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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.
Received Indian survey chart. JH's son John wrote of higher-order ellipsoidal triangles with sides based on geodesical triangles. JH objects that these violate principle of diagonal bracing. Proposes different triangles and names sites in India as apexes. Received G. B. Airy's paper on reduction.
Sent JH 'Index Chart' of Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. Compares five triangulation methods: longitudinal series, George Everest's, G. B. Airy's, that of JH's son John, and minimum squares. JH's son and bride avoided cyclone that destroyed Calcutta Observatory.
Indian Triangulation chart showed progress to May 1862. Explains why arcs of meridians and parallels were chosen over diagonal braces. G. B. Airy's method of determining errors helped. Will take note and package from Maria [Herschel] to JH's son John.