286 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



Sabbath, when he might not golf, and did not go to kirk either, 

 that he could be induced to talk of reasonable matters. ... At 

 dinner we had a chemist Andrews from Belfast, and Professor 

 Huxley, the famous evolutionary zoologist from London, both 

 most agreeable and interesting men. . . Andrews showed us 

 some remarkable experiments, on the passage of gases and 

 liquids into one another at high pressure. . . . 



'We dined with Prof. Brown, with whom a great mathematician 

 Sylvester was staying, who has been very badly treated by 

 Mr. Gladstone, which has caused much excitement/ 



From there he went to Glasgow, and stayed a night with 

 Prof. Brown, in college, where a nephew of Sir W. Thomson 

 did the honours. 



' The house was not yet finished internally, no carpets, nor 

 paint, full of old furniture not yet in place, and it looked 

 unspeakably desolate as if no one cared for it, in contrast to 

 the old house which Lady Thomson had managed. In 

 a corner of the dining-room was an exceedingly fine and 

 expressive portrait of her, with the sofa on which she always 

 lay, and her coverlet. I felt very sad, and could hardly restrain 

 my tears, while the young people were merry enough over the 

 tea. It is sad when men lose their wives, and their life is left 

 desolate/ 



From there he went on to the yacht-races at Inverary, 

 taking part in them on Thomson's yacht, a two-master, and one 

 of the finer and more commodious of the forty yachts, all fairly 

 large, well-appointed and elegant, that were competing; he 

 admired the dexterity with which Thomson and his men 

 manoeuvred their boat. After visiting Lady Thomson's parents 

 at Largs, where her death had taken place, they went on for 

 some longer expeditions on the Lalla Rookh, of which he 

 writes, ' The yacht is like a movable watering-place, and makes 

 a pleasant home in fair weather/ Helmholtz and Thomson 

 studied the theory of waves, ' which he loved to treat as a kind 

 of race between us/ They put in at a number of the finest 

 parts of the west coast of Scotland, till they reached the 

 northern extremity of their wanderings, the Island of Skye, 

 after many stoppages due to heavy storms. On the way back 

 they visited the family of the mathematician Blackburn, near 

 Glasgow, and Helmholtz was delighted with Mrs. Blackburn's 



