The subject chosen had reference no doubt to the papers on the theory of heat which Mr. Thomson had already published. The thesis was presented to the Faculty on the day appointed, and approved, and Mr. Thomson having produced a certificate of his having taken the oaths to government, and promised to subscribe the formula of the Church of Scotland as required by law, on the first convenient opportunity, "the following oath was then administered to him, which he took and subscribed: Ego, Gulielmus Thomson, B.A., physicus professor in hac Academia designatus, promitto sancteque polliceor me in munere mihi demandato studiose fideliterque versaturum." Professor Thomson was then "solemnly admitted and received by all the Members present, and took his seat as a Member of Faculty."
No translation of this essay was ever published, but its substance was contained in various papers which appeared later. The following reference to it is made in an introduction attached to Article XI of his Mathematical and Physical Papers (vol. i, 1882).
"An application to Terrestrial Temperature, of the principle set forth in the first part of this paper relating to the age of thermal distributions, was made the subject of the author's Inaugural Dissertation on the occasion of his induction to the professorship of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, in October 1846, 'De Motu Caloris per Terræ Corpus'[11]: which, more fully developed afterwards, gave a very decisive limitation to the possible age of the earth as a habitation for living creatures; and proved the untenability of the enormous claims for TIME which, uncurbed by physical science, geologists and biologists had begun to make and to regard as unchallengeable. See 'Secular Cooling of the Earth, Geological Time,' and several other Articles below." Some statement of the argument for this limitation will be given later. [See Chap. [XIV.]]
Thomson thus entered at the age of twenty-five on what was to be his life work as a teacher, investigator, and inventor. For he continued in office fifty-three years, so that the united tenures of his predecessor and himself amounted to only four years less than a century! He took up his duties at the opening of the college session in November, and promptly called the attention of the Faculty to the deficiencies of the equipment of apparatus, which had been allowed to fall behind the times, and required to have added to it many new instruments. A committee was appointed to consider the question and report, and as a result of the representations of this committee a sum of £100 was placed at Professor Thomson's disposal to supply his most pressing needs. In the following years repeated applications for further grants were made and various sums were voted—not amounting to more than £500 or £600 in all—which were apparently regarded as (and no doubt were, considering the times and the funds at the disposal of the Faculty) a liberal provision for the teaching of physical science. A minute of the Faculty, of date Nov. 26, 1847, is interesting.
After "emphatically deprecating" all idea that such large annual expenditure for any one department was to be regularly contemplated, the committee refer in their report to the "inadequate condition of the department in question," and express their satisfaction "with the reasonable manner in which the Professor of Natural Philosophy has on all occasions readily modified his demands in accordance with the economical suggestions of the committee." They conclude by saying that they "view his ardour and anxiety in the prosecution of his profession with the greatest pleasure," and "heartily concur in those anticipations of his future celebrity which Monsr. Serville,[12] the French mathematician, has recently thought fit to publish to the scientific world."
Again, in April 1852, the Faculty agree to pay a sum of £137 6s. 1½d. as the price of purchases of philosophical apparatus already made, and approve of a suggestion of the committee that the expenditure on this behalf during the next year should not exceed £50, and "they desire that the purchases shall be made so far as is possible with the previously obtained concurrence of the committee." It is easy to imagine that the ardent young Professor of Natural Philosophy found the leisurely methods of his older colleagues much too slow, and in his enthusiasm anticipated consent to his demands by ordering his new instruments without waiting for committees and meetings and reports.
In an address at the opening of the Physical and Chemical Laboratories of the University College of North Wales, on February 2, 1885, Sir William Thomson (as he was then) referred to his early equipment and work as follows: "When I entered upon the professorship of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow, I found apparatus of a very old-fashioned kind. Much of it was more than a hundred years old, little of it less than fifty years old, and most of it was worm-eaten. Still, with such appliances, year after year, students of natural philosophy had been brought together and taught as well as possible. The principles of dynamics and electricity had been well illustrated and well taught, as well taught as lectures and so imperfect apparatus—but apparatus merely of the lecture-illustration kind—could teach. But there was absolutely no provision of any kind for experimental investigation, still less idea, even, for anything like students' practical work. Students' laboratories for physical science were not then thought of."[13]
It appears that the class of Natural Philosophy (there was then as a rule only one class in any subject, though supplementary work was done in various ways) met for systematic lectures at 9 a.m., which is the hour still adhered to, and for what was called "Experimental Physics" at 8 p.m.!
The University Calendar for 1863-4 states that "the Natural Philosophy Class meets two hours daily, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. The first hour is chiefly spent in statements of Principles, description of Results of Observation, and Experimental Illustrations. The second hour is devoted to Mathematical Demonstrations and Exercises, and Examinations on all parts of the Course.
"The Text Books to be used are: 'Elements of Dynamics' (first part now ready), Printed by George Richardson, University Printer. 'Elements of Natural Philosophy,' by Professors W. Thomson and P. G. Tait (Two Treatises to be published before November. Macmillan.[14])