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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.
Encourages GA to consider favorably the offer of Hugh Percy [Duke of Northumberland] of donating a telescope to Cambridge Observatory.
Details about proposals for magnetic expeditions, as they are to be presented to British government [see GA's 1838-11-12]. Also included is a copy of the resolutions passed at a B.A.A.S. meeting on 25 Aug. 1828.
Asks JH to compile list of questions to be sent to 'commercial bodies' regarding prospective changes in standards of weights and measures. To be presented at June 1838 meeting of Commission of Standards [see JH's 1838-5-24].
Announces 7 July meeting of Standard Commission at R.A.S. apartments.
About JH's visit to Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Gauss's well-devised magnetic measuring instruments.
A notice of meeting of the Standards Commission.
The Standards Commission will need to meet soon; JH is asked to indicate most convenient, and most inconvenient, days. [See GA's 1838-6-9].
Trying to organize a meeting time for the Standards Commission that will suit everybody; GA wants to make very few changes in the standard relationships [see JH's 1838-11-18].
A notice of meeting of the Standards Commission.
A note along with letters from R. A. Cauchoix, the telescope maker, and [J. C. Spencer,] Lord Althorp, about the B.A.A.S.; JH is trying to clean up observation reports before leaving for the Cape.
About the question of an astronomer for a vacant position at Kew Observatory.
Further about the telescope to be donated by Hugh Percy [see JH's 1833-8-15], along with a promise that JH will write to R. A. Cauchoix about the telescope.
No one on committee has taken sufficient initiative to obtain funding for magnetic instruments. Hopes S. H. Christie and JH will act in this regard. Discusses doubts about South Polar magnetic expedition.
Encloses graph of C. F. Gauss's magnetic observations.
Giving observations on stars. Discussion of clock rates and sky sweeps.
Informing JH that he and GA have just been appointed to a committee to consider the extension of the Astronomical Society's catalogue. Observations on this catalogue.
Wants JH's views on a 20-foot reflector. Inviting him to Cambridge. With this letter he encloses Volume 2 of the Cambridge Observatory's Observations and Lectures in Optics.
Sends volume of observations. Remarks on A. J. Fresnel's experiments. Lists errors in JH's treatise on light. Requests information on circular double refraction.
Encloses paper 'Figure of the Earth.' Wants information on rays in quartz. Has tried A. J. Fresnel's experiments.
Opinion on M. C. T. Damoiseau's theory and tables; worth a medal.