In the Regalia Room of Edinburgh Castle, on my way to Glasgow in 1896, I had the pleasure of meeting, for the first time, one of the most intellectual young men that the South has produced since the war, Professor Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, a former fellow student at Davidson College of one of my fellow-travellers at that time. He told us he was on his way to Glasgow, too, for the purpose of representing Princeton in the celebration of Lord Kelvin's jubilee. This veteran professor, who thus completed fifty years of service as a teacher in the University of Glasgow, and who, by the way, like so many other epoch-makers, is a Scotch-Irishman, has long been recognized as one of the most eminent scientists of modern times, and the greatest of all electricians. As Professor William Thomson, he first won renown by the wonder which he wrought in annihilating space by enabling us to telegraph across the Atlantic ocean, for it was he who solved the difficulty which, in 1856, threatened to defeat all the plans of the late Cyrus W. Field just as he seemed about to realize his gigantic dream of uniting two continents. The signals passing through a long submarine cable were found to "drag" so much as to make it practically useless. Thomson discovered the law governing the retardation, and invented the "mirror instrument," by which all the delicate fluctuations of the varying current could be interpreted. "So sensitive is the arrangement that on one occasion a signal was sent to America and back through two Atlantic cables with the current from a toy battery, made in a silver thimble with a drop of acidulated water and a grain of zinc." By means of Thomson's magical apparatus, on August 17, 1858, this message was flashed from shore to shore, "Europe and America are united by telegraph: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." For this success he was knighted. In 1892, after many other successes, he was raised to the peerage. The submarine telegraph is not the only invention which connects his name with the sea. By substituting piano-forte wire for the old-fashioned rope, he made it possible to measure quickly and accurately the depth of water at any spot under a moving ship. When Dr. Toule was visiting Prof. Thomson, he noticed a bundle of this piano-forte wire, and, inquiring what it was for, was informed by Thomson that he intended using it for "sounding purposes." "What note?" innocently inquired Toule, to which Thomson promptly replied, "The deep C." But Lord Kelvin's most valuable aid to navigation is the adjustable compass, which bears his name, and which is now used on every first-class ship in the world.
So numerous and useful are his inventions that there is an establishment at Glasgow devoted solely to the manufacture of his patents, and employing nearly two hundred highly skilled workmen, and a staff of electricians. His home, in the precincts of Glasgow University, was the first house in the world to be lighted with electricity. It is not strange, then, that we found the whole city doing him honor on our arrival in 1896, and scores of scholars convened to offer the congratulations of other institutions in every part of the world.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of hearing a very thoughtful and striking sermon from the Rev. P. Carnegie Simpson, author of The Fact of Christ, a book which in a very short time has gained a deservedly wide circulation. I am constrained to believe that, generally speaking, Scottish ministers have more intellectual ability and better theological furnishing than those in America.
CHAPTER XV.
Oban, Iona, and Staffa.
"For Oban is a dainty place;
In distant lands or nigh lands,
No town delights the tourist race