CHAP. I.] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 15 



to an introduction. Having departed so far from the 

 order of events, I may before concluding this chapter 

 make explicit mention of the loss which coloured the 

 greater part of James Clerk Maxwell's existence, by 

 leaving him motherless in his ninth year. Mrs. 

 Clerk Maxwell died on the 6th of December 1839. 

 There was extant until after Professor Maxwell's 

 death a memorandum or diary kept at the time by 

 her husband, describing the heroic fortitude which she 

 had shown under the pain of her disease, and of the 

 operation by which they had attempted to save her. 

 Anaesthetics were then unknown. She had nearly 

 completed her forty- eighth year, having been born on 

 the 25th of March 1792, and married at the age of 34 

 (October 4, 1826). Mr. Maxwell was aged fifty-two 

 at the time of his wife's death. He did not marry 

 again. 



We now return from this sad record to the birth 

 of the son and heir, which was the more welcome to 

 the parents after the loss of their first-born child. At 

 this joyful epoch Mr. and Mrs. Clerk Maxwell, though 

 retaining the house in India Street, had been already 

 settled for some years in their new home at Glenlair. 



