NETHERHALL.
LARGS.
AYRSHIRE.

October 14, 1902.

Dear Willard Gibbs,

Many thanks for your interesting letter of September 25.

A thorough mathematical treatment of the caged-atom is no doubt possible, but certainly very difficult considering the many pitfalls all round it which are not easily avoided. I think you would find it interesting to actually go through lottery trials such as those I made, with modifications which would naturally occur to anyone retrying the subject. If you put it into the hands of some of your young students I think it may be incidentally beneficial to them; especially to any who may be likely to become millionaires, and may not carry away enough from Yale, if that be possible, to preserve them throughout life from the want of occupation of time and thought which leads to the incredible choice of the gaming tables of Monte Carlo or Aix-les-bains. My Secretary, Mr. Anderson, and I certainly got a surfeit of gambling here two years ago, which would have effectually saved us from disaster of that kind if we had had any inclination towards it. Since that time Lady Kelvin and I have had two seasons at Aix-les-bains, and never for once experienced for an instant the suffocating atmosphere of the baccarat rooms in the "cercle."