346 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XL 



candidature, and have come to the decision not to stand. 

 The warm interest which you and other professors have 

 taken in the matter has gratified me very much, and the 

 idea of following Principal Forbes had also a great effect on 

 my feelings, as well as the prospect of residing among 

 friends; but I still feel that my proper path does not lie in 

 that direction. Your afft. friend, 



J. CLERK MAXWELL. 



To C. J. MONRO, Esq. 



Glenlair, Dalbeattie, 6th July 1870. 



My question to the Mathematical Society bore fruit in 

 various forms. ... It would give my mind too great a 

 wrench just now to go into elliptic integrals, but I will 

 do so when I come to revise about circular conductors. 

 ... I can cut the subject short with an easy conscience, 

 for I have no scruple about steering clear of tables of double 

 entry, especially when, in all really useful cases, convergent 

 series may be used with less trouble, and without any 

 knowledge of elliptic integrals. On this subject see a' short 

 paper on Fluid Displacement in next part of the Math. 

 Soc. Trans., where I give a picture of the stream lines, and 

 the distortion of a transverse line as water flows past a 

 cylinder. 



Mr. W. Benson, architect, 147 Albany Street, Eegent 

 Park, N.W., told me that you had been writing to Nature, 

 and that yours was the only rational statement in a 

 multitudinous correspondence on colours. Mr. Benson con- 

 siders that Aristotle and I have correct views about primary 

 colours. He has written a book, with coloured pictures, on 

 the science of colour, and he shows how to mix colours by 

 means of a prism. He wants to publish an elementary 

 book with easy experiments, but gets small encouragement, 

 being supposed an heretic. No other architect in the 

 Architect's Society believes him. This is interesting to me, 

 as showing the chromatic condition of architects. I made a 

 great colour-box in 1862, and worked it in London in '62 

 and '64. I have about 200 equations each year, which are 



