FOUNDATION OF THE X CLUB 539 
more so — we finally accepted the happy suggestion of our 
mathematicians to call it the x Club ; and the proposal of some 
genius among us, that we should have no rules save the un- 
written law not to have any, was carried by acclamation.' 
The meetings were at first regularly held at the St. George's 
Hotel, Albemarle Street, with Almond's Hotel, Clifford Street, 
and the Athenaeum to fall back upon in case St. George's were 
not available. In the latter eighties, however, the Athenaeum 
became the regular meeting place, and it was here that the 
* coming of age ' of the club was celebrated in 1885. 
For some years also there was a summer week-end meeting 
in the country, which was attended by members and their 
wives. For this the Treasurer whose turn of duty it was, did 
not send out the usual postcard of invitation x = 2, or what- 
ever the date might be. The correct formula for the occasion 
was x's + ijv's. The place of these meetings was sometimes 
the foot of Leith Hill, or Oxford, or Oatlands Park, but most 
usually Maidenhead, with possibilities of a drive to Burnham 
Beeches and Dropmore, and boats on the river. But this grew in- 
creasingly difficult to arrange, and in course of time was dropped. 
Hooker, Busk, Spencer, and Tyndall ^ had all been close 
friends of Huxley's soon after his return from the voyage of 
the Battlesnake ; Frankland and Hirst ^ were yet older friends 
^ John Tyndall (1820-93), natural philosopher and Alpinist, after beginning 
life on the ordnance survey and as a railway engineer, went to Queenwood 
College as teacher of mathematics and surveying. Resolving to devote himself 
to science, he, with his colleague Edward Frankland, the chemist, v/ent to Mar- 
burg, and then Berlin, studying chemistry and magnetism. He returned to 
Queenwood in 1851, but in 1853, Dr. Bence-Jones, having heard of the impres- 
sion made by him in Berlin, invited him to lecture at the Royal Institution, with 
the result that he was immediately chosen as Professor of Natural Philosophy 
there, becoming the colleague and from 1867 the successor of Faraday, the 
superintendent. In addition to his researches on heat (for which he received 
the Rumford Medal 1867), light and sound and the germ theory, he was cele- 
brated as a lecturer and expositor of science for the public. He was scientific 
adviser to the Trinity House 1866-83. He was a warm friend of his fellow 
members of the x Club, particularly of Huxley. 
2 Thomas Archer Hirst (1830-92), mathematician, was articled as surveyor, 
&c. at Halifax, Yorkshire. Taking his Ph.D. in 1852, he became Lecturer in 
Mathematics at Queenwood College, Hants, 1853-6, and University College 
School, 1860; F.R.S. 1861; F.R.A.S. 1866; Professor of Physics, University 
College, 1865, and of Pure Mathematics, 1866-70; Director of Naval Studies 
at Greenwich, 1873-83; Fellow of London University, 1882. He published 
various mathematical writings. 
