Dear Sir
I send you a second ‘report’2 and translation of two small papers from the Comptes Rendus.3
There is an unclear expression in each of the latter but it will scarcely damage the results given.
I at first intended to translate Focaults paper4 entire but there is too much time spent in describing his apparatus, and in describing details he is sometimes doubtful. I therefore thought it better to write an introduction in which the principle might be developed and to append to this the results of Foucault and a short and well written paper by Fizeau and Breguet5 on the same subject.
I will not detain these, as altho’ I have promised you some more matter you will feel more at ease when you have it in your hands.6
I leave the title of the reports to yourself – perhaps nothing better could be introduced than the simple one which you have already proposed. To the general title of the report already in your hands might be attached ‘electromagnetism’ – To that which I now send ‘experimental proof of the theory of undulation’ or some such thing7
I will send you some more matter in the course of the coming week – and shall be glad to receive notice of whatever French papers may strike you as being worth translating
most sincerely yours | John Tyndall
Wm Francis Esqre | &c &c –
StBPL T&F, Authors’ letters
[16–19 January 1851]: this letter comes after, perhaps a week after, letter 0459 (9 January) and about 4 days before 0461 (23 January), that is, between 16 and 19 January. See n. 6 below for details.
second report: ‘Reports on the Progress of the Physical Sciences. On the Velocity of Light. – Experimental Proof of the Undulation Theory’, Phil. Mag., 1:7 (supplement to Vol. 1) (1851), pp. 544–8. In this report Tyndall discussed papers by Foucault, and Fizeau and Breguet that he had translated (nn. 4 and 5 below). See letter 0459, n. 1 for the first report.
two small papers: probably, Edouard Desains, ‘On the Polarisation of Light reflected by Glass’, Phil. Mag., 1:4 (April 1851), pp. 335–6, translated from ‘Mémoire sur la polarisation de la lumière reéfléchie par le verre’, Comptes Rendus, 31, (July-December 1850), pp. 676–7; and Mathurin-Joseph Fordos and A. Gelis, ‘On the Sulphuret of Nitrogen’, Phil. Mag., 1:4 (April 1851), pp. 346–9, translated from ‘Mémoire sur le sulfure d’azote’, Comptes Rendus, 31 (July–December 1850), pp. 702-5.
Focault’s paper: see letter 0459, n. 3.
paper by Fizeau and Breguet: Hippolyte Fizeau and Louis Breguet, ‘Notes ur la Vitesse comparative de la lumière dans l’air et dans l’eau’, Comptes Rendus, 30 (January–June 1850), pp. 771–4.
hands: at this point Tyndall deleted: ‘before 4 days pass by I will post you an analysis of Poggendorffs October and November numbers’. Hence this letter is probably at least 4 days before 0461 (of 23 January), in which he sent the analysis.
some such thing: for the titles given by Francis see n. 2 above and letter 0459, n. 1.
Please cite as “Tyndall0460,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0460