted Lochnagar with the aid 

 of ponies. The morning, misty as usual, cleared up into 

 a splendid day ; and, indeed, each day just now is magnifi- 

 cent, and as like the last as can be : the barometer nailed 



-ft Fair. We scrambled down the hill to Glen Muick, 

 a rough affair, and came out just at the Queen's hut, 

 where, by the merest accident, her Majesty had arrived 

 only an hour before, and was already off to fish in the 

 dark waters of the utterly lonely Loch Muick, and this 



evening drew on ; we had not time to follow her 

 Majesty or wait her return, but had to make the best 

 of our way to Ballater. We crossed the Cairn over here 

 to-day/ 



During the remainder of his time at Phesdo, he was 

 occupied with the theory of probabilities as applied to 

 double stars, which, he says, cost him much thought and 

 labour ; with Fourier's theory of heat ; and with writing 

 a new course of University lectures. But, before he 

 r< -turned to Edinburgh for the winter, indifferent health 

 forced him to give up severe study. 



Tin* journal of the ensuing session notices experiments 



en the conduction of heat, a visit to Professor (now 



William) Thomson, who had been appointed to the 



ural Philosophy chair in (Jlasoow University, and 



letters which passed between Forbes and his young 



friend John Mackintosh, who then lay dying at Carn- 



it, near Stutt.L'aid. 



Mention ha- already been made of the mutual a fleet ion 



between these two, which, at first arising out of their 



professor and student, soon passed into warm 



fri'-ndship. It will }>e remembered how, in a former 



