Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/59

 the University, found a very genial and buoyant gentleman, very different from any idea imagined from reading his controversial letters. As regards those who attended his lectures, he commanded their respect and admiration, while the attitude of his research students can be expressed only by veneration and love.

In 1897 his health began to break down before the end of the arduous winter session; but it was recuperated by a vacation on the links at St. Andrews. He had a splendid physique; but it had long been his custom to remain in his library to very late hours, reading, or writing at a plain wooden desk (which he did standing); these long hours of study and mental work eventually told upon his health.

Lieutenant Tait, the champion golfer, was ordered with his regiment to the field of action in South Africa. His regiment (the Black Watch) suffered heavily in the engagements at the Modder River, directed by the unfortunate Lord Methuen. It was reported that Lieutenant Tait had been killed, but his fate remained uncertain for six weeks. He was killed at Koodoosberg, where a white cross now marks his grave. The story of his life has appeared in a book F. G. Tait: a record. The loss was a serious blow to Prof. Tait, already in failing health. Early last year he was unable to attend to any of the duties of his chair, and he sent in his resignation. It was hoped that, freed from teaching duties, his health might recover. At the beginning of July, 1901, he went to the seashore near Edinburgh to spend some days at the house of his friend Sir John Murray, editor of the "Challenger" reports. On July 4, he spent the afternoon in the garden and filled a sheet of foolscap with a quaternion investigation; in the evening he suddenly became ill and died in the course of a few hours, aged 70 years and one month.

Before his death two volumes of his Collected Works had been published and a third will follow. At the time of his retirement those who had been trained by him in research took steps to prepare an illuminated address, but as they were scattered over all the world this was not fully finished at the time of his death, and it was presented to his widow. The address