May 23rd
Dear Tom
Read this one first and the other2 afterwards. I received the enclosed3 from Mr Edmondson yesterday – you see he has no ready money but requests me to draw on him at 3 months. Go to Bang and arrange this for me – draw on Mr Edmondson at 3 months for £20 and have the money forwarded to me – I should say Bang wont have any objection – his interest will of course be secured. you may put your own name to the draft. – I shall be leaving here in about 3 weeks and I should like to have the money immediately as I will expend it all except what is necessary for the journey on instruments – Mr Edmondson appears willing to allow something on account of the Institution. I will purchase 10 or 15 pounds worth for him – I shall expect a reply to this immediately – letting me know whether Bang will promptly transact the affair – Another <letter> from Francis4 reached me yesterday enclosing one from the treasurer of the British association – I am to lecture there5 – terrible up-hill work for me just now. my investigation takes up from 8 AM to 7 P.M and the remaining time is all I have to get up [three] papers of my own6 – 3 papers belonging to others7 which I am compelled to translate and understand and this formidable lecture – n’importe8 – I shall get thro it – good bye my brother.
write quickly | Tyndall
not prepaid – the post office too far9
[An] | Herrn Stud | Thomas Hirst | beim Weissbinder Baum | Marburg | Kurhessen10
RI MS JT/1/T/902
[1851]: The context clearly dates this letter to May 1851.
the other: letter 0484. Hirst wrote ‘17 May 1851’ on the envelope, indicating that he received both letters together. This later letter was more urgent hence Tyndall’s instruction to read it first.
the enclosed … Edmondson: letter missing.
letter from Francis: letter missing.
the treasurer … lecture there: the letter was not from the treasurer (John Taylor) but, according to Tyndall’s journal entry of 25 May (covering the week since 17 May, JT/2/13b/543), from John Phillips who was assistant secretary of the BA. He told Tyndall that there would be great interest in a demonstration of Du Bois’s experiments. Tyndall replied to Phillips that he would be unable to perform them: ‘but what can I do. Du Bois cannot come and I have no galvonometer’ (Journal, 25 May 1851, JT/2/13b/543).
three papers of my own: ‘On Diamagnetism and Magnecrystallic Action’ and ‘On Air-bubbles formed in Water’, Brit. Assoc. Rep. 1851, pp. 15-18, 26–7). The third paper could be his demonstration on thermoelectricity (see letter 0501, n. 2).
3 papers belonging to others: possibly the previously unpublished papers by Dove (2) and Knoblauch (1) which Tyndall included in ‘Reports on the Progress of the Physical Sciences’ (see letter 0484, n. 2).
n’importe: never mind (French).
not prepaid … too far: postscript on back of envelope.
Kurhessen: address from envelope.
Please cite as “Tyndall0485,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0485