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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.
Sends copies of three letters by G. B. Airy on proposed railway through Greenwich Park. Asks JH's opinion on possible effects on observatory.
Wants WH's quaternion mathematics to be challenged; also worries that quaternions will become merely 'a private and personal skill' instead of a method that can be taught.
Describes the funeral of James MacCullagh; mystified why he committed suicide.
Considering motion as a 'successive excitement of powers.'
Confides that the past year has been 'a sombre one ... but not unhappy.'
Thanks JH for JH's translation of Friederich Schiller's poem 'The Walk.'
Jokes about WH's recent 'astronomical insignificance.'
Elated that WH's account of the generation of an ellipsoid is an original result.
Sends some new theorems concerning undisturbed parabolic motion; believes that much remains to be discovered in this field.
Sends some results concerning undisturbed parabolic motion. Laments the Irish famine.
The equatorial on the Dublin Observatory dome needs improvement. In the last fifty-two months, WH has seen three new planets: Neptune, Iris, and Flora.
WH notes that quaternions derive some interesting results in problems with three moving bodies.
Wonderingly admires WH's quaternions. Lady Herschel has not yet thanked Eliza Hamilton (WH's sister) for the poetry because of serious illness. Except for influenza, would wish WH's son to visit for Easter. Mentions 'political extravaganzas.'
WH's theorems on ellipsoids are new to JH, but JH is unfamiliar with the field, so they may not actually be new. Wishes to master mathematics. Still working on Cape observations. Believes Neptune was almost an English discovery, and would have been well-named Minerva.
Thanks WH for 'plan' of [asteroid] Iris. Family is happy to have WH's son (JH's son William's friend) with them for holidays. Recounts their playful and adventurous activities.
On WH's 'Hodograph' and theorems of parabolic motion and the relation between velocities, initial velocities, and time. Praises WH's son. Cape Results nearly finished. Revising book on astronomy. Plans to 'attack' quaternions. Mentions parabolic functions and Benjamin Peirce's claim that the discovery of Neptune was accidental.
Returns two papers, which had been missent, thus preventing JH from communicating them at a meeting.
Seeks London bookselling agent through whom to direct copies of JH's Cape Results for Dublin scientific groups. Discusses pretty names for new planets. Thanks for WH's memoir on quaternions.
Asks WH to forward Dr. [Mortimer] O'Sullivan thanks for two sermons on preparation of the world for the reception of Christianity.
Highly recommends a [William H.] Harvey (formerly Government Treasurer at the Cape) for the professorship of botany at Dublin.