138 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. V. 



it, but complains of the great obscurity of several parts, owing 

 to the abrupt transitions and want of distinction between 

 what is assumed and what is proved in various passages, 

 which he has marked in pencil, and which I trust that you 

 will use your utmost effort to make plain and intelligible. 

 It is perfectly evident that it must be useless to publish a 

 paper for the use of scientific readers generally, the steps of 

 which cannot, in many places, be followed by so expert an 

 algebraist as Prof. Kelland ; if, indeed, they be steps at all 

 and not assumptions of theorems from other writers who are 

 not quoted. You will please to pay particular attention to 

 clear up these passages, and return the MS. by post to Pro- 

 fessor Kelland, West Cottage, Wardie, Edinburgh, so that he 

 may receive it by Saturday the llth, as I shall then have 

 left town. Believe me, yours sincerely, 



JAMES D. FORBES. 



To L. CAMPBELL, Esq. 



[June? 1850] 



As there has been a long truce between us since I last 

 got a letter from you, and an I do not intend to despatch 

 this here till I receive Bob's answer with your address, I 

 have no questions to answer, and any news would turn old 

 by keeping, so I intend briefly to state my country occu- 

 pations (otherwise preparation for Cambridge, if you please). 

 I find that after breakfast is the best time for reading Greek 

 and Latin, because if I read newspapers or any of those 

 things, then it is dissipation and ruin ; and if I begin with 

 props, experiments, or calculations, then I would be continu- 

 ally returning on them. At first I had got pretty well 

 accustomed to regular study with a Dictionary, and did 

 about 120 lines of Eurip. a day, namely, 40 revised, 40 for 

 to-day, and 40 for to-morrow, with the looking up of to- 

 morrow's words. As I am blest with Dunbar's Lexicon, it 

 is not very highly probable that I will find my word at all ; 

 if I do, it is used in a different sense from Dunbar's (so 

 much the better), and it has to be made out from the con- 

 text (either of the author or the Dictionary). So much for 



