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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.
Thanks for his letter regarding his own new object glass. As he has shown interest he sends further details of his latest modifications.
Note accompanying a sketch of an earlier time in the lives of JG and JH (sketch by Jane Grahame).
Actinometers for [Louis] Agassiz and John Caldecott are ready. Asks if JH wants to compare them to his standard instrument. Excessive magnetic disturbances in May were found simultaneously in Göttingen and Toronto, but the curves do not correspond.
Has requested John Caldecott to do what is needful to his own and [Louis] Agassiz's actinometers. Mentions great magnetic disturbances in June are not correlated in Toronto, Greenwich, and other observatories. Mentions proposal for correlation of observations between U.S. and Britain. ES leaves soon for Guernsey.
Asks JH for comments on GA's proposals for the Standards Commission [see JH's 1840-7-29]; GA comments on some time spent recently in Glasgow and surrounding regions.
New magnetic observatory to be established in India. Instrument, made by [T. R.] Robinson and Mr. Newman, will be sent to R.S.L. for examination and testing before shipment. Questions best times for daily barometer observations.
Informs JH that the B.A.A.S. has placed him on a committee to provide two actinometers for observing high in the Alps.
Informs JH that the B.A.A.S. has placed him on a committee to study the possibility of using balloon ascents to study the upper atmosphere.
Informs JH that the B.A.A.S. has again placed him on the committee to supervise the translation and publication of foreign scientific memoirs.
JH, G. B. Airy, and Thomas Henderson are appointed to oversee the publication of the reductions of the calculations of N. L. Lacaille's stars. They will have £184 at their disposal.
JH, William Whewell, George Peacock, Humphrey Lloyd, and Edward Sabine are appointed by the B.A.A.S. to study systems of simultaneous magnetical and meteorological observations. They will be granted £50.
Notes loss of many old friends. Three years seclusion with bad health produced WW's treatise on conic sections, translated to Russian. Sends book on geometrical theorems and two memoirs. Discovered JH stated in 1813 what WW thought was recent discovery about catenary.
Elected today as Chancellor of Cambridge University. Thanks for JH's support.
Has just received JH's letter of August as he has been traveling on the continent. Will see G. B. Airy tomorrow. Comments on Johann von Lamont's observatory at Munich. Discussed the Report of the Magnetic arrangements with Edward Sabine. Encloses letters. L. A. J. Quetelet would like support from the R.S.L. for additional observers in his observatory.
Disappointed with format of Nautical Almanac. Arguments over this have caused many hard feeling among R.S.L. members. Details the controversy.
Regarding the publication of the magnetical and meteorological observations. Wonders if a letter from JH to the appropriate bodies would prove useful. Will give early consideration to the plan.
About the calculations of JE, and others, on the motion of the solar system.
Questioned porter concerning meteorolite, but received no additional information concerning its whereabouts. Hopes JH recovers it soon.