About the school progress of sons John and Alexander; JH is in a very depressed state, looks at his current life [at the Mint?] with 'loathing,' and cannot imagine surviving it for more than a few months.
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.
About the school progress of sons John and Alexander; JH is in a very depressed state, looks at his current life [at the Mint?] with 'loathing,' and cannot imagine surviving it for more than a few months.
About the health of JH's servant [?], Knowles.
Talks about crystal rocks in JH's collection, which may be used, with great care.
Tells CH about a Crimean War medal being ordered, the Mint not being allowed to design it, but is expected to produce it. JH feels placed in a very difficult position.
Family news and comments.
Would he look at the accompanying work by O. P. A. P. Dufrénoy. Feels that Dufrénoy would advocate only that which was right.
Comments on circulation of new coinage, and on another integral of Henry Warburton's.
Directions for sending mail to son Willy [in India?]; about daughter Margaret Louisa's health, the family bills, some stories about people JH met at a dinner, and finally, JH's despair about his work.
Requests donation of copy of JH's Cape Results to library of Mechanics Institution.
Asks JH's opinion of an anonymous book [WW's Of the Plurality of Worlds: An Essay]. Describes it written 'very fairly' but as presenting views very different from JH's.