Pendulum experiments to be conducted at stations of Great Indian Trigonometrical Survey.
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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.
Pendulum experiments to be conducted at stations of Great Indian Trigonometrical Survey.
Asks help of R.S.L. in reducing all observations to 1870 in JH's catalog of nebulae. Estimates cost at £10.
Needs to know soon if R.S.L. will approve grant to expand JH's catalog of nebulae. Otherwise G. B. Airy will dismiss man employed to do those computations. [JH annotation: Sent similar letter to G. G. Stokes on same date.]
[Rough draft (1p) crossed out, followed by:] Confidential propostion that G. B. Airy submitted to Board of Visitors is inappropriate. Queen's warrant does not empower Board to consider such matters.
Objects to Board of Visitors acting as 'self-constituted Court-Martial' to examine personal conduct of Board's chairman [James South], whom G. B. Airy no longer recognizes as competent. [JH notes that he did not send this letter, but kept it because it gave the reasons behind the shorter form [TxU:H/L-0374], which he preferred.]
Plans to confer with [J. T.] Walker and F. A. T. Winnecke from Pulkovo to learn of Russian pendulum experiments before reporting to R.S.L. council. J. H. Pratt's measurement of polar axis and theory about earth's center of gravity.
Objects to plan to move Royal Observatory to site other than Greenwich, but will defer to G. B. Airy's opinion. JH's deteriorating health.
Sent proof for vol. 2 of St. Helena observations to JH. JH's promised article in Edinburgh Review on progress in science of terrestrial magnetism. Embarrassing delay by government in responding to Prince Albert's request for five-year magnetic survey is resulting in loss of interest among prospective directors. Proposal by Americans to assume leadership of survey in North America. Dutch observatory in Java and Jesuit observatory in Cuba.
A. D. Bache reports that U.S. will establish magnetic observatory in Washington Territory. ES is preparing instructions for North American survey. Suggests change to JH's proposed article on terrestrial magnetism in Edinburgh Review.
[Government refusal to support five-year magnetic survey] has eliminated services of T. W. Blakiston and Thomas Hull as directors of two magnetic observatories. Instruments for Montreal observatory. Recent magnetic changes in North America. Success of elder B. C. Brodie's eye operation.
Bibliography of works on terrestrial magnetism published in past four years.
Sent packet to JH last week containing publications listed in ES's bibliography of recent magnetic surveys.
Summary of research on terrestrial magnetism in other countries. Will send paper on magnetic storms to JH.
Sends sample sheets of magnetic reductions from continual observations photographed at Kew. Explains reduction formulas. Will send to JH new paper by ES on lunar diurnal variation. Carlo Matteucci reports interest by new government in Naples in reviving meteorological observatory there.
Asks JH to comment on ES's paper, which will be read to R.S.L. on 10 Jan. Corrects errors in two earlier letters to JH. Will adopt 'Photograms' instead of 'Photographs.'
Encloses description of Col. [J. T.?] Walker's experiments. Asks for JH's opinion of these.
Extensive comments on the type and construction of telescope to be supplied to Melbourne University.
Supports G. P. Bond of Harvard College for foreign membership of R.S.L.; proposes H. E. Sainte-Claire Deville for the Rumford Medal, for his development of a high temperature laboratory furnace applied to metallurgy and the 'disseverance' of the hydrogen and oxygen of water.
Opposes sending expensive scientific equipment for J. B. N. Hennessey to use in India; suggests instead a variety of useful observations needing to be made, using inexpensive equipment. Discusses son's [Alexander] spectroscope observations of meteors.
Further recommendations regarding useful equipment and observations to be made in India [see JH's 1866-8-11]. Agrees that meteorological experiments there are desirable. Offers JH's son John's experience of India to ES.