Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait - School of Mathematics ...

PROJECTED "KNOCKLAYD" EXPERIMENT 15
distinguished students at Queen's College. He entered the Indian Civil
Service in 1861 and retired in 1889.
There is a good story told of how Tait saved valuable personal property
of his colleague Wyville Thomson from the process of arrestment executed
upon the landlord's house and goods. When the bailiffs took possession
Tait came on the scene and after some conversation got permission for Wyville
Thomson and his wife, who were simply lodgers, to fill two boxes with their
purely personal goods. The men of law retired to the kitchen to be refreshed
for their labours. They looked out occasionally and always saw the two boxes
in the hall filled. being But they did not realise that as soon as one box
was filled another took its place, a process of substitution which continued
for some little time. Meanwhile the landlord's family thought they might
be doing similar deeds of saving, and began to pitch things out of the
window. A feather bed happened to fall on an onlooker. The consequent
excitement roused the bailiffs from their ease, but not until all the valuables
of the Thomsons had been removed.
Although Tait was professor of pure mathematics in Queen's College,
his real interest lay towards the physical side. Writing to his uncle, John
Ronaldson, in 1858 he says:
" I have got the contoured map of Knocklayd
from the Ordnance Office and
have done a rough calculation which shows io""28 as the effect on the plumb line,
a very hopeful indication. If Thomson reports as well of the geology we shall
commence in earnest next summer."
Knocklayd is a conspicuous hill of conical form in County Antrim, and
evidently Tait contemplated using
it after the manner of the Schiehallion
Experiment to measure the mass of the earth. In one of his quarto note
books there are tabulations of stars convenient for zenith observations which
he purposed making with suitable instruments both at Belfast and at Knocklayd.
Beyond these preparations, nothing more definite seems to have been done.
Other problems had to be dealt with and the proposed book on Quaternions
pushed on ; and before two more summers had passed Tait had bidden
farewell to Ireland and had begi.m his great career in Edinburgh.