To Auguste Arthur de la Rive   4th, Sept 1851

Queenwood College | Stockbridge Hampshire England. | 4th, Sept 1851.

Dear Sir

Circumstances have conspired to place me in the attitude of a petitioner to your kindness.¹

I intend to become a candidate for the professorship of physics now vacant in the university of Toronto, and as the support of your name cannot fail to have considerable influence in such a case I am induced to make an effort to secure that support.

You are already aware of my contributions to the philosophical magazine and to Poggendorff’s Annalen.² In addition to the memoirs regarding crystals which you were kind enough to notice so favourably in the Bibliothèque Universelle³ I beg to refer you to three others which appear in the February, April, and September <word illegible> of the Magazine.⁴ I should have felt much pleasure in forwarding you the last mentioned by post but find the rate of postage so high as to amount to a prohibition. I trust however the magazine will reach you sufficiently early to enable you to read the memoir.

Should your leisure permit and should you deem my labours of sufficient value to justify the act on your part, you would place me under a great obligation to you by sending me a testimonial.

I shall forward my application to Toronto about the 1st of the next month. If therefore you grant me the honour of a reply any time within the present month⁵ it will suit my purpose.

I remain Dear Sir | Most respectfully yours | John Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/1/333

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