MacTutor
William Thomson: Lord Kelvin
Times obituary
We deeply regret to announce the death of the most distinguished British man of science, Lord Kelvin, who took place last night at his Scottish residence, Netherhall, Largs. Lord Kelvin had not been well for over three weeks. He caught a chill on November 23, and his condition became severe some days ago.
MEMOIR.
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, was born in Belfast on June 24, 1824. The second son of James Thomson, a remarkable man who, though he started with formidable advantages of education, died in 1849. Professor of Mathematics at the University of Glasgow, he began to attend classes at Glasgow at the age of 11, and in the year he attained his majority, graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Second Wrangler and first St Smith's Prizeman. His success immediately earned him a Fellowship at his college, and in the following year, after spending a short time in Regnault's Laboratory in Paris, he returned to succeed Dr. Meikleham in the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow. It is not often that often that father and son simultaneously hold professorships at an important university; but even that does not exhaust the academic record of the Thomson family. Lord Kelvin's elder brother James was Professor of Engineering in the University from 1873 to 1889, so that three professors at Glasgow were provided by two generations of the descendants of a small farmer in the north of Ireland. The rest of Lord Kelvin's life is chiefly a record of strenuous and successful scientific work which received early recognition. The Royal Society made him one of their number in 1851, and, after conferring on him successively and a Royal and a Copley medal, accorded him in 1800 the highest honour at their disposal by choosing him to be their president. At the British Association, of which he acted as president at Edinburgh in 1871, he was an assiduous attendant. Much of his work was first published as communications or reports to that body, and 15, as only at its last meeting, delivered a long address on the constitution of matter and electronic theory. He received honorary degrees in association, among them being D.C.L. from Oxford and LL.D. from Cambridge, Dublin, and Edinburgh, together with many foreign academic distinctions. In 1866 he was knighted for his part in the laying of the Atlantic cable, and when, in 1892, Lord Salisbury crowned him a peer he borrowed his title from the stream that flows below the university in which he had spent his scientific life. He received the Order of Merit on its institution in 1902—he was already a member of the Prussian Order "Pour le Mérite"—and in the same year became a Privy Councillor. But perhaps the crowning occasion of his life was the celebration of his jubilee as professor at Glasgow in 1906, when a unique gathering gathered to do him honour, and congratulations from scientific men in all quarters of the globe testified to the universal admiration with which his genius was regarded. Three years later, after 53 years' service, he signed his Glasgow professorship. But retirement by no means meant the cessation of active work. While still maintaining his connection with the University, of which in 1904 he was surprisingly chosen Chancellor in succession to the Earl of Stair, he continued to pay tribute to the proceedings of various scientific societies, and much of his time was devoted to the rewriting and revision of his Baltimore lectures on molecular dynamics and the quantum theory of light. These lectures were delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1884, and the printing of them, begun in 1885, was only brought to a conclusion in 1904. He chose the wave theory as a subject with the deliberate intention of accentuating its failures, but in his preface to the volume published in 1904 he was able to express his satisfaction that it contained a dynamical explanation of every one of the difficulties which had been encountered in the lectures 20 years before. Lord Kelvin was also a director of sovereign manufacturing companies, and his name formed part of the style of the Glasgow arm which manufactures his compass and measuring instruments. He was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers for the present year, though he did not live to deliver his innaugural address.
Within the limits of a short article it is not possible to give a full account of Lord Kelvin's achievements in the realms of scientific thought and discovery. Generally recognized at the time of his death as the foremost living physicist, he was no less remarkable for the profundity of his research than for the range and variety of his attainments. Not confining himself to a singular more or less specialized department of learning, he may be said to have taken all physical science to be his province; for there were few branches of physical inquiry that he did not touch, and all that he touched he adorned. Perhaps this many-sidedness of his intellectual interests may be connected with the deep conviction he possessed of the unity of all science, and his impatience of confluences which, drawn from a limited field of study, were in opposition to the well-ascertained facts of wider generalizations. On one occasion, when suspected of being "hard on the geologists," he repudiated the suspicion with the remark that he did not believe in one science for the mathematician, another for the chemist, another for the physicist, and another for the geologist. All science, he said, is one part of science that places itself outside of it. It is one science, and any part of the other sciences ceases for the time being to be a science. Some idea may be obtained from the amount of his scientific work from the feet that, according to the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, down to the year 1853 he had published 202 memoirs under his name, not including papers published jointly with other men, while his published mathematical papers -- not yet completed -- already fill three substantial volumes. Nor must his contributions to the increase of natural knowledge - to use one of his favourite expressions - be reckoned merely by the sum of the results at which he was personally able to arrive. Hundreds of men are proud to recognize him as their master and scientific men in all parts of the world, may be found who have not only benefited by his advice and been stimulated by his enthusiasm, but owe to him in many cases the very subjects of research upon which they are engaged - either his direct suggestions or as problems answered out by his prior investigations.
ATOMIC THEORY
To solve the puzzle of the ultimate constitution of matter may be regarded as the goal of the pure physicist's ambition. The problem afforded Lord Kolvin a congenial field of speculation, and he followed up on propounding a hypothesis as to the nature of atoms which, according to Clerk Maxwell, satisfied more of the conditions than any hitherto imagined. Starting from a number of mathematical theorems established by Helmholtz respecting the motion of a perfect, compressible fluid, he suggested that the universe may be filled with such a primitive fluid of which in itself we can know nothing, but portions of which become apparent to our perceptions as matter when converted by a particular mode of motion into vortex rings. These vortex rings (of which a fair imitation is given by vortex rings in air) are the atoms or molecules that comprise all material substances. They are indivisible, not only because of their hardness and solidity, but because they are permanent both in volume and in strength. The fluid being frictionless, those portions of it that have only been in rotation continuously in that state forever unless stopped by a creative act of the same order that first gave them motion, while the infinite changes of form of which the vortices are capable are sufficient to account for the differences between currents of different kinds. On this hypothesis many properties of matter can be sufficiently accounted for. For example, in a study delivered before the Royal Institution in 1881, and again in greater detail before the British Association a few years later, Kelvin brought forward instances of elasticity as exemplified in an elastic solid being developed by mere motion, which he felt was reasonable in looking forward to a time when the elasticity of every ultimate atom of matter should be explained as a mode of motion. On the other hand, the physics can do little with such properties as gravitation and mass - a fatal defect, for, as its author said, the kinetic theory of matter is a dream and can be nothing else until we can explain chemical affinity, gravitation, and the inertia of masses. It should be remembered, however, in pointing to its deficiencies, that it is still very young and, moreover, that while pure mathematical analysis is the only means by which it can be more fully worked, the mathematics involved prominent difficulties of the most formidable character. Lord Kelvin's work on atomic theory, though perhaps his most striking contribution to mathematical physics, is only a small part of the whole. Light, electricity, and magnetism, to mention a few broad departments, all engaged his attention, to what extent may be judged from the fact that his papers on electrostatics and magnatism alone up to 1873 amounted to a volume of 600 pages. For the most part, however, the results are of such abstruse and technical character that they can only be understood by a highly trained mathematical intellect. To the ordinary man it is more interesting to note Lord Kelvin's own appreciation of his long researches into the ultimate nature of things. Speaking jubilantly at Glasgow in 1876, he said: "
Some of the earliest and not least important of Lord Kelvin's work was in connection with the theory of heat: indeed, he is to be looked upon as one of the founders of the modern science of thermodynamics. In 1821, Sadi Carnot published his book on the motive power of heat, setting forth the conditions under which heat is available in a heat-engine for the production of mechanical work, but it attracted little or no attention until Lord Kelvin about the middle of the century drew the notice of the scientific world to its value and importance. Although there is reason to believe that Carnot recognized before his death that heat is a form of motion, still his book was written in accordance with the old theory that it is a separate entity, and what Lord Kelvin did was to modify and restate Carnot's propositions in the light of the dynamical theory which by that time had been placed on a firm experimental basis by Joule's recent determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. Lord Kelvin and Joule first saw each other at the Oxford mess of the British Association in 1847, and apparently neither knew anything of the other before that date. But the acquaintance was fertile in results. One of the first was the presentation of a number of papers to the Royal Society of Edinburgh putting thermodynamics on a firm scientific basis. Another was an important series of joint experimental investigations on the thermal effects of gases in motion. One of the discoveries thus made is of special interest due to its subsequent application. It was found that when a compressed gas, at a temperature not too much above its critical point, is allowed to pass through a narrow orifice it undergoes a slight degree of cooling. The apparatus by which Dewer was able to liquefy hydrogen depends on the application of this phenomenon, which is generally known as the Thomson and Joule effect.
A direct and immediate result of Lord Kelvin's study of Carnot's work was his definition of the "Absolute scale of temperature", that is, a scale which, unlike the graduations of an ordinary thermometer that are based on the observation of alterations in temperature produced in a particular material by heat or cold, is independent of the physical properties of any specific substance. A second addition to science soon followed in the form of the principle of the dissipation of energy, enunciated in 1852. This principle states that of the energy taken in by a heat engine in the form of heat only a portion is converted into mechanical work: not annihilated, wasted, the rest is dissipated or degraded, and thus, though ceases to be available for the production of mechanical effects, such a process is continually going on in the world, and as all energy can be transformed into heat, it follows that there is a universal tendency towards the dissipation of mechanical energy. A further general inference is that this earth, as now constituted, has existed within a finite time and will again become unfit for human habitation within a finite time.
AGE OF THE EARTH,
Lord Kelvin soon applied the theory of heat in a more definite manner to the elucidation of cosmical problems. Turning it against those geologists who, opposing all parazymal hypotheses, held that practically unlimited time must be assumed for the explanation of geological phenomena, he pointed out that they were asking what physical science could not for several reasons allow them to have.
considerations based on the conduction of heat that the earth must have been too hot for the existence of life within a limited time. For the Leibnitz theory, which supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent mass of it got so that condition, he pointed out, is not the most favorable, yet implies a finite limit. Temperature is one degree Fahrenheit for every 50 degrees Celsius - which physical science could not for several reasons allow them to have. In a paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1863 he declared that for 18 years it had been pressed on his mind that much current geological speculation was at variance with essential principles of thermodynamics, and proceeded to show for purposes of the geologists who demand most time the Leibnitz theory, which supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent mass of molten rock without attempting to explain how it got into that condition, is, he pointed out, the moderately favourable, yet it implies a finite limit. Taking the average rate of increase of underground temperature as one degree Fahrenheit for every 50 feet of descent, it can be calculated that the date of consolidification was not less than 20 million years ago and could not possibly be placed further back than 400 million years, while if the temperature of melting rock were put at the reasonable figure of 7,000 F, Leibnitz's consistent status must have emerged less than 100 million years ago. Six years later, in an address on "Geological Time" which provoked a lively controversy with Huxley, some other physical considerations were brought to bear on the question. Since the tides exercise a retarding influence on the rotation of the Earth, it must in the past have been revolving more quickly than it does now, and calculations of its deceleration indicate that within the periods of time required by some geologists it must have been going at such a speed that it could not have solidified into its present shape. But Lord Kelvin did not think the amount of contrifugal force existing 100 million years ago was incompatible with its present form. Again, he pointed out that the sun cannot be regarded as a permanent and eternal factor in the universe. Continuously dissipating a prodigious amount of energy and not receiving any equivalent supply from external sources, it must be steadily losing energy. And it was impossible on any reasonable estimate founded on known properties of matter to suppose it had illuminated the Earth for 500 million years, though it was conceivable that it had for 100 million. From these three lines of argument, Lord Kelvin concluded that some 100 million years was the extreme limit that could be allowed for geological history showing continuity of life. Doubtless owing in some measure to the considerations thus urged upon them, the geologists became more moderate in their demands. But, as they reduced their requirements, a corresponding reduction seemed to appear in what their antagonist was willing to concede, and when he discussed the question some 30 years later, the date of solidification, as inferred from the thermal properties of rock and from an increased knowledge of underground temperatures, had fallen to "more than 20 and less than 40 million years ago, and probably much nearer 20 than 40." It is only fair, however, to say that his arguments have not been universally endorsed even among physicists; and it has been urged that there are other assumptions in regard, for instance, to the conductivity of the earth's interior—not less acceptable than those adopted by him, which led to results that were more favorable to the geological and biological demand for more time. Radium, too, has been invoked to explain the maintenance of the sun's heat.
INVENTIONS.
Great as were Lord Kelvin's achievements in the domains of scientific speculation, some of his services to applied science were even greater. His mathematical powers were undoubtedly high, but as a pure mathematical thinker he was surpassed by several of his contemporaries, for his strength lay rather in the er in the faculty which he possessed in an extraordinarily developed degree of applying mathematics to the solution of practical problems, and further in the mechanical ingenuity and resource that enabled him to design and construct apparatus successfully embodying results given by abstract theory. It is related of a celebrated mathematician that, though his mind could move with ease in realms of abstruse thought which very much exists and is undreamed of in the philosophy of the ordinary intellect, he was hopelessly bewildered by the architectural plan of a common dwelling house. Lord Kelvin's mind was of a very different, probably rarer, order. It was nothing if not practical. There cannot, he once remarked, be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon the practical applications which are the life and soul of science. That mistake was one of which himself at least was never guilty, and his scientific inquiries were sceordingly pursued with a long eye for practical applications. A prolific and successful inventor, he had nothing in common with that frequent class of patentees who were brimming over with ideas, all crude, mostly worthless, and only in occasional instances capable of being worked up into something valuable by men combining the requisite mechanical skill with an adequate knowledge of scientific principles. Invention with him was not a mere blind groping in the dark, but a reexamined process leading to a definitely conceived end. Of the scores of patents he took, only a few have not been found to be of practical and commercial value. Of course, all the instruments that he designed did not spring perfectly from his hands, but that his first models were workable mechanisms which time and experience improved into the beautiful appliances that are now admired and used all over the world is sufficient proof of his great inventive ability.
OCEAN TELEGRAPHY
It was in connection with submarine telegraphy that some of his most valuable inventions were produced. In this department, indeed, his work was of capital importance and of itself sufficient to establish his title to lasting fame. Though so distinguished a man as the late Sir George Airy declared that not only was it mechanical impossibility to lay a cable across the Atlantic, but that, even if the feat were accomplished, no electrical signalling could be carried on, Lord Kelvin was a firm believer in the practicability of transoceanic telegraphy and did not hesitate to show by acts the faith that was in him. He became a director of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which hazarded considerable sums in the enterprise of making and laying a cable, and took an active and personal part in the operations which culminated in the successful laying of the short-lived cable of 1858. As to the transmission of electrical impulses, he showed how little doubt he had on that point by publishing a paper in which he gave a mathematical theory expressing the rapidity of transmission and proved that the speed at which a signal passes through a long submarine cable decreases in proportion to the square of its length. But, more than that, he described the most advantageous working conditions and designed instruments that enabled those conditions to be realized, thus making submarine telegraphy commercially practicable. Mr. Whitehouse, the electrician who was put in charge of the first completed cable, held the opinion and did not stand alone that currents of very high potential were required for passing through the cable. He therefore employed large induction coils five feet long and poured the current obtained from these into the cable. As is well known, it broke down completely after it had been in use for a very short time, and there is little reason to doubt that the reason for its untimely use was the inability of its insulation to stand the potentials to which it was exposed. Lord Kelvin, who believed that for this treatment the cable would have worked satisfactorily, declared that feeble currants ought to be employed together with very sensitive receiving instruments and, characteristically, was ready, not only with a theoretical prescription, but with the working instrument, his mirror galvanometer, that enabled it to be carried into effect. In this the magnet, delicately suspended by a fibre, carries a tiny mirror that, by reflecting a beam of light, makes visible and magnifies its movements. Mirror and magnet - in some cases weighing only a grain or so - instrumental rotation is reduced to a minimum and extreme sensitivity ensured. Thus indications are obtained of the very beginning of the wave into which an electrical impulse is flattened in passing through a long cable, and the instrument does not wait before responding until the impulse has risen to its full value -- indeed. "The increase of the current is stopped by "curb sending," also suggested by Lord Kelvin, as soon as it has become strong enough to give its signal. How great was the advance marked by the introduction of this arrangement may be gathered from the fact that the best instrument in existence at the time could scarcely recognize two words a minute, whereas in its earliest form it could deal with ten or 12, and subsequently its capacity was increased to 20. Lord Kelvin made another immense improvement in receiving apparatus when, in 1867, he invented the siphon-recorder, which is not only more speedy than the mirror instrument, but has the additional advantage of giving a permanent record of the message in ink.
MEASUREMENT
Some of his finest work is to be found in his electrical measuring instruments, a subject in which his knowledge and authority were unrivalled. More especially was this the case with regard to electrostatic measurements - perhaps the most difficult of all. When the need for accurate instruments in his studies of atmospheric electricity caused him to take up the matter, the electrometers in existence were little more than electroscopes - capable of indicating a difference in electric potential, but not of measuring it; but in his quadrant, portable, and absolute electrometers his skill and the disposal of electricians' ingenuity put him at the three beautiful instruments of exact research. Nor were his services to the cause of measurement confined to the invention of apparatus. Measurement was regarded as the beginning of science and the origin of many of the grandest discoveries. Hence he was always ready to do anything by which it could be facilitated, whether in the spheres of daily life or of abstruse scientific inquiry. Thus, on the one hand, the metric system found in him a strong supporter, and he rarely missed a chance of bestowing a word or two of half-humorous disparagement upon the unhappy English inch or "that most meaningless of modern measures, the British statute mile." On the other, he was a strenuous advocate of the absolute system of measurement, which he used in his own electrical investigations as far back as 1851, and he was largely instrumental in obtaining in 1961 the appointment of a committce of the British Association on electrical standards which fairly launched the absolute system for general use.
NAVIGATIONAL APPARATUS
The sailor has to thank Lord Kelvin, who was himself a keen amateur yachtsman, for several valuable inventions in connection with the art of navigation. The most important of these were directed to the improvement of the mariner's compass. One of the first desiderata in a ship's compass iв steadiness at sea, but until he took the matter in hand hardly any scientific attempt had been made to achieve that end. In fact no one seema to have reached a clear conception of what was wanted, and the ruling idea was that the unsteadiness due to the motion of the vessel was to be remedied by introducing the sluggishness that follows from friction on the bearing-point. He saw that a steady compass was obtained on the same principle as a steady ship. Just as a vessel rolls most violently when its vibrational period is the same as that of the waves it encounters, so a compass oscillates most wildly when its period coincides with that of the ship upon which it is carried. The remedy in both cases is to make the periods as different as possible. Again, to secure accurate indications the frictional error must be reduced as much possible. This was managed by making the compass card very light. Another innovation consisted in employing needles of small magnetic moment; in other words, their magnetic force is small. Formally it was argued that the more highly magnetized the needles the more powerful their attraction to the Pole, and the better the compass. But Lord Kelvin saw that a large magnetic moment tended to unsteadiness at ses and also rendered difficult the correction of the quadrantal error; hence his needles are not strongly magnetized, directive fores being gained by delicacy of adjustment. Furthermore they are short, to admit of the compass errors in iron ships being rectified without the use of inconveniently large magnets and masses of iron. As a result of all those improvements, nor of which, it has been said, could have been made by any one but a mathematician, he constructed a compass with a period of vibration much longer than that of an old-pattern compass of the same size, having a card some 17 times lighter, and admitting of a complete correction of the quadrantal error by Airy's method. He also invented improved methods of suspension to prevent disturbance by shock or vibration, and finally devised a procedure for correcting the compass error without sights of heavenly bodies or compass marks on shore, His instrument is now widely adopted on well-found ships of the merchant marine; and in the Navy is the service compass for all vessels except boats, torpedo-boats, and torpedo-boat destroyers.
Another appliance that has proved of great value to sailors is his sounding-machine, which essentially consists of many fathoms of galvanized piano wire wound on a drum provided with a suitable brake. For deep-sea surveying it presents many advantages of speediness and convenience over older machines for the same purpose, and by its aid soundings can be taken, every quarter of an hour if desired, with ease and accuracy in any depth up to 100 fathoms from ships going at any ordinary speed, without stopping or rounding-to. It may thus enable a navigator to discover his position when the weather renders land, lights, sun and stars alike invisible. For finding a ship's place at sea Lord Kelvin was also fond of encouraging the extended employment of Sumner's method, and in 1876 he published a series of tables to facilitate its practice. Mention too must be made of his work in conjunction with the calculation of the tides. He constructed three machines designed conjointly to effect the prediction of the tides for any port. The first was a tide gauge which automatically registers the rise and fall on a strip of paper in the form of a curve. The object of the second machine, the harmonic tide analyzer (an application of an invention made by his elder brother James), is to analyze out from this curve the several elementary constituents that make up the whole tidal rise and fall, and thus substitute for methodical, although laborious, arithmetical calculations the mechanical motion of a pair of cranks. As to the third machine, the tide predicter, although Lord Kelvin probably the first to suggest the possibility of such an instrument, yet the plan upon which it was constructed was not entirely of his origin. When supplied with the tidal constituents for any port as obtained by the harmony analysis of tide-gauge records and connected with some source of power, it traces a curve that indicates not only the times and heights of high water, but the depth of water at any and every instant. It can be worked at such a speed as to run off the curve for a year in a few hours.
PUBLICATIONS AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
In conjunction with Professor Tait of Edinburgh, Lord Kelvin wrote a "Treatise on Natural Philosophy" which long ago became a standard textbook. Unfortunately, Thomson and Tait, as it is often familiarly called—"T and T," the authors' own abbreviation, is not finished and only covers a comparatively small part of the ground which would have been included had the authors not abandoned their original intention of treating in succession the various branches of mathematical and experimental physics. Lord Kelvin was also the author of the articles on "Heat" and "Elasticity" in the Encyclopædia Britannica and of numerous scientific papers and more or less popular addresses. A selection of the latter has been published under the title "Popular Lectures and Addresses." As a lecturer, he was rather prone to let his subject run away with him. When this happened, limits of time became of small account, and his audience, understanding but little of what he was sayging, were fain to content themselves with admiring the restless vivacity of his manner (which was rather emphasized than otherwise by the slight lameness from which he suffered) and the keen zest with which he revelled in the intricacies of the matter in hand. Similarly, the intelligence and patience of his Glasgow classes were not always equal to the mental strain entailed by his expositions, and, though they were thoroughly proud of him and his attainments, their orderliness was not of the strictest kind, and they were not above varying the proceedings with an occasional practical joke. Probably his best work as teacher of youth consisted in the experimental and practical training which his pupils underwent in the physical laboratory, and the initiation into the methods of original research received by the more promising students. To the modest inquirer in general search of information his vast stores of learning and experience were always available, though shaliow pretenders to knowledge were liable to find themselves disconcerted by a few simple questions, put in an innocent, childlike manner, but going right to the root of the matter. But he was quick to express his approval of a piece of good work, or his delight at a new result or well-planned experiment; and no one could come into contact with him without feeling the charm of his kindly, lovable nature, and falling under the spell of the enthusiasm and untiring energy with which he devoted himself to the advancement of knowledge.
Lord Kolvin was twice married; first, to Margaret, daughter of Mr. Walter Cruma, of Thornliebank, and, secondly, to Frances Auns, daughter of Mr. Charles R. Blandy, of Madeira. There was no issue of either marriage,
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The body of Lord Kelvin arrived at St. Pancras Station from Largs at 20 minutes past 7 yesterday morning and was conveyed to St. Faith's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, where it will lie until the interment in the Abbey to-day at noon. A number of Lord Kelvin's relatives travelled by the train which carried the body, but Lady Kelvin was too indisposed to make the journey. Representatives of the Senate of Glasgow University and of other bodies with which his lordship was connected also came to London by the same train to be present at the funeral. Before the coffin was taken away, a service for the family was held at Netherall, Largs, Ayrshire, Lord Kelvin's home.
Representatives of the Royal Society awaited the arrival at St. Pancras. The coffin was taken in a hearse to the Abbey and carried through the cloister entrance to St. Faith's Chapel, where a short memorial service was held.
The inscription on the coffin is:
"William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, P.C., O.M., G.C.V.O., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., LL.D., D.C.L. Born 26 June, 1824; died 17 December, 1907."
ORDER OF TODAY'S SERVICE
The order of service arranged for today's ceremony in the Abbey is as follows: Before the entry of the funeral procession, Pureeil's music composed for the funeral of Queen Mary in 1604 and Chopin's Funeral March will be played on the organ. As the body is carried through the cloisters from the Chapel of St. Faith, the hymn, "Brief life is here our portion," will be sung in procession. The opening sentences of the Burial Service will be sung to Dr Croft's music will follow while the procession passes from the nave to the choir. Then will follow Psalm 16 ("Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another"), sung to Purcell's setting, and the lesson from the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; after which will be sung Wesley's anthem, "He will swallow up death in victory." While the body is being borne in procession to the grave, the mourners and pall-bearers alone following, the organ will be played; and after the sentences beginning "Man that is born of woman" have been said, Goss's setting of "I heard a Voice from Heaven" will be sung. Then the appointed prayers will be offered, and the service will conclude, except for the Benediction, with the hymn, "O God, our help in ages past," sung by the whole congregation. While the clergy and the choir are leaving the Abbey, the "Dead March" in Saul will be played on the organ.
A memorial service was held yesterday in the Bute Hall, Glasgow University. There was a large attendance of the public. The pulpit was draped in black. As the members of the Senate and the Court entered in processional order, the "Dead March" in Saul was played, the congregation standing. Professor Cooper and Professor Reid conducted the service, Principal Macalister read the lessons. There was no sermon. At the conclusion of the service, Chopin's Funeral March was played. At St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Glasgow, and St. Columba's Episcopal Church, Largs, of both of which Lord Kelvin was a member, memorial services were also held. The Rev. P. M. Cooper, preaching in the foreground in Glasgow Cathedral, paid a tribute to Lord Kelvin's eminence as a scientist and as a profoundly religious man.
As a mark of respect to the memory of Lord Kelvin, the City and Guilds of London Central Technical College will be closed today. Lord Kelvin generously rendered much assistance to this college at various stages of its history.
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FUNERAL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
To the long list of distinctions which the late Lord Kelvin achieved in his illustrious career there was added yesterday the crowning honour that can be conferred on any British subject of sepulture in Westminster Abbey. The simplest ceremonial in such a building, and amid all the associations which it enshrines, could not fail to be informed with a peculiar solemnity; but at yesterday's service many circumstances contributed to mark the dignity of the occasion with exceptional significance. The size of the congregation that thronged the Abbey to pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of this great man of science was the least remarkable of its characteristics. It was not only dignified by the presence of the representatives of the King, of the Apparent Heir, and of foreign Governments, it also included the representatives of all that is most distinguished in the scientific and academic life of this country, of some of those famous foreign societies which had delighted to honour Lord Kelvin in his lifetime, and of those departments of State and municipal and industrial corporations with which Lord Kelvin had been particularly associated. Only one circumstance could enhance the impressiveness of such a national, and more than national, tribute of respect and that was the particular spot in which Lord Kelvin's remains were thought worthy to be laid. Like the poets and the Statesmen, men of science, have their own place of rest in the Abbey—a corner set apart for those minds, to use the language of Wordsworth with respect to the greatest of them, "for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone." Into a grave by the side of Newton's, and overshadowed by his monument, the coffin was lowered yesterday, to give a new consecration to ground already made more illustrious by the memorials of Herschel and Darwin. Surely the name of Kelvin could not be in more fitting or fortified companionship.
The arrangements were left entirely in the hands of the Royal Society, and they could not have been more admirable, although they were necessarily undertaken under 48 hours' notice. The hour of the service was fixed for noon, but those who were honoured with invitations and the applications for tickets were extremely numerous were requested to be in their places half-an-hour earlier. They were distributed between the choir, the nave, and the south transept, the north transept being thrown open to the general public. During the brief interval between the assembling of the congregation and the opening of the service, Purcell's funeral music, composed for the obsequies of Queen Mary in 1604, and Chopin's Funeral March were played on the organ by Sir Frederick Bridge; and then, as the clocks struck the hour of noon, amid the ceremonial tolling of the Abbey bell, the first faint notes of the processional hymn, "Brief Life is here our portion," were heard, sung by the choir as the coffin was borne from its overnight resting place in St. Faith's chapel. The procession passed through the south to the west cloister, then into the north aisle of the nave, and so along to the west door, where it turned and approached the choir along the centre of the nave. At this moment the darkness which had obscured the day deepened to such a degree that the whole nave, except close to the choir-screen, where a few lights burned about the grave, was plunged in impenetrable gloom. The shadows that lurk in the remote recesses of the vaulted roof crept downwards till they filled the fabric: and out of the heart of them rose the voices of the choir, advancing at the head of the solemn procession, but invisible until well-nigh at hand. Behind the choir walked the Abbey clergy - Minor Canons Nixon, Aiken Sneath, Hine-Haycock, Cheadle, Perkins, Precentor Bainbridge, Canons Beeching, Hensley Henson, and Barnett, Archdeacon Wilberforce, the Sub-Dean, Canon Duckworth, and the Dean. The Sub-Dean and Dean wore their richly embroidered Henry VII copes. Immediately after the clergy came the column, laden with wreaths and covered with a purple velvet pall, embroidered with gold fleur-de-lys at the corners, and upheld by the 12 pall-bearers, who walked in the following order:
Lord Rayleigh, O.M., President of the Royal Society.
The Right Hon. J. Morles, O.M., Secretary of State for Jadia.
Sir Archibald Geikio, K.C.B., President of the Geological Society.
Prof. A. Crum Brown, Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Sir J. Wolfe Barry, K.C.B., Institution of Civil Engineers.
Sir Edward H. Seymour, Q.M., Admiral of the Pleasant.
M. Gaston Darboux, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of France.
The Lord Strathcons and Mount Royal, High Commissioner for Canada.
Sir George Darwin, K.C.B., University of Cambridge.
Dr. McAlister, Principal of the University of Glasgow.
Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Next came the chief mourners who were:
Dr. J. T. Bottomley, F.R.S.
Mr. G. King,
Mr. W. E. Crum,
Mr. Walter Watson,
Mr. James Thomson, Mr. W. Bottomley,
Sir Alex Brown,
Mr. Henry Holdsworth
together with four grand-nephows,
Mr. D. King and Mr. J. F., Mr. W., and Mr. G. Bottomley
After these followed a long procession composed of the following:
Representatives of the Academy of Sciences of Paris: in addition M. Lippman to Barbour, Perpetual Henri Beoguerol, who took part as a pallbearer.
On the part of the Royal Society, in addition to pall-bearers and other Fellows who also represented universities, there were present Mr. A. B. Kempe (treasurer), Professor Lurmor (secretary), Sir W. Grookes (vice president), Sir J. Stirling, Sir John Evans, Major Evans, Major son (assistant secretary), Mr. MacMahon, Mr. R. Harrison, H. F. Newall (president, Royal Astronomical Society), Sir W. H. White, Sir Alexander Kennedy, Professor H. Lamb, Professor J. Perry (president, Physical Society), Dr. J. A. Ewing, Professor S. P. Thompson (Phys. De Verein, Frankfurt); the following (Phys. ing representing the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome - Sir Norman Lockyer, Professor J. J. Thorason, Sir David Gill, and others; Professor H. B. Dixon (Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society).
The British Academy, Sir E. Maunde Tl Thompson.
The Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna was represented (foroiga member).
For the University of Cambridge there attended the Vice-Chancellor (the Master of Gonville and Caius), Mr. Rinity, Sir George S. II. Butcher, M.P., the Master of Trinity, Darwin (pall-bearer), Professor G. D. Liveing, Professor J. Thomson, Professor A. R. Forsyth, Professor Sir Clifford Allbutt, Sir Robert Ball (and in addition Mr. J. F. Rawlinson, M.P., and Mr. R. T. Wright).
Peterhouse, Lord Kelvin's college, was represented by the Master (pall-bearer), Sir J. Gorell Barnes, Sir R. Solomon, Mr. D. C. Richmond (Honorary Fellows), Rev. Professor Harnos, Sir J. Dewar, Colonel H. J. Edwards, Mr. Temperley, Rev. Dr. Walker, and Mr. Dickson (Fellows).
Of the University of Oxford there were present the Vice-Chancellor, Professor W. Osler, and Professor H. A. Miors.
The delegation from the University Court of Glasgow, attended by their Bedell with the mace (draped), were Dr. D. Macalister (Vice-Chancellor and Principal), Professors Jack, Stewart, John Smith, Bower, Ferguson, on Murdoch, Cameron, Gray, Bars, Gregory, G. Ramsay, and Mr. H. Gordon (Sir Henry Craik, member for the University, is at present in India).
The Lord Provost of Glasgow (Sir W. Bilsland) and Mr. M. Simons (president of the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts).
The Royal Society of Edinburgh was represented by Lord McLaren, the University of Edinburgh by Professors Crum Brown (pall-bearer) and Chiens.
The Lord Mayor of London,
The Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Senior Baillie down Moxtone, with Mr. J. Russoll, secretary.
The University of London was represented by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir W. Collins, M.P., Sir E. Eusk, Sir Arthur Rücker, and Sir Henry Roscoe.
he University of Edinburgh, Dr. G. C. Knott,
University College, London, by the President, Lord Reay, the Provost (Dr. Gregory Foster), the Dean of the Faculty of Science (Professor F. T. Trouton), and Professor J. A. Fleming.
The University of Manchester by Professor H. Lamb (Pro-Vice-Chancellor), Professor Boyd Dawkins, Professor Rutherford, and Professor Schuster.
The University of Sheffield by Mr. George Franklin, Pro-Chancellor, Sir Charles Eliot, and Professor W. M. Hicks.
The University of Birmingham by Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor Poynting.
The University of Leeds by Professor Smithells.
The University of Wales by Mr. Angus (Registrar) and Dr. Roberts.
The University of Aberdeen by Professor Sanford Terry.
The University of St. Andrews, Professor W. Peddie.
The Colonel Commanding (R. E. B. Crompton, C.B.) and other officers of the Guard of the Electrical Engineer Volunteers, of which Lord Kelvin was colonel-in-chief.
The King was represented by the Duke of Argyll; the Prince of Wales by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur Bigge; and the Duke of Connaught by Major L. Green Wilkinson.
The Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll) was present, attended by a lady and gentleman in waiting. Other seats in the stalls were occupied by the Russian and Italian Ambassadors; Mr. J. Ridgely Carter, representing the American Ambassador; Baron von Stumm, representing the German Ambassador; and Mr. Ijiuin, representing the Japanese Ambassador. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth, accompanied by his secretaries, attended to represent the Board of Admiralty. The Lord President of the Council was represented by Mr. Almerie FitzRoy
The members of scientific institutions and others present included Sir William Church (Royal College of Physicians), the Prince of Monaco's representative, the Right Hon. J. Parker Smith, Mr. R. Pr Wicksted (McGill University, Montreal), Admiral Sir John Dalrymple Hay, Professor Carey Foster, Eric Gerard (of Liege), Colonel Godwin-Austen, Dr. Bastian, Mr. T. H. Middleton (Board of Agriculture), Admiral Sir John Fisher, O.M., Lord Courtney of Penwith, Mr. H. Babington Smith (Post Office), Dr W. N. Shaw (Meteorological Office), Professor Fleming, Mr. W. Ellis, Professor W. E. Ayrton, Mr. Shelford Bidwell, Professor Henrici, Professor C. H. Lees, Professor Butler (St. Andrews), Sir Philip Watts on behalf of the Royal Corps (Corps of Naval Constructors), Captain Creak, R.N., Dr. H. T. Brown; for the Institution of Civil Engineers, Sir W. Matthews (president), Sir J. Wolfe Barry, Sir W. H. White, Sir A. B. W. Kennedy, Dr. G. F. Deacon, and Tudsberry; for the Institution of Naval Architects, Dr. F. Elgar for the Chemicon Society, Professor H. E. Armstrong, Sir W. Crookes, Dr. W. R. Hodgkinson, Professor Meldola, Dr. R. Messel, Sir A. Pedler, Professor J. M. Thomson, Professor W. A. Tilden, and Dr. T. E. Thorpe for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, scientists, Mr. T. Hurry Riches, Mr. E. B. Ellington, Mr. W. H. Maw, and Mr. T. Henry Davey; also Mr. W. H. Parshall, for the American Association of Electrical Engineers; Sir G. Taubman Goldie, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and Dr. J. Scott Em Keltie; Professor Cars Carslaw (University of Sydney); Dr. Emerson Reynolds (Royal Dublin Society); Mr. W. H. Power, Captain Tizard, R.N.; Mr. A. P. Trotter (Board of Trade), Sir Lawrence (Board of Education), A. A. Campbell Swinton, Mr. C. V. Boys, Professor Sidney Martin, Mr. C. E. Stromever, Professor Seeley; Dr. H. B. Woodward (Geological Survey), Sir H. Trueman Wood (Society of Arts), Dr. E. Hull; Professor W. R. Dunston (Imperial Institute); Mr. W. Duddell, Mr. G. F. C. Scarle, Dr. A. Muirhead, Mr. C. T. Hoye Protest, the Rev. R. Harley, Professor H. Church, Mr. C. E. Groves, General Festing, Mr. W. C. D. Whetham, Mr. Professor Henderson, Professor A. W. Scott (Lampeter College), Dr. Fergus (Glasgow Philosophical Society), N. E. Bailey (London Electrical Supply Company), Mr. G. W. O. Home and others (Institute of Brewing); also, for the Royal Astronomical Society, Mr. H. F. Newall, Professor H. H. Turner, Mr. E. B. Knobel, and Mr. T. Kelvin). Lewis; and Mr. George Green (private secretary to Lord Kelvin).
The Institution of Electrical Engineers, of which Lord Kelvin was president at the time of his death, was represented by a large deputation: Sir W. Preece, Mr. A. Spark Siemens, Sir II. Mance, Afr. R. K. Gmy, Sir J. Geve Hammond, Mr. Wks, Mr. F. Gill, Professor Kapp, Mr. R. W. M. Mordey, Mr. W. H. Patcholl; also Colonel Crompton (commanding the guard of Electrical Engineer Volunteers). The British Museum was represented by Sir Ray Lankester and others; the London Mathematical Society by Professor Love; the Royal Institution Society by the treasurer (Sir James Crichton Browne), the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester by the president, Professor H. B. Dixon; the Elektrotechnischer Verein of Berlin by Mr. A. Siemens; the Socista Italiana di Fision by Professor S. P. Thompson. The Lister Institute Institute, the Hakluyt Society, the Glasgow University Club, London, the Glasgow Students, the Liverpool Engineering Society, the British Aluminium, the Royal Meteorological Society, the Ju Institution of Engineers, the Central Technical College, the Royal Institute of Public Health, the Faraday Society, the British Westinghouse Company, the General Electric Company of Birmingham, and the Glasgow and Lanarkshiro Association were represented.
Among others who attended were Lady Rayleigh, the Bishop of Glasgow, Lord Kinnaird, Earl Cathcart, Lord de Morley, Sir L. Alma-Tadema, the Right Hon. Arnold Morley, Lord Cocil Manners, Sir M. Arthur (Scottish Unionist Association), Sir John Cockburn, Sir Charles V. Stanford (representing the Cambridge University Musical Society), the Vicar of Windsor, the Master of the Clothworkers' Company, Mr. Charles T. Bruce, Mr. Alfred Mond, Mr. R. Duncan, Mr. A. D. Stuart Parker and Miss Provand, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., Mr. Charles Iss Helen Stewart, Major H. H. H. Houldsworth (representing Sir William Houldsworth, absent from l-bealth), Mr. H. M. Fletcher, Mr. Bruce Joy, and Mr. C. G. Darwin; Mr. Albert Auns, on behalf of the National Talephone Company; Mr. Frank R. Durham, chairman, and several members of the council of the Junior Institution of Engineers; Mr. Thomas Glover, Mr. J. W. Helps, and Mr. S. Y. Shoubridgo, on behalf of the Institution of Gas the Linotype Company, Sir Joseph Lawrence, Sir H. Bemrose, Mr. A. H. Pollen, and Mr. W. H. Locke.
It was notable that, as soon as the procession had passed on of the nave, the darkness lifted, only to return when the coffin was borne back to the grave.
Those who followed in the procession took the places that had been reserved for them under the lantern, while the coffin was being laid on the with high catafalque, six tall to draped in purple, and set round tapers, which had been placed in front of the chancel. While the procession was passing down the nave to the choir, the opening sentences of the Burial Service were sung to Croft's music, and then followed Psalm xo., Lord thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another," to Purcell's setting. The Lesson (1 Cor. xv., 20) beginning, "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept," was read by the Dean, after which the choir sang Wesley's bountiful anthem, "He will swallow up death in vain, and the Lord God will wipe tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it." This ended the first part of the service, and the procession, having been re-formed, headed by the choir and clergy, the body was borne again from the lighted choir to the graveside in the dim corner of the shadowed nave, while from the organ swelled Beethoven's Funeral March. But, except for the mourners and pall-bearers, the congregation remained in their places. The Dean and Sub-Dean, at whose side stood the representatives of the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Connaught, took their places at the head of the grave, immediately under the Newton monument. The space on the north side was occupied by the choir, and on the other sides were grouped the clergy and the chief mourners. Then in the solemn stillness rose the voice of the Dean as he recited the familiar sentences of the Burial Service at the beginning. "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." The committal prayer followed, and the coffin, with three wreaths still resting upon it, was lowered into the grave. Of these wreaths, one was from Lady Kelvin, another was from the Royal Society, and the third, consisting of a handful of homely flowers, bore the inscription "From homes that he blessed. A. and E."
The coffin bore the following inscription: WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON KELVIN OF LARGS, P.C., O.M., G.C.V.O., F.R.S., P.R.S.E., LL.D., D.C.L., &c., Born 26 June, 1824. Died December 17, 1907.
After the committal, the silence was again broken by the voices of the choir singing Goss's setting of "I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors." This was the concluding After Service by the area of the Burial Sub-Dean; a fitting conclusion to a service dignified in its simplicity and sincerity, the familiar hymn, "O God, our help in ages past," was sung by the whole congregation. As the last echoes of the singing died away, the Dean pronounced the Benediction, and only one last rite remained to be rendered. As the procession of clergy and choir reformed and passed slowly up the nave and out at the western cloister door, the Dead March in Saul rose from the organ, filling with its mournful cadence every echoing corner of the great fabric. Not until the last chords died away did the movement of dispersal begin, and then the stream of mourners passed from their places in choir and nave to forse form an improvised procession past the grave, and the University of Manchester, by Professor H. Lamb, to pay the tribute of farewell to the mortal remains. of him, who is now numbered among the great departed.
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The Senate of the University of London have sent to Lady Kelvin through the Principal a message expressive of their admiration of Lord Kelvin's work and of sympathy with her in her bereavement.
A memorial service was held yesterday in St. Columba's Scottish Episcopal Church at Largs, where Lord Kelvin worshipped when in Ayrshire. The service began at noon simultaneously with the Abbay ceremonial. It was attended by the provost and members of the town council and other public representatives. Canon Low, the incumbent, conducted the service.
We deeply regret to announce the death of the most distinguished British man of science, Lord Kelvin, who took place last night at his Scottish residence, Netherhall, Largs. Lord Kelvin had not been well for over three weeks. He caught a chill on November 23, and his condition became severe some days ago.
MEMOIR.
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, was born in Belfast on June 24, 1824. The second son of James Thomson, a remarkable man who, though he started with formidable advantages of education, died in 1849. Professor of Mathematics at the University of Glasgow, he began to attend classes at Glasgow at the age of 11, and in the year he attained his majority, graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Second Wrangler and first St Smith's Prizeman. His success immediately earned him a Fellowship at his college, and in the following year, after spending a short time in Regnault's Laboratory in Paris, he returned to succeed Dr. Meikleham in the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow. It is not often that often that father and son simultaneously hold professorships at an important university; but even that does not exhaust the academic record of the Thomson family. Lord Kelvin's elder brother James was Professor of Engineering in the University from 1873 to 1889, so that three professors at Glasgow were provided by two generations of the descendants of a small farmer in the north of Ireland. The rest of Lord Kelvin's life is chiefly a record of strenuous and successful scientific work which received early recognition. The Royal Society made him one of their number in 1851, and, after conferring on him successively and a Royal and a Copley medal, accorded him in 1800 the highest honour at their disposal by choosing him to be their president. At the British Association, of which he acted as president at Edinburgh in 1871, he was an assiduous attendant. Much of his work was first published as communications or reports to that body, and 15, as only at its last meeting, delivered a long address on the constitution of matter and electronic theory. He received honorary degrees in association, among them being D.C.L. from Oxford and LL.D. from Cambridge, Dublin, and Edinburgh, together with many foreign academic distinctions. In 1866 he was knighted for his part in the laying of the Atlantic cable, and when, in 1892, Lord Salisbury crowned him a peer he borrowed his title from the stream that flows below the university in which he had spent his scientific life. He received the Order of Merit on its institution in 1902—he was already a member of the Prussian Order "Pour le Mérite"—and in the same year became a Privy Councillor. But perhaps the crowning occasion of his life was the celebration of his jubilee as professor at Glasgow in 1906, when a unique gathering gathered to do him honour, and congratulations from scientific men in all quarters of the globe testified to the universal admiration with which his genius was regarded. Three years later, after 53 years' service, he signed his Glasgow professorship. But retirement by no means meant the cessation of active work. While still maintaining his connection with the University, of which in 1904 he was surprisingly chosen Chancellor in succession to the Earl of Stair, he continued to pay tribute to the proceedings of various scientific societies, and much of his time was devoted to the rewriting and revision of his Baltimore lectures on molecular dynamics and the quantum theory of light. These lectures were delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1884, and the printing of them, begun in 1885, was only brought to a conclusion in 1904. He chose the wave theory as a subject with the deliberate intention of accentuating its failures, but in his preface to the volume published in 1904 he was able to express his satisfaction that it contained a dynamical explanation of every one of the difficulties which had been encountered in the lectures 20 years before. Lord Kelvin was also a director of sovereign manufacturing companies, and his name formed part of the style of the Glasgow arm which manufactures his compass and measuring instruments. He was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers for the present year, though he did not live to deliver his innaugural address.
Within the limits of a short article it is not possible to give a full account of Lord Kelvin's achievements in the realms of scientific thought and discovery. Generally recognized at the time of his death as the foremost living physicist, he was no less remarkable for the profundity of his research than for the range and variety of his attainments. Not confining himself to a singular more or less specialized department of learning, he may be said to have taken all physical science to be his province; for there were few branches of physical inquiry that he did not touch, and all that he touched he adorned. Perhaps this many-sidedness of his intellectual interests may be connected with the deep conviction he possessed of the unity of all science, and his impatience of confluences which, drawn from a limited field of study, were in opposition to the well-ascertained facts of wider generalizations. On one occasion, when suspected of being "hard on the geologists," he repudiated the suspicion with the remark that he did not believe in one science for the mathematician, another for the chemist, another for the physicist, and another for the geologist. All science, he said, is one part of science that places itself outside of it. It is one science, and any part of the other sciences ceases for the time being to be a science. Some idea may be obtained from the amount of his scientific work from the feet that, according to the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, down to the year 1853 he had published 202 memoirs under his name, not including papers published jointly with other men, while his published mathematical papers -- not yet completed -- already fill three substantial volumes. Nor must his contributions to the increase of natural knowledge - to use one of his favourite expressions - be reckoned merely by the sum of the results at which he was personally able to arrive. Hundreds of men are proud to recognize him as their master and scientific men in all parts of the world, may be found who have not only benefited by his advice and been stimulated by his enthusiasm, but owe to him in many cases the very subjects of research upon which they are engaged - either his direct suggestions or as problems answered out by his prior investigations.
ATOMIC THEORY
To solve the puzzle of the ultimate constitution of matter may be regarded as the goal of the pure physicist's ambition. The problem afforded Lord Kolvin a congenial field of speculation, and he followed up on propounding a hypothesis as to the nature of atoms which, according to Clerk Maxwell, satisfied more of the conditions than any hitherto imagined. Starting from a number of mathematical theorems established by Helmholtz respecting the motion of a perfect, compressible fluid, he suggested that the universe may be filled with such a primitive fluid of which in itself we can know nothing, but portions of which become apparent to our perceptions as matter when converted by a particular mode of motion into vortex rings. These vortex rings (of which a fair imitation is given by vortex rings in air) are the atoms or molecules that comprise all material substances. They are indivisible, not only because of their hardness and solidity, but because they are permanent both in volume and in strength. The fluid being frictionless, those portions of it that have only been in rotation continuously in that state forever unless stopped by a creative act of the same order that first gave them motion, while the infinite changes of form of which the vortices are capable are sufficient to account for the differences between currents of different kinds. On this hypothesis many properties of matter can be sufficiently accounted for. For example, in a study delivered before the Royal Institution in 1881, and again in greater detail before the British Association a few years later, Kelvin brought forward instances of elasticity as exemplified in an elastic solid being developed by mere motion, which he felt was reasonable in looking forward to a time when the elasticity of every ultimate atom of matter should be explained as a mode of motion. On the other hand, the physics can do little with such properties as gravitation and mass - a fatal defect, for, as its author said, the kinetic theory of matter is a dream and can be nothing else until we can explain chemical affinity, gravitation, and the inertia of masses. It should be remembered, however, in pointing to its deficiencies, that it is still very young and, moreover, that while pure mathematical analysis is the only means by which it can be more fully worked, the mathematics involved prominent difficulties of the most formidable character. Lord Kelvin's work on atomic theory, though perhaps his most striking contribution to mathematical physics, is only a small part of the whole. Light, electricity, and magnetism, to mention a few broad departments, all engaged his attention, to what extent may be judged from the fact that his papers on electrostatics and magnatism alone up to 1873 amounted to a volume of 600 pages. For the most part, however, the results are of such abstruse and technical character that they can only be understood by a highly trained mathematical intellect. To the ordinary man it is more interesting to note Lord Kelvin's own appreciation of his long researches into the ultimate nature of things. Speaking jubilantly at Glasgow in 1876, he said: "
One word characterizes the most strenuous of opportunities for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly for 55 years that word is failure. I know no more of electrical and magnetic force, or of the relationship between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, than I knew and tried to teach my class-students in my first session as Professor.THERMODYNAMICS
Some of the earliest and not least important of Lord Kelvin's work was in connection with the theory of heat: indeed, he is to be looked upon as one of the founders of the modern science of thermodynamics. In 1821, Sadi Carnot published his book on the motive power of heat, setting forth the conditions under which heat is available in a heat-engine for the production of mechanical work, but it attracted little or no attention until Lord Kelvin about the middle of the century drew the notice of the scientific world to its value and importance. Although there is reason to believe that Carnot recognized before his death that heat is a form of motion, still his book was written in accordance with the old theory that it is a separate entity, and what Lord Kelvin did was to modify and restate Carnot's propositions in the light of the dynamical theory which by that time had been placed on a firm experimental basis by Joule's recent determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. Lord Kelvin and Joule first saw each other at the Oxford mess of the British Association in 1847, and apparently neither knew anything of the other before that date. But the acquaintance was fertile in results. One of the first was the presentation of a number of papers to the Royal Society of Edinburgh putting thermodynamics on a firm scientific basis. Another was an important series of joint experimental investigations on the thermal effects of gases in motion. One of the discoveries thus made is of special interest due to its subsequent application. It was found that when a compressed gas, at a temperature not too much above its critical point, is allowed to pass through a narrow orifice it undergoes a slight degree of cooling. The apparatus by which Dewer was able to liquefy hydrogen depends on the application of this phenomenon, which is generally known as the Thomson and Joule effect.
A direct and immediate result of Lord Kelvin's study of Carnot's work was his definition of the "Absolute scale of temperature", that is, a scale which, unlike the graduations of an ordinary thermometer that are based on the observation of alterations in temperature produced in a particular material by heat or cold, is independent of the physical properties of any specific substance. A second addition to science soon followed in the form of the principle of the dissipation of energy, enunciated in 1852. This principle states that of the energy taken in by a heat engine in the form of heat only a portion is converted into mechanical work: not annihilated, wasted, the rest is dissipated or degraded, and thus, though ceases to be available for the production of mechanical effects, such a process is continually going on in the world, and as all energy can be transformed into heat, it follows that there is a universal tendency towards the dissipation of mechanical energy. A further general inference is that this earth, as now constituted, has existed within a finite time and will again become unfit for human habitation within a finite time.
AGE OF THE EARTH,
Lord Kelvin soon applied the theory of heat in a more definite manner to the elucidation of cosmical problems. Turning it against those geologists who, opposing all parazymal hypotheses, held that practically unlimited time must be assumed for the explanation of geological phenomena, he pointed out that they were asking what physical science could not for several reasons allow them to have.
considerations based on the conduction of heat that the earth must have been too hot for the existence of life within a limited time. For the Leibnitz theory, which supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent mass of it got so that condition, he pointed out, is not the most favorable, yet implies a finite limit. Temperature is one degree Fahrenheit for every 50 degrees Celsius - which physical science could not for several reasons allow them to have. In a paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1863 he declared that for 18 years it had been pressed on his mind that much current geological speculation was at variance with essential principles of thermodynamics, and proceeded to show for purposes of the geologists who demand most time the Leibnitz theory, which supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent mass of molten rock without attempting to explain how it got into that condition, is, he pointed out, the moderately favourable, yet it implies a finite limit. Taking the average rate of increase of underground temperature as one degree Fahrenheit for every 50 feet of descent, it can be calculated that the date of consolidification was not less than 20 million years ago and could not possibly be placed further back than 400 million years, while if the temperature of melting rock were put at the reasonable figure of 7,000 F, Leibnitz's consistent status must have emerged less than 100 million years ago. Six years later, in an address on "Geological Time" which provoked a lively controversy with Huxley, some other physical considerations were brought to bear on the question. Since the tides exercise a retarding influence on the rotation of the Earth, it must in the past have been revolving more quickly than it does now, and calculations of its deceleration indicate that within the periods of time required by some geologists it must have been going at such a speed that it could not have solidified into its present shape. But Lord Kelvin did not think the amount of contrifugal force existing 100 million years ago was incompatible with its present form. Again, he pointed out that the sun cannot be regarded as a permanent and eternal factor in the universe. Continuously dissipating a prodigious amount of energy and not receiving any equivalent supply from external sources, it must be steadily losing energy. And it was impossible on any reasonable estimate founded on known properties of matter to suppose it had illuminated the Earth for 500 million years, though it was conceivable that it had for 100 million. From these three lines of argument, Lord Kelvin concluded that some 100 million years was the extreme limit that could be allowed for geological history showing continuity of life. Doubtless owing in some measure to the considerations thus urged upon them, the geologists became more moderate in their demands. But, as they reduced their requirements, a corresponding reduction seemed to appear in what their antagonist was willing to concede, and when he discussed the question some 30 years later, the date of solidification, as inferred from the thermal properties of rock and from an increased knowledge of underground temperatures, had fallen to "more than 20 and less than 40 million years ago, and probably much nearer 20 than 40." It is only fair, however, to say that his arguments have not been universally endorsed even among physicists; and it has been urged that there are other assumptions in regard, for instance, to the conductivity of the earth's interior—not less acceptable than those adopted by him, which led to results that were more favorable to the geological and biological demand for more time. Radium, too, has been invoked to explain the maintenance of the sun's heat.
INVENTIONS.
Great as were Lord Kelvin's achievements in the domains of scientific speculation, some of his services to applied science were even greater. His mathematical powers were undoubtedly high, but as a pure mathematical thinker he was surpassed by several of his contemporaries, for his strength lay rather in the er in the faculty which he possessed in an extraordinarily developed degree of applying mathematics to the solution of practical problems, and further in the mechanical ingenuity and resource that enabled him to design and construct apparatus successfully embodying results given by abstract theory. It is related of a celebrated mathematician that, though his mind could move with ease in realms of abstruse thought which very much exists and is undreamed of in the philosophy of the ordinary intellect, he was hopelessly bewildered by the architectural plan of a common dwelling house. Lord Kelvin's mind was of a very different, probably rarer, order. It was nothing if not practical. There cannot, he once remarked, be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon the practical applications which are the life and soul of science. That mistake was one of which himself at least was never guilty, and his scientific inquiries were sceordingly pursued with a long eye for practical applications. A prolific and successful inventor, he had nothing in common with that frequent class of patentees who were brimming over with ideas, all crude, mostly worthless, and only in occasional instances capable of being worked up into something valuable by men combining the requisite mechanical skill with an adequate knowledge of scientific principles. Invention with him was not a mere blind groping in the dark, but a reexamined process leading to a definitely conceived end. Of the scores of patents he took, only a few have not been found to be of practical and commercial value. Of course, all the instruments that he designed did not spring perfectly from his hands, but that his first models were workable mechanisms which time and experience improved into the beautiful appliances that are now admired and used all over the world is sufficient proof of his great inventive ability.
OCEAN TELEGRAPHY
It was in connection with submarine telegraphy that some of his most valuable inventions were produced. In this department, indeed, his work was of capital importance and of itself sufficient to establish his title to lasting fame. Though so distinguished a man as the late Sir George Airy declared that not only was it mechanical impossibility to lay a cable across the Atlantic, but that, even if the feat were accomplished, no electrical signalling could be carried on, Lord Kelvin was a firm believer in the practicability of transoceanic telegraphy and did not hesitate to show by acts the faith that was in him. He became a director of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which hazarded considerable sums in the enterprise of making and laying a cable, and took an active and personal part in the operations which culminated in the successful laying of the short-lived cable of 1858. As to the transmission of electrical impulses, he showed how little doubt he had on that point by publishing a paper in which he gave a mathematical theory expressing the rapidity of transmission and proved that the speed at which a signal passes through a long submarine cable decreases in proportion to the square of its length. But, more than that, he described the most advantageous working conditions and designed instruments that enabled those conditions to be realized, thus making submarine telegraphy commercially practicable. Mr. Whitehouse, the electrician who was put in charge of the first completed cable, held the opinion and did not stand alone that currents of very high potential were required for passing through the cable. He therefore employed large induction coils five feet long and poured the current obtained from these into the cable. As is well known, it broke down completely after it had been in use for a very short time, and there is little reason to doubt that the reason for its untimely use was the inability of its insulation to stand the potentials to which it was exposed. Lord Kelvin, who believed that for this treatment the cable would have worked satisfactorily, declared that feeble currants ought to be employed together with very sensitive receiving instruments and, characteristically, was ready, not only with a theoretical prescription, but with the working instrument, his mirror galvanometer, that enabled it to be carried into effect. In this the magnet, delicately suspended by a fibre, carries a tiny mirror that, by reflecting a beam of light, makes visible and magnifies its movements. Mirror and magnet - in some cases weighing only a grain or so - instrumental rotation is reduced to a minimum and extreme sensitivity ensured. Thus indications are obtained of the very beginning of the wave into which an electrical impulse is flattened in passing through a long cable, and the instrument does not wait before responding until the impulse has risen to its full value -- indeed. "The increase of the current is stopped by "curb sending," also suggested by Lord Kelvin, as soon as it has become strong enough to give its signal. How great was the advance marked by the introduction of this arrangement may be gathered from the fact that the best instrument in existence at the time could scarcely recognize two words a minute, whereas in its earliest form it could deal with ten or 12, and subsequently its capacity was increased to 20. Lord Kelvin made another immense improvement in receiving apparatus when, in 1867, he invented the siphon-recorder, which is not only more speedy than the mirror instrument, but has the additional advantage of giving a permanent record of the message in ink.
MEASUREMENT
Some of his finest work is to be found in his electrical measuring instruments, a subject in which his knowledge and authority were unrivalled. More especially was this the case with regard to electrostatic measurements - perhaps the most difficult of all. When the need for accurate instruments in his studies of atmospheric electricity caused him to take up the matter, the electrometers in existence were little more than electroscopes - capable of indicating a difference in electric potential, but not of measuring it; but in his quadrant, portable, and absolute electrometers his skill and the disposal of electricians' ingenuity put him at the three beautiful instruments of exact research. Nor were his services to the cause of measurement confined to the invention of apparatus. Measurement was regarded as the beginning of science and the origin of many of the grandest discoveries. Hence he was always ready to do anything by which it could be facilitated, whether in the spheres of daily life or of abstruse scientific inquiry. Thus, on the one hand, the metric system found in him a strong supporter, and he rarely missed a chance of bestowing a word or two of half-humorous disparagement upon the unhappy English inch or "that most meaningless of modern measures, the British statute mile." On the other, he was a strenuous advocate of the absolute system of measurement, which he used in his own electrical investigations as far back as 1851, and he was largely instrumental in obtaining in 1961 the appointment of a committce of the British Association on electrical standards which fairly launched the absolute system for general use.
NAVIGATIONAL APPARATUS
The sailor has to thank Lord Kelvin, who was himself a keen amateur yachtsman, for several valuable inventions in connection with the art of navigation. The most important of these were directed to the improvement of the mariner's compass. One of the first desiderata in a ship's compass iв steadiness at sea, but until he took the matter in hand hardly any scientific attempt had been made to achieve that end. In fact no one seema to have reached a clear conception of what was wanted, and the ruling idea was that the unsteadiness due to the motion of the vessel was to be remedied by introducing the sluggishness that follows from friction on the bearing-point. He saw that a steady compass was obtained on the same principle as a steady ship. Just as a vessel rolls most violently when its vibrational period is the same as that of the waves it encounters, so a compass oscillates most wildly when its period coincides with that of the ship upon which it is carried. The remedy in both cases is to make the periods as different as possible. Again, to secure accurate indications the frictional error must be reduced as much possible. This was managed by making the compass card very light. Another innovation consisted in employing needles of small magnetic moment; in other words, their magnetic force is small. Formally it was argued that the more highly magnetized the needles the more powerful their attraction to the Pole, and the better the compass. But Lord Kelvin saw that a large magnetic moment tended to unsteadiness at ses and also rendered difficult the correction of the quadrantal error; hence his needles are not strongly magnetized, directive fores being gained by delicacy of adjustment. Furthermore they are short, to admit of the compass errors in iron ships being rectified without the use of inconveniently large magnets and masses of iron. As a result of all those improvements, nor of which, it has been said, could have been made by any one but a mathematician, he constructed a compass with a period of vibration much longer than that of an old-pattern compass of the same size, having a card some 17 times lighter, and admitting of a complete correction of the quadrantal error by Airy's method. He also invented improved methods of suspension to prevent disturbance by shock or vibration, and finally devised a procedure for correcting the compass error without sights of heavenly bodies or compass marks on shore, His instrument is now widely adopted on well-found ships of the merchant marine; and in the Navy is the service compass for all vessels except boats, torpedo-boats, and torpedo-boat destroyers.
Another appliance that has proved of great value to sailors is his sounding-machine, which essentially consists of many fathoms of galvanized piano wire wound on a drum provided with a suitable brake. For deep-sea surveying it presents many advantages of speediness and convenience over older machines for the same purpose, and by its aid soundings can be taken, every quarter of an hour if desired, with ease and accuracy in any depth up to 100 fathoms from ships going at any ordinary speed, without stopping or rounding-to. It may thus enable a navigator to discover his position when the weather renders land, lights, sun and stars alike invisible. For finding a ship's place at sea Lord Kelvin was also fond of encouraging the extended employment of Sumner's method, and in 1876 he published a series of tables to facilitate its practice. Mention too must be made of his work in conjunction with the calculation of the tides. He constructed three machines designed conjointly to effect the prediction of the tides for any port. The first was a tide gauge which automatically registers the rise and fall on a strip of paper in the form of a curve. The object of the second machine, the harmonic tide analyzer (an application of an invention made by his elder brother James), is to analyze out from this curve the several elementary constituents that make up the whole tidal rise and fall, and thus substitute for methodical, although laborious, arithmetical calculations the mechanical motion of a pair of cranks. As to the third machine, the tide predicter, although Lord Kelvin probably the first to suggest the possibility of such an instrument, yet the plan upon which it was constructed was not entirely of his origin. When supplied with the tidal constituents for any port as obtained by the harmony analysis of tide-gauge records and connected with some source of power, it traces a curve that indicates not only the times and heights of high water, but the depth of water at any and every instant. It can be worked at such a speed as to run off the curve for a year in a few hours.
PUBLICATIONS AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
In conjunction with Professor Tait of Edinburgh, Lord Kelvin wrote a "Treatise on Natural Philosophy" which long ago became a standard textbook. Unfortunately, Thomson and Tait, as it is often familiarly called—"T and T," the authors' own abbreviation, is not finished and only covers a comparatively small part of the ground which would have been included had the authors not abandoned their original intention of treating in succession the various branches of mathematical and experimental physics. Lord Kelvin was also the author of the articles on "Heat" and "Elasticity" in the Encyclopædia Britannica and of numerous scientific papers and more or less popular addresses. A selection of the latter has been published under the title "Popular Lectures and Addresses." As a lecturer, he was rather prone to let his subject run away with him. When this happened, limits of time became of small account, and his audience, understanding but little of what he was sayging, were fain to content themselves with admiring the restless vivacity of his manner (which was rather emphasized than otherwise by the slight lameness from which he suffered) and the keen zest with which he revelled in the intricacies of the matter in hand. Similarly, the intelligence and patience of his Glasgow classes were not always equal to the mental strain entailed by his expositions, and, though they were thoroughly proud of him and his attainments, their orderliness was not of the strictest kind, and they were not above varying the proceedings with an occasional practical joke. Probably his best work as teacher of youth consisted in the experimental and practical training which his pupils underwent in the physical laboratory, and the initiation into the methods of original research received by the more promising students. To the modest inquirer in general search of information his vast stores of learning and experience were always available, though shaliow pretenders to knowledge were liable to find themselves disconcerted by a few simple questions, put in an innocent, childlike manner, but going right to the root of the matter. But he was quick to express his approval of a piece of good work, or his delight at a new result or well-planned experiment; and no one could come into contact with him without feeling the charm of his kindly, lovable nature, and falling under the spell of the enthusiasm and untiring energy with which he devoted himself to the advancement of knowledge.
Lord Kolvin was twice married; first, to Margaret, daughter of Mr. Walter Cruma, of Thornliebank, and, secondly, to Frances Auns, daughter of Mr. Charles R. Blandy, of Madeira. There was no issue of either marriage,
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The body of Lord Kelvin arrived at St. Pancras Station from Largs at 20 minutes past 7 yesterday morning and was conveyed to St. Faith's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, where it will lie until the interment in the Abbey to-day at noon. A number of Lord Kelvin's relatives travelled by the train which carried the body, but Lady Kelvin was too indisposed to make the journey. Representatives of the Senate of Glasgow University and of other bodies with which his lordship was connected also came to London by the same train to be present at the funeral. Before the coffin was taken away, a service for the family was held at Netherall, Largs, Ayrshire, Lord Kelvin's home.
Representatives of the Royal Society awaited the arrival at St. Pancras. The coffin was taken in a hearse to the Abbey and carried through the cloister entrance to St. Faith's Chapel, where a short memorial service was held.
The inscription on the coffin is:
"William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, P.C., O.M., G.C.V.O., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., LL.D., D.C.L. Born 26 June, 1824; died 17 December, 1907."
ORDER OF TODAY'S SERVICE
The order of service arranged for today's ceremony in the Abbey is as follows: Before the entry of the funeral procession, Pureeil's music composed for the funeral of Queen Mary in 1604 and Chopin's Funeral March will be played on the organ. As the body is carried through the cloisters from the Chapel of St. Faith, the hymn, "Brief life is here our portion," will be sung in procession. The opening sentences of the Burial Service will be sung to Dr Croft's music will follow while the procession passes from the nave to the choir. Then will follow Psalm 16 ("Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another"), sung to Purcell's setting, and the lesson from the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; after which will be sung Wesley's anthem, "He will swallow up death in victory." While the body is being borne in procession to the grave, the mourners and pall-bearers alone following, the organ will be played; and after the sentences beginning "Man that is born of woman" have been said, Goss's setting of "I heard a Voice from Heaven" will be sung. Then the appointed prayers will be offered, and the service will conclude, except for the Benediction, with the hymn, "O God, our help in ages past," sung by the whole congregation. While the clergy and the choir are leaving the Abbey, the "Dead March" in Saul will be played on the organ.
A memorial service was held yesterday in the Bute Hall, Glasgow University. There was a large attendance of the public. The pulpit was draped in black. As the members of the Senate and the Court entered in processional order, the "Dead March" in Saul was played, the congregation standing. Professor Cooper and Professor Reid conducted the service, Principal Macalister read the lessons. There was no sermon. At the conclusion of the service, Chopin's Funeral March was played. At St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Glasgow, and St. Columba's Episcopal Church, Largs, of both of which Lord Kelvin was a member, memorial services were also held. The Rev. P. M. Cooper, preaching in the foreground in Glasgow Cathedral, paid a tribute to Lord Kelvin's eminence as a scientist and as a profoundly religious man.
As a mark of respect to the memory of Lord Kelvin, the City and Guilds of London Central Technical College will be closed today. Lord Kelvin generously rendered much assistance to this college at various stages of its history.
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FUNERAL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
To the long list of distinctions which the late Lord Kelvin achieved in his illustrious career there was added yesterday the crowning honour that can be conferred on any British subject of sepulture in Westminster Abbey. The simplest ceremonial in such a building, and amid all the associations which it enshrines, could not fail to be informed with a peculiar solemnity; but at yesterday's service many circumstances contributed to mark the dignity of the occasion with exceptional significance. The size of the congregation that thronged the Abbey to pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of this great man of science was the least remarkable of its characteristics. It was not only dignified by the presence of the representatives of the King, of the Apparent Heir, and of foreign Governments, it also included the representatives of all that is most distinguished in the scientific and academic life of this country, of some of those famous foreign societies which had delighted to honour Lord Kelvin in his lifetime, and of those departments of State and municipal and industrial corporations with which Lord Kelvin had been particularly associated. Only one circumstance could enhance the impressiveness of such a national, and more than national, tribute of respect and that was the particular spot in which Lord Kelvin's remains were thought worthy to be laid. Like the poets and the Statesmen, men of science, have their own place of rest in the Abbey—a corner set apart for those minds, to use the language of Wordsworth with respect to the greatest of them, "for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone." Into a grave by the side of Newton's, and overshadowed by his monument, the coffin was lowered yesterday, to give a new consecration to ground already made more illustrious by the memorials of Herschel and Darwin. Surely the name of Kelvin could not be in more fitting or fortified companionship.
The arrangements were left entirely in the hands of the Royal Society, and they could not have been more admirable, although they were necessarily undertaken under 48 hours' notice. The hour of the service was fixed for noon, but those who were honoured with invitations and the applications for tickets were extremely numerous were requested to be in their places half-an-hour earlier. They were distributed between the choir, the nave, and the south transept, the north transept being thrown open to the general public. During the brief interval between the assembling of the congregation and the opening of the service, Purcell's funeral music, composed for the obsequies of Queen Mary in 1604, and Chopin's Funeral March were played on the organ by Sir Frederick Bridge; and then, as the clocks struck the hour of noon, amid the ceremonial tolling of the Abbey bell, the first faint notes of the processional hymn, "Brief Life is here our portion," were heard, sung by the choir as the coffin was borne from its overnight resting place in St. Faith's chapel. The procession passed through the south to the west cloister, then into the north aisle of the nave, and so along to the west door, where it turned and approached the choir along the centre of the nave. At this moment the darkness which had obscured the day deepened to such a degree that the whole nave, except close to the choir-screen, where a few lights burned about the grave, was plunged in impenetrable gloom. The shadows that lurk in the remote recesses of the vaulted roof crept downwards till they filled the fabric: and out of the heart of them rose the voices of the choir, advancing at the head of the solemn procession, but invisible until well-nigh at hand. Behind the choir walked the Abbey clergy - Minor Canons Nixon, Aiken Sneath, Hine-Haycock, Cheadle, Perkins, Precentor Bainbridge, Canons Beeching, Hensley Henson, and Barnett, Archdeacon Wilberforce, the Sub-Dean, Canon Duckworth, and the Dean. The Sub-Dean and Dean wore their richly embroidered Henry VII copes. Immediately after the clergy came the column, laden with wreaths and covered with a purple velvet pall, embroidered with gold fleur-de-lys at the corners, and upheld by the 12 pall-bearers, who walked in the following order:
Lord Rayleigh, O.M., President of the Royal Society.
The Right Hon. J. Morles, O.M., Secretary of State for Jadia.
Sir Archibald Geikio, K.C.B., President of the Geological Society.
Prof. A. Crum Brown, Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Sir J. Wolfe Barry, K.C.B., Institution of Civil Engineers.
Sir Edward H. Seymour, Q.M., Admiral of the Pleasant.
M. Gaston Darboux, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of France.
The Lord Strathcons and Mount Royal, High Commissioner for Canada.
Sir George Darwin, K.C.B., University of Cambridge.
Dr. McAlister, Principal of the University of Glasgow.
Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Next came the chief mourners who were:
Dr. J. T. Bottomley, F.R.S.
Mr. G. King,
Mr. W. E. Crum,
Mr. Walter Watson,
Mr. James Thomson, Mr. W. Bottomley,
Sir Alex Brown,
Mr. Henry Holdsworth
together with four grand-nephows,
Mr. D. King and Mr. J. F., Mr. W., and Mr. G. Bottomley
After these followed a long procession composed of the following:
Representatives of the Academy of Sciences of Paris: in addition M. Lippman to Barbour, Perpetual Henri Beoguerol, who took part as a pallbearer.
On the part of the Royal Society, in addition to pall-bearers and other Fellows who also represented universities, there were present Mr. A. B. Kempe (treasurer), Professor Lurmor (secretary), Sir W. Grookes (vice president), Sir J. Stirling, Sir John Evans, Major Evans, Major son (assistant secretary), Mr. MacMahon, Mr. R. Harrison, H. F. Newall (president, Royal Astronomical Society), Sir W. H. White, Sir Alexander Kennedy, Professor H. Lamb, Professor J. Perry (president, Physical Society), Dr. J. A. Ewing, Professor S. P. Thompson (Phys. De Verein, Frankfurt); the following (Phys. ing representing the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome - Sir Norman Lockyer, Professor J. J. Thorason, Sir David Gill, and others; Professor H. B. Dixon (Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society).
The British Academy, Sir E. Maunde Tl Thompson.
The Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna was represented (foroiga member).
For the University of Cambridge there attended the Vice-Chancellor (the Master of Gonville and Caius), Mr. Rinity, Sir George S. II. Butcher, M.P., the Master of Trinity, Darwin (pall-bearer), Professor G. D. Liveing, Professor J. Thomson, Professor A. R. Forsyth, Professor Sir Clifford Allbutt, Sir Robert Ball (and in addition Mr. J. F. Rawlinson, M.P., and Mr. R. T. Wright).
Peterhouse, Lord Kelvin's college, was represented by the Master (pall-bearer), Sir J. Gorell Barnes, Sir R. Solomon, Mr. D. C. Richmond (Honorary Fellows), Rev. Professor Harnos, Sir J. Dewar, Colonel H. J. Edwards, Mr. Temperley, Rev. Dr. Walker, and Mr. Dickson (Fellows).
Of the University of Oxford there were present the Vice-Chancellor, Professor W. Osler, and Professor H. A. Miors.
The delegation from the University Court of Glasgow, attended by their Bedell with the mace (draped), were Dr. D. Macalister (Vice-Chancellor and Principal), Professors Jack, Stewart, John Smith, Bower, Ferguson, on Murdoch, Cameron, Gray, Bars, Gregory, G. Ramsay, and Mr. H. Gordon (Sir Henry Craik, member for the University, is at present in India).
The Lord Provost of Glasgow (Sir W. Bilsland) and Mr. M. Simons (president of the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts).
The Royal Society of Edinburgh was represented by Lord McLaren, the University of Edinburgh by Professors Crum Brown (pall-bearer) and Chiens.
The Lord Mayor of London,
The Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Senior Baillie down Moxtone, with Mr. J. Russoll, secretary.
The University of London was represented by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir W. Collins, M.P., Sir E. Eusk, Sir Arthur Rücker, and Sir Henry Roscoe.
he University of Edinburgh, Dr. G. C. Knott,
University College, London, by the President, Lord Reay, the Provost (Dr. Gregory Foster), the Dean of the Faculty of Science (Professor F. T. Trouton), and Professor J. A. Fleming.
The University of Manchester by Professor H. Lamb (Pro-Vice-Chancellor), Professor Boyd Dawkins, Professor Rutherford, and Professor Schuster.
The University of Sheffield by Mr. George Franklin, Pro-Chancellor, Sir Charles Eliot, and Professor W. M. Hicks.
The University of Birmingham by Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor Poynting.
The University of Leeds by Professor Smithells.
The University of Wales by Mr. Angus (Registrar) and Dr. Roberts.
The University of Aberdeen by Professor Sanford Terry.
The University of St. Andrews, Professor W. Peddie.
The Colonel Commanding (R. E. B. Crompton, C.B.) and other officers of the Guard of the Electrical Engineer Volunteers, of which Lord Kelvin was colonel-in-chief.
The King was represented by the Duke of Argyll; the Prince of Wales by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur Bigge; and the Duke of Connaught by Major L. Green Wilkinson.
The Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll) was present, attended by a lady and gentleman in waiting. Other seats in the stalls were occupied by the Russian and Italian Ambassadors; Mr. J. Ridgely Carter, representing the American Ambassador; Baron von Stumm, representing the German Ambassador; and Mr. Ijiuin, representing the Japanese Ambassador. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth, accompanied by his secretaries, attended to represent the Board of Admiralty. The Lord President of the Council was represented by Mr. Almerie FitzRoy
The members of scientific institutions and others present included Sir William Church (Royal College of Physicians), the Prince of Monaco's representative, the Right Hon. J. Parker Smith, Mr. R. Pr Wicksted (McGill University, Montreal), Admiral Sir John Dalrymple Hay, Professor Carey Foster, Eric Gerard (of Liege), Colonel Godwin-Austen, Dr. Bastian, Mr. T. H. Middleton (Board of Agriculture), Admiral Sir John Fisher, O.M., Lord Courtney of Penwith, Mr. H. Babington Smith (Post Office), Dr W. N. Shaw (Meteorological Office), Professor Fleming, Mr. W. Ellis, Professor W. E. Ayrton, Mr. Shelford Bidwell, Professor Henrici, Professor C. H. Lees, Professor Butler (St. Andrews), Sir Philip Watts on behalf of the Royal Corps (Corps of Naval Constructors), Captain Creak, R.N., Dr. H. T. Brown; for the Institution of Civil Engineers, Sir W. Matthews (president), Sir J. Wolfe Barry, Sir W. H. White, Sir A. B. W. Kennedy, Dr. G. F. Deacon, and Tudsberry; for the Institution of Naval Architects, Dr. F. Elgar for the Chemicon Society, Professor H. E. Armstrong, Sir W. Crookes, Dr. W. R. Hodgkinson, Professor Meldola, Dr. R. Messel, Sir A. Pedler, Professor J. M. Thomson, Professor W. A. Tilden, and Dr. T. E. Thorpe for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, scientists, Mr. T. Hurry Riches, Mr. E. B. Ellington, Mr. W. H. Maw, and Mr. T. Henry Davey; also Mr. W. H. Parshall, for the American Association of Electrical Engineers; Sir G. Taubman Goldie, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and Dr. J. Scott Em Keltie; Professor Cars Carslaw (University of Sydney); Dr. Emerson Reynolds (Royal Dublin Society); Mr. W. H. Power, Captain Tizard, R.N.; Mr. A. P. Trotter (Board of Trade), Sir Lawrence (Board of Education), A. A. Campbell Swinton, Mr. C. V. Boys, Professor Sidney Martin, Mr. C. E. Stromever, Professor Seeley; Dr. H. B. Woodward (Geological Survey), Sir H. Trueman Wood (Society of Arts), Dr. E. Hull; Professor W. R. Dunston (Imperial Institute); Mr. W. Duddell, Mr. G. F. C. Scarle, Dr. A. Muirhead, Mr. C. T. Hoye Protest, the Rev. R. Harley, Professor H. Church, Mr. C. E. Groves, General Festing, Mr. W. C. D. Whetham, Mr. Professor Henderson, Professor A. W. Scott (Lampeter College), Dr. Fergus (Glasgow Philosophical Society), N. E. Bailey (London Electrical Supply Company), Mr. G. W. O. Home and others (Institute of Brewing); also, for the Royal Astronomical Society, Mr. H. F. Newall, Professor H. H. Turner, Mr. E. B. Knobel, and Mr. T. Kelvin). Lewis; and Mr. George Green (private secretary to Lord Kelvin).
The Institution of Electrical Engineers, of which Lord Kelvin was president at the time of his death, was represented by a large deputation: Sir W. Preece, Mr. A. Spark Siemens, Sir II. Mance, Afr. R. K. Gmy, Sir J. Geve Hammond, Mr. Wks, Mr. F. Gill, Professor Kapp, Mr. R. W. M. Mordey, Mr. W. H. Patcholl; also Colonel Crompton (commanding the guard of Electrical Engineer Volunteers). The British Museum was represented by Sir Ray Lankester and others; the London Mathematical Society by Professor Love; the Royal Institution Society by the treasurer (Sir James Crichton Browne), the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester by the president, Professor H. B. Dixon; the Elektrotechnischer Verein of Berlin by Mr. A. Siemens; the Socista Italiana di Fision by Professor S. P. Thompson. The Lister Institute Institute, the Hakluyt Society, the Glasgow University Club, London, the Glasgow Students, the Liverpool Engineering Society, the British Aluminium, the Royal Meteorological Society, the Ju Institution of Engineers, the Central Technical College, the Royal Institute of Public Health, the Faraday Society, the British Westinghouse Company, the General Electric Company of Birmingham, and the Glasgow and Lanarkshiro Association were represented.
Among others who attended were Lady Rayleigh, the Bishop of Glasgow, Lord Kinnaird, Earl Cathcart, Lord de Morley, Sir L. Alma-Tadema, the Right Hon. Arnold Morley, Lord Cocil Manners, Sir M. Arthur (Scottish Unionist Association), Sir John Cockburn, Sir Charles V. Stanford (representing the Cambridge University Musical Society), the Vicar of Windsor, the Master of the Clothworkers' Company, Mr. Charles T. Bruce, Mr. Alfred Mond, Mr. R. Duncan, Mr. A. D. Stuart Parker and Miss Provand, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., Mr. Charles Iss Helen Stewart, Major H. H. H. Houldsworth (representing Sir William Houldsworth, absent from l-bealth), Mr. H. M. Fletcher, Mr. Bruce Joy, and Mr. C. G. Darwin; Mr. Albert Auns, on behalf of the National Talephone Company; Mr. Frank R. Durham, chairman, and several members of the council of the Junior Institution of Engineers; Mr. Thomas Glover, Mr. J. W. Helps, and Mr. S. Y. Shoubridgo, on behalf of the Institution of Gas the Linotype Company, Sir Joseph Lawrence, Sir H. Bemrose, Mr. A. H. Pollen, and Mr. W. H. Locke.
It was notable that, as soon as the procession had passed on of the nave, the darkness lifted, only to return when the coffin was borne back to the grave.
Those who followed in the procession took the places that had been reserved for them under the lantern, while the coffin was being laid on the with high catafalque, six tall to draped in purple, and set round tapers, which had been placed in front of the chancel. While the procession was passing down the nave to the choir, the opening sentences of the Burial Service were sung to Croft's music, and then followed Psalm xo., Lord thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another," to Purcell's setting. The Lesson (1 Cor. xv., 20) beginning, "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept," was read by the Dean, after which the choir sang Wesley's bountiful anthem, "He will swallow up death in vain, and the Lord God will wipe tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it." This ended the first part of the service, and the procession, having been re-formed, headed by the choir and clergy, the body was borne again from the lighted choir to the graveside in the dim corner of the shadowed nave, while from the organ swelled Beethoven's Funeral March. But, except for the mourners and pall-bearers, the congregation remained in their places. The Dean and Sub-Dean, at whose side stood the representatives of the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Connaught, took their places at the head of the grave, immediately under the Newton monument. The space on the north side was occupied by the choir, and on the other sides were grouped the clergy and the chief mourners. Then in the solemn stillness rose the voice of the Dean as he recited the familiar sentences of the Burial Service at the beginning. "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." The committal prayer followed, and the coffin, with three wreaths still resting upon it, was lowered into the grave. Of these wreaths, one was from Lady Kelvin, another was from the Royal Society, and the third, consisting of a handful of homely flowers, bore the inscription "From homes that he blessed. A. and E."
The coffin bore the following inscription: WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON KELVIN OF LARGS, P.C., O.M., G.C.V.O., F.R.S., P.R.S.E., LL.D., D.C.L., &c., Born 26 June, 1824. Died December 17, 1907.
After the committal, the silence was again broken by the voices of the choir singing Goss's setting of "I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors." This was the concluding After Service by the area of the Burial Sub-Dean; a fitting conclusion to a service dignified in its simplicity and sincerity, the familiar hymn, "O God, our help in ages past," was sung by the whole congregation. As the last echoes of the singing died away, the Dean pronounced the Benediction, and only one last rite remained to be rendered. As the procession of clergy and choir reformed and passed slowly up the nave and out at the western cloister door, the Dead March in Saul rose from the organ, filling with its mournful cadence every echoing corner of the great fabric. Not until the last chords died away did the movement of dispersal begin, and then the stream of mourners passed from their places in choir and nave to forse form an improvised procession past the grave, and the University of Manchester, by Professor H. Lamb, to pay the tribute of farewell to the mortal remains. of him, who is now numbered among the great departed.
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The Senate of the University of London have sent to Lady Kelvin through the Principal a message expressive of their admiration of Lord Kelvin's work and of sympathy with her in her bereavement.
A memorial service was held yesterday in St. Columba's Scottish Episcopal Church at Largs, where Lord Kelvin worshipped when in Ayrshire. The service began at noon simultaneously with the Abbay ceremonial. It was attended by the provost and members of the town council and other public representatives. Canon Low, the incumbent, conducted the service.
