NATURE 



60 1 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, iSSr 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES 



XVIII.— James Clerk Maxwell 



Born June 13, 1831 ; Died November ^, 1879 



WE have already (vol. xxi. pp. 43 and 317) said so 

 much on the life and work of the late Prof. Clerk 

 Maxwell, that in presenting his portrait as one of our 

 Scientific Worthies, little more is necessary than to refer to 

 the leading facts of his life. Born on June 13, 1831, he was 

 the son of John Clerk Maxwell of Middlebie, a scion of a 

 well-known Scottish family, the Clerks of Penicuick. When 

 James was only eight years of age, he lost his mother, 

 after which his father led a retired life, devoting himself 

 to the care of his estates and of his son. The latter was 

 educated in the first instance at the Edinburgh Academy, 

 ^ihere in 1845 he gained the Academical Club Medal for 

 Geometry, and the Silver Medal for Mathematics in 1847. 

 A visit to William Nicol at this period was a marked 

 event in his life, leading him, with apparatus of his own 

 construction, to make obserrations on polarised light. A 

 pair of prisms presented to him by Nicol were Ireasurcd 

 by him throughout life, and three weeks before his death 

 they were deposited in one of the show-cases of the 

 Cavendish Laboratory. 



After leaving the Academy, Maxwell, to quote the words 

 of Prof. Tait (Nature, vol. .\xi. p. 317), "spent the 

 years 1847-50 at the University of Edinburgh, without 

 keeping the regular course for a degree. He was allowed 

 to work during this period, without assistance or super- 

 vision, in the Laboratories of Natural Philosophy and of 

 Chemistry : and he thus experimentally taught himself 

 much which other men have to learn with great difficulty 

 from lectures or books. His reading was very extensive. 

 The records of the University Library show that he 

 carried home for study, during these years, such books 

 as Fourier's Theorie de la Chalcur, Monge's Ciom^trie 

 Descriptive, Newton's Optics, Willis' Principles of Me- 

 ckanis?n, Cauchy's Calciil Differenticl, Taylor's Scientific 

 Memoirs, and others of a very high order. These were 

 read tJiroiig/i, not merely consulted." In October, 1850, 

 Maxwell went to Cambridge, entering at Peterhouse. 

 Soon after his entry at Peterhouse, however, in December 

 1850, he migrated to Trinity, where he found spirits 

 of tastes similar to his own in the matter of physical 

 research ; here he soon became a leader among his 

 fellows. In 1854 he came out Second Wrangler, and was 

 bracketed as First Smith's Prizeman. In 1855 Maxwell 

 became a Fellow of Trinity, and in 1S56 he obtained the 

 Professorship of Natural Philosophy in Marischal Col- 

 lege, Aberdeen. To quote the memoir by Mr. W. Garnett 

 in Nature, vol. xxi. :— " In 185S he married Katherine, 

 a daughter of Principal Dewar of Marischal College, thus 

 vacating his fellowship at Trinity. In i860 he succeeded 

 Prof. Goodeve as Professor of Natural Philosophy 

 and Astronoiny in King's College, London, but after the 

 death of his father he retired in 1865 to his estate in 

 Scotland, where he subsequently carried out his father's 

 plans for completing the house and offices at Glenlair. 

 In 1871 he was invited by the Senate of the University of 

 Vol. XXIV. — No. 626 



Cambridge to accept the Chair of Experimental Physics 

 which had just been created, and on October 25, 1871, 

 he delivered his inaugural lecture as Professor of Experi- 

 mental Ph) sics in the Univer^ity of Cambridge. At first 

 the most important part of his work consisted in arranging 

 the details of the Cavendish F aboratory which the Duke 

 of Devonshire had offered to present to the University, 

 and the building of which was personally superintended 

 by Prof. Maxwell from first to last. The whole of the 

 arrangements which render the Cavendish Laboratory so 

 admirably adapted for Physical investigations, are due to 

 the care and forethought of Prof. Clerk Maxwell. When 

 the building had been completed and formally presented 

 to the University, the Duke of Devonshire further signi- 

 fied his desire to provide it with a complete equipment of 

 apparatus, and all this was procured under the personal 

 supervision of the Professor. In 1872 he was elected 

 Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge." 



During the winter of 1878-9, Prof. Clerk Maxwell's 

 health began to give way, and with some transient gleams 

 of hope he gradually sank, dying on November 5, 1879. 

 He received many honours during his lifetime ; he was a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society, LL.D. of Edinburgh, and 

 D.C.L. of Oxford ; Honorary Member of the American 

 Academy of .Arts and Sciences, the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, and the Xew^ York Academy of Sciences ; 

 Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences, Vienna, and Associate of the .Amsterdam Royal 

 Academy of Sciences. 



In i860 the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society was 

 awarded to Prof. Clerk Maxwell " for his Researches on 

 the Composition of Colours, and other Optica! papers." 

 In his address on the presentation of the medal, Major- 

 General Sabine alluded to Prof. Maxwell's calculation 

 showing the connection of the "mechanical strains to 

 which elastic solids are subjected under certain con- 

 ditions with the coloured curves which those solids exhibit 

 in polarised light.'' 



To Clerk Maxwell's private character, to the position 

 he unobtrusively took as a Christian, to his qualities as a 

 poet and humorist, and to the varied work he has accom- 

 plished, it is scarcely necessary again to allude here; all 

 these points will be found clearly brought out in the 

 articles by Prof. Tait and Mr. Garnett above referred to. 

 Nor is it necessary to repeat here the list of his principal 

 papers and publications, and the great and important 

 additions which Clerk Maxwell made to the sum of scien- 

 tific knowledge, or the light he shed on the principles of 

 the departments of science which he specially cultivated. 

 Besides the references already given we would commend 

 the reader who desires to have a fairly complete notion 

 of the value of the work of the remarkable man whose 

 portrait we give to-day, to the articles by Prof. Tait on 

 Clerk Maxwell's " Electricity and Magnetism," vol. vii. 

 p. 478, "Matter and Motion," vol. xvi. p. 119, and the 

 numerous papers by Maxwell himself scattered through 

 the volumes of NATURE. 



DR. SIEMENS ON TECHNICAL EDUCATION 



FEW can read the address of Dr. C. W. Siemens to 

 the Midland Institute, which appears in another 

 place in our columns (p. 619), without admitting that of 



D D 



