Letter from W D [William Davidson] Niven, Royal Naval College, Greenwich, to [Joseph] Larmor He did not say anything about Larmor's attempt to solve the functional equation. All solutions of that sort introduce electrified points in the region where the original point is situated. He thinks it works in one case only and he means to look at this closely. His spelling capacity was gone yesterday, hence 'evervescent'. What he meant was that [Hector] Macdonald 'was gassing about'. 11 December 1896