mathematicians. It is far too abstruse for description here.

Sir George Gabriel Stokes (born in Sligo 1819, d. 1903) was, if not
the greatest mathematician, at least among the greatest, of the last
hundred years. He was educated in Cambridge, where he spent the rest
of his life, being appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in
1849, and celebrating the jubilee of that appointment in 1899. He was
member of parliament for his University, and for a time occupied the
presidential chair of the Royal Society. He devoted himself, _inter
alia_, to optical work, and is perhaps best known by those researches
which deal with the undulatory theory of light. It was on this
subject that he delivered the Burnett lectures in Aberdeen
(1883-1885).

James McCullagh, the son of a poor farmer, was born in Tyrone in
1809, d. 1847. His early death, due to his own hand in a fit of
insanity, cut short his work, but enough remains to permit him to
rank amongst the great mathematicians of all time, his most important
work being his memoir on surfaces of the second order.

Humphrey Lloyd (b. in Dublin 1800, d. 1881), F.R.S. His father was
Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, a position subsequently occupied
also by the son. Lloyd's work was chiefly concerned with optics and
magnetism, and it was in connection with the former that he carried
out what was probably the most important single piece of work of his
life, namely, the experimental proof of the phenomenon of conical
refraction which had been predicted by Sir William Hamilton. He was
responsible for the erection of the Magnetic Observatory in Dublin,
and the instruments used in it were constructed under his observation
and sometimes from his designs or modifications. He was also a