CHAP. IV.] ADOLESCENCE 1844 TO 1847. 87 



brilliant among them, gaining high, and sometimes the 

 highest, prizes for scholarship, mathematics, and English 

 verse composition. From this time forward I became very 

 intimate with him, and we discussed together, with school- 

 boy enthusiasm, numerous curious problems, among which I 

 remember particularly the various plane sections of a ring 

 or tore, and the form of a cylindrical mirror which should 

 show one his own image unperverted. I still possess some 

 of the MSS. we exchanged in 1846 and early in 1847. Those 

 by Maxwell are on " The Conical Pendulum," " Descartes' 

 Ovals," " Meloid and Apioid," and " Trifocal Curves." All 

 are drawn up in strict geometrical form, and divided into 

 consecutive propositions. 1 The three latter are connected 

 with his first published paper, communicated by Forbes to 

 this Society and printed in our Proceedings, vol. ii., under 

 the title " On the description of Oval Curves, and those 

 having a plurality of Foci" (1846). At the time when 

 these papers were written he had received no instruction 

 in mathematics beyond a few books of Euclid and the merest 

 elements of Algebra. 2 



On the whole, he looked back to his schooldays 

 with strong affection ; and his only revenge .on those 

 who had misunderstood him was that he understood 

 them. To many of us, as we advance in life, the 

 remembrance of our early companions, except those 

 to whom we were specially drawn, becomes dim and 

 shadowy. But Maxwell, by some vivid touch, has 

 often recalled to me the image of one and another of 

 our schoolfellows, whose existence I had all but for- 

 gotten. 



1 See note appended to this chapter (pp. 91-104) containing two 

 papers which must have been written about this time. 



2 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Session 1879-80. 

 p. 332. 



