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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.
Discusses JH's spectrometer and possibility of using surplus from R.S.L. Donation Fund for its construction and enquiry with it into nature of light and heat.
Offers to meet FB at Manchester B.A.A.S. meeting and to bring FB to Collingwood for a quiet visit.
Has stayed in Manchester an extra day, and has managed to avoid becoming involved in the organization of next year's B.A.A.S. meeting at Cork; talks about plans for F. W. Bessel to visit Collingwood, and about JH's plans to return home.
Alerts WW that F. W. Bessel, in very poor health, will attend the Manchester B.A.A.S. meeting. JH plans to bring Bessel to Collingwood after the meeting.
Compares actinometric measurements of radiation. Explains interest in total eclipse relative to actinometry. Discusses the possibility of making actinometric measurements by photographic means.
Sorry to hear RH has been ill; JH sends some photographic examples.
Enjoyed CH's last letter.
Welcomes ER back to England. Met ER's host, Charles Babbage, at Greenwich yesterday. Wants to visit before ER departs for Geneva, but JH's wife is ill. Based on accounts of Geneva by ER's wife, JH sent three oldest daughters and their governess to spend summer there.
Received WB's atmospheric curves yesterday, but too late to report them [at 1842 B.A.A.S. meeting]. Final report will be presented at next [1843] meeting.
Reviews WB's assistance in JH's meteorological investigations as testimonial on behalf of WB's application for position of curator at Kew Observatory.
On the basis of some compounds referred to by AS [see 1842-5-10], JH has now developed a new form of photography using gold as a stimulant; JH calls it the 'Argyrotype'.
Thanks for suggestion of gold plating the telescope mirrors. Mentions idea of mounting a reflector horizontally but finds its execution 'insufferable'. Thanks for work on photometric measurement of light of stars. Disagrees on some results. Encloses new photographic specimens.
Received prospectus of Kew observatory. Its objectives seem incompatible. It appears better suited as experimental institution. Refer Francis Beaufort to JH's 11 Oct. 1835 letter to Beaufort defining physical observatories.