252 JAMES CLEKK MAXWELL. [CHAP. IX. 



I had a letter from Dr. Swan of Edinburgh, who is a 

 candidate, asking me for my good opinion, which I gave him, 

 so far as I had one. His printed papers are good, and I 

 hear he is so himself. Maclennan is also a candidate. He 

 has the qualification of making himself understood. 



The results of this term are chiefly solid Geometry 

 Lectures, stereoscopic pictures, and optical theorems. My 

 lectures are to be on Eigid Dynamics and Astronomy next 

 term, so I do not expect to be out of work by reason of 

 Aberdeen, and I have plenty to get through in those 

 subjects. 



I have been making more stereoscopic curves for my 

 lectures. I intend to select some and draw them very neat 

 the size of the ordinary stereoscopic pictures, and write a 

 description of them, and publish them as mathematical 

 illustrations. I am going to do one now to illustrate the 

 theory of contour lines in maps, and to show how the rivers 

 must run, and where the lines of watershed must be. 



FKOM HIS FATHER. 



22d Feby. 1856. 



... I believe there is some salary, but fees and pupils, 

 I think, cannot be very plenty. But if the postie be gotten, 

 and prove not good, it can be given up ; at any rate it 

 occupies but half the year. 



To HIS FATHER. 



Trin. Coll., 12th March. 



I was at the Working College to-day, working at decimal 

 fractions. We are getting up a preparatory school for 

 biggish boys to get up their preliminaries. We are also 

 agitating in favour of early closing of shops. We have got 

 the whole of the ironmongers, and all the shoemakers but 

 one. The booksellers have done it some time. The Pitt 

 Press keeps late hours, and is to be petitioned to shut up. 



I have just written out an abstract of the second part of 

 my paper on Faraday's Lines of Force. I hope soon to write 



