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.
JH's 25 Apr. 1871 reply encouraged JB to oppose introduction of French metric system. [Thomas] Brassey and Mr. Shuttleworth will vote against it [in House of Commons].
Philip Harwood, editor of Saturday Review, wants to use JH's letter as part of article on metric system on 13 May [1871] in anticipation of 16 May debate in House [of Commons]. Second reading of bill was postponed until 6 June.
Second reading of metric bill in Parliament was postponed to 8 June. PH will delay publication of JH's article in Saturday Review to coincide with public interest in bill.
Provides details of JH's health, which is very tenuous, but seems to be improving.
Writes of the gentle, peaceful nature of JH's death that morning in the presence of many of the family.