52 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. III. 



1842-43. His life during this period was really centred in 

 ' " Old 31." He was presently allowed to have a 

 room to himself, in which he could read and draw 

 and write, besides preparing for school. His cousin 

 Jemima was at this time learning the art of wood- 

 cutting, and he was allowed sometimes to dig away 

 with her tools. The result was a series of rude 

 engravings, to which allusions occur in his letters to 

 his father ; and a woodcut of his, representing the 

 head of an old woman, still remains, with the date 

 1843 engraved on it. In the previous year he pro- 

 duced more than one elaborate piece of knitting. One 

 of these, a sort of sling for holding a work-basket, with 

 its proper name, "Mrs. Wedderburn's Abigail," worked 

 into it, has been preserved* by Mrs. Blackburn. The 

 library at his new home was more extensive than at 

 Glenlair. He came to know Swift and Dry den, and 

 after a while Hobbes, and Butler's Hudibras. Then 

 if his father was in Edinburgh they walked together, 

 especially on the Saturday half-holiday, and " vie wed" 

 Leith Fort, or the preparations for the Granton rail- 

 way, or the stratification of Salisbury Crags ; always 

 learning something new, and winning ideas for imagin- 



&t. 10. ation to feed upon. 1 One Saturday, February 12, 

 1842, he had a special treat, being taken "to see 

 electro-magnetic machines." 



1 Less frequently, he would rove about alone. Professor Fleeming 

 Jenkin remembers hearing him say that when he first saw the twisted 

 piles of candles with which grocers decorate their windows, he was 

 struck by the curious and complex curves resulting from the combina- 

 tions of these simple cylinders, and was resolved to understand all 

 about that some day. 



