SIR GEORGE DARWIN 167 



later (October 1873) he began his second lease of 

 a Cambridge existence. There is at first Httle to 

 record : he held at this time no official position, 

 and when his Fellowship expired he continued to 

 live in College, busy with his research work, and 

 laying down the earlier tiers of the monumental 

 series of papers which he gave to the world. This 

 soon led to his being proposed (in November 1 877) 

 for the Royal Society, and elected in June 1879. 

 The principal event in this stage of his Cambridge 

 life was his election in 1883 as Plumian Professor 

 of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy.^ His 

 predecessor in the Chair was Professor Challis, who 

 had held office since 1836, and is now chiefly 

 remembered in connection with Adams and the 

 planet Neptune. The professorship is not neces- 

 sarily connected with the Observatory, and practical 

 astronomy formed no part of George's duties. His 

 lectures being on advanced mathematics usually 

 attracted but few students ; in the Long Vacation, 

 however, when he habitually gave one of his 

 courses, there was often a fairly large class. 



^ The voting at University elections is in theory strictly confi- 

 dential, but in practice this is unfortunately not always the case. 

 George records in his diary the names of the five who voted for him 

 and of the four who supported another candidate. None of the 

 electors are now living. The election occurred in January, and in 

 June he had the great pleasure and honour of being re-elected to 

 a Trinity Fellowship. His daughter, Madame Raverat, writes : 

 " Once, when I was walking with my father on the road to Madingley 

 village, he told me how he had walked there on the first Sunday 

 he ever was at Cambridge with two or three other freshmen ; and 

 how, when they were about opposite the old chalk pit, one of them 

 betted him /[ao that he (my father) would never be a professor of 

 Cambridge University : ' and ' said my father, with great indignation, 

 * he never paid me.' " 



