IS JAMES CLCltK MAXWELL 



to-day at Portobello. I can swiui a little now. Campbell has 

 got C prizes. He got a letter written too soon, congratulating 

 him UIKMI my medal; but there is no rivalry betwixt us, as 

 \\ Carmiehael says." 



After a summer spent chiefly at Ulenlair, ho 

 returned with his father to Edinburgh for the winter* 

 and began, at the age of fourteen, to go to the 

 meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. At 

 the Society of Arts he met Mr. 11 1). Hay, the 

 decorative painter, who had interested himself in the 

 attempt to reduce beauty in form and colour to 

 mathematical principles. Clerk Maxwell was in- 

 terested in the question how to draw a perfect oval, 

 and devised a method of drawing oval curves which 

 wits referred by his father to Professor Forbes for 

 his criticism and suggestions. After discussing the 

 matter with Professor Kelland, Professor Forbes 

 wrote as follows * :~- 



44 MY DKAII Siu, I am glad to iind to-day, from Professor 

 Kelland, that his opinion of your son's pajer agrees with mine, 

 namely, that it is most ingenious, most creditable to him, and, 

 we Mieve, a new way of considering higher curves with 

 reference 1o fn-i. rnfortuitatcly, tlu>o* ovals ap|>car to be 

 curves of a very hijji and intractable order, >o that injssiMy 

 the elegant method of description may not lead to a corre- 

 sending simplicity in investigating their properties. Hut that 

 is not the present |>oint. If you wish it, I think that the 

 simplicity and elegance of the method would entitle it to be 

 brought before the Hoyal Society. Believe me, my dear sir, 

 yours truly, .. j AMES D< r OKBE8 . 



Iu consequence of this, Clerk Maxwell's first 

 * Life of J. C. Miixwvll," p. 7o. ' T 



