George Biddell Airy to Faraday   17 February 1862

Royal Observatory, Greenwich, | London, S.E. | 1862 February 17

My dear Sir

I appear before you in the character of a suppliant debtor; not denying my debt - on the contrary, resolved to discharge it when I can-, but soliciting delay for the payment¹.

I begin to think it impossible that I can lecture in April, as was arranged².

I had partly hoped that I should be able to tell you something about star-spectra, observed by a peculiar apparatus attached to our great telescope. The weather has much baffled me. My apparatus wants clear days for adjustment, and naturally wants clear nights for use: and both have been very deficient. From these causes, and the usual interruptions of winter, I have made no progress for the last 3 months or more.

I am now trying by experiment the different retentive powers, for induced magnetism, of malleable iron of different qualities, but the results of these would be comprised in very few words, and would interest nobody.

So I thought of your suggestion about Comets³, and have carried Bessel’s⁴ paper (first on the subject in modern times) from my Official Room to my Drawing Room and back about 30 times, hoping to be able to get through its stubborn German. But no opportunity of beginning it has yet come. There is a great deal to be read on this subject.

And now - De La Rue has at last sent me his account of the 1860 eclipse⁵ - and I must take some editorial charge of the whole matter.

Now I think, if you can let me off for a time, there is fair prospect of the first or the third of the subjects which I have mentioned becoming available.

I am, my dear Sir, | Yours very truly | G.B. Airy

Professor Faraday