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.
Comments extensively on paper on limit of vaporization and its significance in helping to settle ideas on constitution of the atmosphere.
[More detailed version of JH's 1826-5-26]. Has mentioned it to Humphry Davy.
Discusses casting and construction of telescope speculae.
Will send JH some barometric observations; describes the barometers with which the observations were made.
Was grateful for JH's letter and detailed notes. Hopes he will attach a copy to the paper when he communicates it to the R.S.L.
Wrote letter to clarify ideas, without intentions of publication. Discusses light and spectrum of Thomas Drummond's lamp.
J. J. Littrow's paper in F. X. von Zach's April [Correspondence astronomique, géologique, hydrographique et statistique] is only 'a new hash' of [F. W.] Bessel and no improvement.
Send plan of furnace to TY or Michael Faraday before tomorrow's committee meeting.
Comments on the intent of remarks appended to a paper of MF's.
Describes the pendulum experiments he and G. B. Airy are carrying out in Dolcoath Mine.
Kept busy by writing. Works with Teodoro Monticelli. Expects Captain [Richard] Copeland to visit.
Thanks JH for material from AS of London. Mentions 'new comet.' Informs JH of being nominated to the list of foreign members in the American Philosophical Society.
Asks for information, on behalf of JG's father, about a Cambridge man.
Talks about Josef Fraunhofer's failing health and his making of flint glass.
Reports that an accident destroyed one of the pendulums used by G. B. Airy and WW in their Dolcoath experiments. Obtained some results and believes in the general soundness of the method employed.
Instructions regarding the printing of his paper the 'Figure of the Earth' in the transactions. Details of the disappointing expedition to Falmouth.
Chemical constitution of meteorites. JH suspects lead-iron alloy. Believes this has not been proposed before. Send specimen for JH's analysis.
Comments on GA's observing in Cornwall, and on the geodetic calculations made by GA in a paper read by JH.
A note to accompany one of CH's writings, together with some comments on comet sightings.
Thanking him for his letters of introduction to Paris. Remarks on one of GA's papers; one of his calculations incorrect.