The Sir John Herschel Collection
The preparation of the print Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Michael J. Crowe ed., David R. Dyck and James J. Kevin assoc. eds, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, viii + 828 pp) which was funded by the National Science Foundation, took ten years. It was accomplished by a team of seventeen professors, visiting scholars, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and staff working at the University of Notre Dame.
The first online version of Calendar was created in 2009 by Dr Marvin Bolt and Steven Lucy, working at the Webster Institute of the Adler Planetarium, and it is that data that has now been reformatted for incorporation into Ɛpsilon.
Further information about Herschel, his correspondence, and the editorial method is available online here: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/herschel/?p=intro
No texts of Herschel’s letters are currently available through Ɛpsilon.
Thanks for lectures on heat motion theory and radiation through earth's atmosphere, and for brochure on 'conformation' of the Alps. Asks about upcoming lecture of JH's son [Alexander].
Thanks for and comments on papers on scientific history and molecular physics, particularly on a magnetic experiment and on dynamical efficiency of coal relative to motion theory of light and heat. Comments on nature of heat, 'vis viva.' Deplores laxity with which physicists use and confuse terms 'force,' 'motion,' and 'energy.'
Thanks for lecture on glacier cleavage. Wonders how 'regelation' occurs when two masses of ice at 32° are placed in contact.
Does not believe surface of moon can radiate cold; perhaps new moon can. Explains this geometrically.
JT's paper on polarization of sky light suggests that neutral points are functions of cloud density. This verifies JH's earlier explanation of blue sky color. Incomplete polarization. Cause of blue color in water. Corrects note on W. A. Miller's observations of rainbows.