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.
JH must come to London to supervise distribution [of JH's Cape Results] to foreign sovereigns. Received more replies from ambassadors.
Invites GB to accept copy of JH's Cape Results.
Sends form letter to accompany AP's presentation of copies of JH's Cape Results to six foreign sovereigns, with six individualized paragraphs to be inserted as appropriate for each sovereign.
Invites JH to join royal commission to investigate May [1847] collapse of railway bridge over Dee River by designing experiments to test engineering limits of cast iron. Names other members. All expenses will be paid.
JH is apologizing for harsh words he inadvertently used, whereby he hurt MH.
Sending a volume of poetry by D. P. Starkey and would like JH's views on its merits. Is recovering slowly from an illness.
Met U. J. J. Leverrier, F. G. W. Struve, and George Peacock at the gate of Trinity College; has arranged for Leverrier and Struve to visit Collingwood.
JH has organized something [?] special, and he believes it will come off.
Mostly about the health of Elizabeth Baily; JH ends his letter with a silly riddle.