Faraday to John Tyndall   10 August 1858

Royal Institution | 10 Aug. 1858.

My dear Tyndall,

We had your letter1 this morning, and was very glad to hear of you, especially as we had some reason to think that Ramsay’s2 circumstances and trouble would derange you. I find you have both been together, but I suppose you will know before you receive this that he has been informed of the death of his mother3, i.e. if Anderson’s answers to the enquiries here have caused the letter sent to him to arrive. It must be a great grief and disturbance to him. I have given Anderson your message, and I take two letters from the hall today, that I may send them to you with this. We arrived at home from Eastbourne two days ago, all well, and all desiring to be remembered to you kindly. My wife does not like losing the letter you had written. We have no news like yours to send you in return for your descriptions, but we can enjoy your letter very much, for we have been at so many of the places - not the summits that you talk of, but the bases of the elevations. I remember how weariness and illness laid hold of us at the little inn at the foot of the Rhone glacier4. I shall be very glad if you meet Mr. Barnard, but I doubt he will have left. Dr. Bence Jones is well and active. He had two of the Niger electrical fishes, and we had the luck of electrical shocks from them; since then they have gone off to Dubois Reymond5 and arrived safe. They must have been very hungry, nevertheless a couple of minnows that went in company with them arrived alive and well in Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow are off, and I suppose by this time near to Bad Homburg. We have been a good deal disturbed, since we came on, with the accounts of Mrs. Edwd. Forbes6. You have probably heard that she married in Edinburgh a while ago, but another lady claims the new husband as her husband, and I understand he admits a simulation of marriage with that lady, but denies the legality. The affair must be a sad one for all concerned7. Anderson says he sent off a letter to you at Zermatt, and hopes you have received it.

Ever, my dear Tyndall, | Yours most truly, | M. Faraday

I sent off Miss Moore’s8 letter.


:

Address: Dr. J.T. | Poste Restante | Saas | Canton Valais | Switz

2
Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1814-1891, ODNB). Lecturer in geology at the Government School of Mines.
3
Elizabeth Ramsay, née Crombie (c.1773-1858, ODNB under A.C. Ramsay). Ramsay’s mother.
4
On 19 August 1841. Bence Jones (1870a), 2: 156-8.
5
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896, DSB). Electro-physiologist. Associate Professor at University of Berlin, 1855-1858.
6
Emily Marianne Forbes, née Ashworth (d.1909, age 84, GRO under Avonmore). Married the geologist Edward Forbes (1815-1854, ODNB) in 1848. Married secondly, in 1858, the army officer William Charles Yelverton, 4th Baron Avonmore (1824-1883, CP).
7
On this see CP under Avonmore. The woman in question was the writer Maria Theresa Longworth (1827-1881, B2) whom Yelverton married in 1857 by Anglican rites in Scotland and later that year by Roman Catholic rites in Ireland. After nine years of litigation these marriages were found invalid.
8
Harriet Jane Moore (1801-1884, James (2001)). Painter and member of the Royal Institution, 1852-1881.

Bibliography

BENCE JONES, Henry (1870a): The Life and Letters of Faraday, 1st edition, 2 volumes, London.

JAMES, Frank A.J.L. (2001): “Harriet Jane Moore, Michael Faraday, and Moore’s mid-nineteenth century watercolours of the interior of the Royal Institution”, in Hamilton, J. (2001), 111-28.

Please cite as “Faraday3497,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 8 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday3497