William Whewell to Faraday   10 February 18521

Trin. Lodge, Cambridge | Feb. 10, 1852

My dear Sir

I think sphondyloid will answer your purpose. I have just stumbled on a passage in Jeremy Taylor2 which will show you that the term sphondyl is not new in English. It is at the beginning of the Dedication to the Cases of Conscience. “The circles of Divine Providence turn themselves upon the affairs of the world so that every sphondyl of the wheels may mark out those virtues which we are then to exercise.”3 Spondyl is the Ionic, Sphondyl the Attic form. Perhaps you may think it wise to introduce the word in some such way as this. [“]The sphondyloid body contained between the two surfaces of revolution E and F, which for the sake of brevity I shall call simply the sphondyloid” 4.

Solen in Greek means a pipe or gutter. I think Ampere and his followers use it for a figure generated by a ring formed curve sliding along any other line and so with the termination oid it may mean any pipelike surface5[.]

Believe me yours very truly | W. Whewell

Dr Faraday

1
This letter is mounted in Faraday’s offprint of Faraday (1852d), [ERE29a] opposite paragraph 3271.
2
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667, DNB). Anglican theologian.
3
Taylor, J. (1660), dedication gives “spondel” in the passage quoted.
4
A modified version of this sentence was included in the note to Faraday (1852d), [ERE29a], 3271.
5
See Ampère (1823), 279.

Bibliography

FARADAY, Michael (1852d): “On the Physical Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force”, Phil. Mag., 3: 401-28.

TAYLOR, Jeremy (1660): Ductor Dubitantium or the Rule of Conscience in all her generall measures; Serving as a great Instrument for the determination of Cases of Conscience, 2 volumes, London.

Please cite as “Faraday2497,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 3 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2497