William Whewell to Faraday   8 June 1852

[Athenaeum letterhead] | June 8, 1852

My dear Dr Faraday,

You find such admirable fields of research for yourself, and work them so well that it is not a light matter to offer to you any suggestion in that way: but what you have already done with regard to the local peculiarities of the declination needle in your most important paper on that subject¹, points out you as the person most fit to undertake the remainder of the problem. We want some explanation or at least some beginning of explanation of the magnetic storms which agitate the needle from time to time, and of which the mean results affect the daily and monthly changes of declination. The Astronomer Royal has a large mass of accumulated photographic observations of the daily changes of the needle, and among them, of course are included the records of various kinds of storms; from a mere magnetic fact which takes place in some degree to a state of frantic oscillating leaps which occur at other times. He will, I know, be very glad if you will look at them and suggest any probable or even possible connexion of these with other physical phenomena².

I saw your “sphondyloid” paper in the Phil. Mag³. and I saw that I had led you into saying a sphondyloid body ⁴ instead of solid; which would have been more proper as it is a geometrical solid, not a mechanical body which you speak of.

I leave England today: but I shall be glad to hear from you at Kreuznach, Rhine-Prussia; and am always

Yours very truly | W. Whewell