A NOBLE SCIENTIST: LORD RAYLEIGH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11854, 4 January 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

A NOBLE SCIENTIST: LORD RAYLEIGH.

' , .. <»■;'... . ~.-■'■„,:, t: ■ There can surely be found no better example of the pursuit of knowledge for love of it than that afforded by the life-labours of Lord Rayleigh, who has just passed the 59th milestone on his mortal ; road. Senior wrangler "'in ;.. 1865, Smith's prizeman and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the succeeding year, he has been a peer of the realm for close on thirty years, but those years have been marked by an industry as constant and untiring as would awaken admiration 'even in the case of one who depended upon his exertions for his bread and butter. Becoming in 1879 Professor of Experimental Physics at his university he succeeded Tyndall as Professor, of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution in 1888, and his researches have proved of the utmost scientific moment. In 1894 he gained immortality as a chemist by his separation of new gas, which he christened argon, from; atmospheric nitrogen, thus isolating a constituent of the air which had previously been undetected. But his scientific accomplishments are not such as make for renown with the man in the street. Perhaps he is best known as one of the most successful " noble tradesmen" in the kingdom. Lord Rayleigh is a milkman.; Every, morning : special. trams loaded with drums of milk from his herds at leafy/ Terling," the beautiful Essex home of the Strutts, steam away from the quaint rustic station of Hatfield Peverelto take the milk to his London shops. From a moderate local ' trade the Rayleigh dairy has become one of the finest businesses of the sort m the home counties, and one of • the Strutts told me (says an Essex correspondent) that the pastures around Terling House are grazed by a herd of more than a thousand cows. The estate lies in the midst of what is justly called " the garden of Essex," within a few miles sof the picturesque Anglo-Saxon .town of Witham, with its ■ memories of Saxon Harold. ~ J ... Lord Rayleigh, who is married to a sister of Mr. Arthur Balfour,/ is :a: tall, somewhat : gaunt man-whose colourless face, and sandy hair are of/the ; type which: would make it difficult for the casual acquaintance.to guess his age. nHe has the look of the scholar, of ! the man who " scorns delights and lives laborious days,'; and there is .little about him to suggest the country gentleman. :: Notwith- ' standing this he is universally popular around 1 Terling, and the name "Strutt" has ever been 1 one to conjure with in Mid-Essex.

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