54 JAMES CLEUK MAXWELL 



CHAPTER IV. 



PROFESSOR AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. LIFE 

 AT GLENLAIH. 



IN 18GO Forbes resigned the chair of Natural 

 Philosophy at Edinburgh. Maxwell anil Tait were 

 candidates, arid Tait was appointed. In the summer 

 of the same year Maxwell obtained the vacant 

 Professorship of Natural Philosophy at lyings College, 

 London. This lie held to 1X05, and this period of 

 his lifo is distinguished by the appearance of some of 

 his most important papers. The work was arduous ; 

 the College course extended over nine months of the 

 year; there were as well evening lectures to artisans 

 as part of his regular duties. His life in London was 

 useful to him in the opportunities it gave him for 

 becoming personally acquainted with Faraday and 

 others, lie also renewed his intimacy with various 

 Cambridge friends. 



He was at the celebrated Oxford meeting of the 

 British Association in 1800, wjjero ho exhibited his 

 colour-box for mixing the colours of the spectrum. 

 In 1S.>1), at the meeting at Aberdeen, he had read to 

 Section A his first paper on the " Jhnamical Theory 

 of (Jases," published in the ]^liilosoj)ttical Mmjttzi-iw 

 for January, 1SGO. The second part of the paper, 

 dealing with the conduction of heat and other 

 phenomena in a gas, was published in July, 1SGO, 

 after the Oxford meeting. 



A paper on the "Theory of Compound Colours" 



