362 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. xi. 



he (Macaulay) having set off from the West End 

 to walk to the Tower and back, saying he found 

 the air most pure and the interruptions fewest at 

 that time, and that he had composed the whole 

 of his pages on Judge Jeffreys' downfall during a 

 walk of that kind.' 



The letter concludes with a reference to the 

 Great Exhibition, and the building, which was fast 

 approaching completion. ' The Crystal Palace is 

 the most wonderful piece of work the world has 

 ever seen erected in so short a space of time. 

 Whatever be the result of the " Exhibition," one 

 thing is certain — the building must impress every 

 foreigner with a strong sense of English inventive 

 power and perseverance.' 



In January 1851 Owen had several meetings 

 with Thomas Carlyle, who was anxious to obtain 

 materials for his life of John Sterling. In writing 

 to Owen about this date, Carlyle says : — 



' Can you not advise Professor Airy, or some 

 real mathematician and geometer, to undertake 

 that business of Foucault's pendulum, and (throwing 

 Euler and his Algebra overboard) illuminate it 

 for the geometrical mind? It seems to me the 

 prettiest experiment made in this century, though 

 perhaps good for nothing otherwise. I have had 

 a great wrestling with it occasionally in my own 

 poor head (which used to know some mathematics 

 twenty years ago), and a deadly suspicion haunts 



