While we think of Maxwell as a mathematical physicist, it must not be forgotten that he was also one of the leading experimental scientists of that great epoch, the nineteenth century. Only a man who was himself a great experimenter could have properly appreciated and developed, from the mathematical standpoint, the works of such men as Cavendish and Faraday. From his early years, Maxwell displayed a distinct fondness for experimentation, and this even extended to experiments upon himself. In many ways this trait of his would remind us of Johann Müller, the great father of modern German medicine.[34] Like Müller, there was danger also of Maxwell's experiments on himself getting him into trouble. For instance, at one time his love of experiment led him to try sleeping in the evening and getting up to work at midnight, so as to have the long, silent hours of the night to himself. In the sketch of his life by Dr. Garnett,[32] a letter from one of his friends is quoted with regard to this nocturnal habit, which is amusing as well as interesting. The friend wrote: "From 2 to 2:30 a. m. he took exercise by running along the upper corridor, down the stairs, along the lower corridor, then up the stairs, and so on until the inhabitants of the rooms along his track got up and laid _perdus_ behind their sporting doors, to have shots at him with boots, hair-brushes, etc., as he passed." His love of fun, his sharp wit, his extensive knowledge, and, above all, his complete unselfishness, rendered him a universal favorite, in spite of the temporary inconveniences which his experiments may have occasionally caused to his fellow-students. In 1857, Clerk Maxwell received the Adams Prize for his essay on "The Stability of the Motion of Saturn's Rings." He shows very clearly that these annular appendages consist of a large number of small masses. This work would seem to be very distant from anything that Maxwell had attempted before, and would indeed seem to the superficial observer, at least, to be quite out of his sphere. It was the mathematics of it that attracted him, and the fact that the problem was difficult, indeed, one of the most difficult at that time before astronomers, only added zest to his resolve to fathom it. All his life, mathematics continued to be his favorite form of work, and his power to express the most complex physical phenomena in mathematical formulæ gave him a reputation throughout Europe unsurpassed by anyone of his generation. The more a problem seemed incapable of direct statement in mathematical terms, provided it represented a great occurrence in nature, the more Maxwell was attracted to it; and the training of these early years in thus setting mathematics to the solution of physical relations, was to serve him in good stead when he came to try his hand at demonstrating the meaning of electricity in mathematical terms.