George Biddell Airy to Faraday   14 March 1861

1861 March 14

My dear Sir

I begin to find myself in (possible) extreme difficulties about the proposed lecture on the Total Eclipse¹. I have a great deal of work to be dispatched before I can enter upon examination and comparison of the Eclipse observations. Although I throw upon others as much as I can of said preliminary work, yet there remains on me enough to consume about all the time not occupied by office-work, and this must be so, for some time. Of the Eclipse, or my own observations were in no degree remarkable, I can do nothing creditable till I can read the anticipations of 1851, the event of 1851, the anticipations of 1860, and the event of 1860, implying a good deal of comparison. I did not except [sic] this degree of retardation of my work when I wrote to you in the winter.

So I have thought it well, as early as is fairly possible, to communicate to you my difficulty, and to ask if you would be prepared to meet it by other arrangements for May.

I suggest for your consideration whether a lecture from De la Rue on the Eclipse would not be very well adapted to your wants?² In his photographic register of the eclipse phenomena, he did much more than any other person. And, as I know, he has considered the little difficulties in the interpretation of the photographs with great care and skill, and as I believe, has resolved them all. I could put him in the way of examining some comparative observations by others, now dormant in my custody.

I am sorry to have to write to you thus:- but am always with the deepest respect

Yours very truly | G.B. Airy

Professor Faraday