FAMOUS SCIENTIST DEAD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 19 December 1907, Page 3

FAMOUS SCIENTIST DEAD.

LORD KELVIN. Received ISth. ] 1.40 p.m. London, December 18. Lord Kelvin is dead.

Lord Kelvin was N.'l years of an-e. He holds more -rientifii- 'honors ilian' anv living man, and could win no more for he has won iheni a;i. (Jerinanv. Fraii'-e IMgiun,. and Japan have ali honored hint; the distinction conferred bv the last country being "membership of the Order of the First of the Sacred Treasure of -lapan." His work may be divided into two classes—the profoundly abstract—only to be appreciated by men high in his own tailing—and the eminently practical inventions of the greatest benefit to man. It was one of this latter class that made submarine telegraphy quite practicable, indeed, Lord Kelvin is largely responsible for the first laying of many of our great ocean cables. He was electrical engineer for the Atlantic and West Indian cables and for the French Atlantic cable. An anecdote of Lord Kelvin shows hiin quite in the light of a Sherlock Holmes. Lecturing to a class of students at Glasgow University, a silence fell whilst professor and class (some*of it) intently watched the working of an experiment. The stillness was broken by a student rolling a marble down the tires of the theatre from the top, where he sat, to the bottom. Lord Kelvin's back was turned, let, immediately the marble had reached the floor, he turned round, pointed to a student sitting above near the top, and requested to see him after the lecture for disturbing the class. How did he know the culprit? Very simple: Lord J Kelvin had counted the number of times he bad heard the marble drop, counted 1 back up the steps of the theatre—and there, naturally, sat the culprit. <