- , 56 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. III. 



cal class. Thus, having of course learned " his ques- 

 tions " as a child, he became equally acquainted with 

 the catechisms both of the Scotch and of the English 

 Church, and with good specimens of the Presbyterian 

 and Episcopalian styles of preaching. He also went 

 regularly " to the dancing " at Mr. Mac Arthur's, where 

 he was distinguished for the neatness of his reel-steps, 

 especially of those curious ones which some of us found 

 most difficult, such as the " lock-step." 



But more delightful than bathing, and more 



interesting even than writing English verse, was the 



achievement of which he writes casually to his father 



June 1844. very shortly after his thirteenth birthday. After 



*&t 13 



describing the Virginian Minstrels, and betwixt in- 

 quiries after various pets at Glenlair, he remarks, as if 

 it were an ordinary piece of news, " I have made a 

 tetrahedron, a dodecahedron, and two other hedrons, 

 whose names I don't know." We had not yet begun 

 geometry, and he had certainly not at this time 

 learnt the definitions in Euclid ; yet he had not 

 merely realised the nature of the five regular solids 

 sufficiently to construct them out of pasteboard with 

 approximate accuracy, but had further contrived 

 other symmetrical polyhedra derived from them, 1 

 specimens of which (as improved in 1848) may be 

 still seen at the Cavendish Laboratory. 



Who first called his attention to the pyramid, 

 cube, etc., I do not know. He may have seen an 



1 By producing the facets until their alternate planes intersected. 

 In the specimens still extant, the facets belonging to each plane of the 

 original polyhedron are distinguished by specific colouring. 



