266 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. IX. 



understood in anything, and no one has heard a single 

 oracle from my lips. Of course I do not mean that my 

 class do not mistake my meaning sometimes. That is found 

 out and remedied day by day. I speak of professors, 

 ministers, doctors, advocates, matrons, maidens, and pheno- 

 menal existences (Chimerse bombylantes in vacuo). We 

 are through mechanics. I had an ex n> on bookwork on 

 24th Jan. I got answers to all the questions and riders, 

 though no one floored them all right. I have now to be 

 brewing experiments on Heat, as well as determining the 

 form of doctrine to be presented to the finite capacities of 

 my men. 



FROM C. J. MONRO, Esq. 



15th February 1857. 



Have you seen the Pomeroy packet ? It has much more 

 in it than any travels I ever read. Lots of phenomena, 

 human and otherwise, on the way out : especially the waves 

 in a storm. . . . 



. . . They who deal in instruments of strings say that 

 if you strike a certain note you hear certain others above. 

 Is that because of the further terms in a Fourier's integral, 

 or because a sympathetic vibration is excited in certain other 

 of the strings of the same instrument ? I observe Weber 

 says that it does not occur in wind instruments. 



FROM PROFESSOR J. D. FORBES. 



Edinburgh, 31st March 1857. 



MY DEAR MAXWELL I have often wished to ask you to 

 tell me how your first session had turned out ; consequently 

 I was exceedingly glad to get your letter this Evening, and 

 to find that you have not been disappointed in the results 

 of the step to which you kindly say that my assistance was 

 of some use. In what you say about the monotony of re- 

 iteration, I can confidently assure you that your conclusions 

 are quite correct ; certain precautions being taken which an 

 active mind like yours is sure to fall upon. 



We shall be delighted to see you at the R S. on the 20th 



