My dear Sir,
As you will no doubt be anxious to learn Mr Phillips’s arrangements with respect to the lecture,2 I forward this without delay. I hope to be able to write to you in a day or two from Hastings but have now merely time to thank you for the excellent report.3
Yours, etc. | W. Francis
Dr J. Tyndall | (Beim Herrn de Baux) | 95 Dorotheen Strasse, | Berlin4
[Enclosure]
John Phillips to Francis 1 June 1851 0491encl
1 June, 1851. | London.
My dear Sir,
I am much obliged by the information contained in the note from Dr Tyndall.5 Since I wrote to you6 the arrangements which were then in progress for the delivery of two Discourses in the evenings, have been completed, and we are to have Owen and Airy on those two evenings. It has been our custom for some time to provide for two such evenings, and no more; but I think at Ipswich a third discourse may very probably be desired, either in the General Meeting room, or in the largest of our Sectional rooms.
The best precedent for this kind of proceeding has been thus. A paper has been read to the Section in the morning, and repeated when of a suitable character to a larger audience in the evening. If Dr Tyndall were to follow this plan – if he were to read a paper on any selected portion of his subject in the morning, and be prepared to repeat it in the same or some other evening, I think it likely that the request would be made to him;7 but having actually fixed the usual amount of evening business it is not desirable at present to make a positive arrangement for an additional evening.
Ever yours most truly, | John Phillips.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3575
LT Transcript Only
[1 or 2 June 1851]: Phillips letter of 1 June, from one London address to another, could have arrived the same day or the following day. Francis forwarded it ‘without delay’, most likely 2 June, but perhaps 1 June.
the lecture: see prior proposals in letters 0464 and 0470.
the excellent report: probably Tyndall, ‘Reports on the Progress of the Physical Sciences’ (see letter 0484, n. 2).
Dr … Berlin: address presumed to be from envelope.
note from Dr Tyndall: letter missing, but presumably in response to the letter from Phillips (n. 6 below) received c. 25 May. Tyndall may have informed Phillips of his inability to reproduce the famous experiments of Du Bois, as he recorded in his journal, ‘but what can I do. Du Bois cannot come and I have no galvanometer’ (JT/2/13b/543).
I wrote to you: letter missing, but probably the letter which Francis forwarded to Tyndall, and which he recorded as receiving on, or shortly before, 25 May (JT/2/13b/543). Tyndall interpreted this letter as a firm invitation. Phillips mentioned ‘Du Bois’s experiments as likely to be of great interest’ (Journal, ibid.).
the request could be made to him: this did not occur.
Please cite as “Tyndall0491,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0491