From William Thomson   Nov 7, 1851

2 College, Glasgow | Nov 7, 1851

Dear Sir

I am much obliged to you for the copy of your interesting paper on the Polarity of Bismuth, and your Testimonials1 which I have read with pleasure.

In the passage you have quoted from my paper of last March,2 the word ‘more’ is wrong and ought to be ‘less’. You will find the mistake corrected in the separate copy of my paper which I sent you,3 and in the ‘Errata’ of the Volume of the Magazine containing the paper (concluded I presume last July)4 When so corrected, the whole passage you quote is consistent with itself, and is verified by your experimental results. I need scarcely add that the mistake was merely a slip of the pen, as the concluding part of my sentence lays down the principle in correct terms, which are exactly contrary to the ‘more’ in the first part of the sentence. The mistake was first pointed out to me by Prof. Stokes5 last April, and I immediately sent an intimation of it to the Editors for the ‘Errata’.

I regret greatly that it has occasioned you so much perplexity regarding my meaning.

I remain, Dear Sir, | Your’s very truly | William Thomson

RI MS JT/1/T/11

1

paper … and your Testimonials: as he had to Sabine (letter 0559, at n. 2) Tyndall had sent copies of the testimonials with the bismuth paper.

2

quoted from my paper of last March: Thomson, ‘On the theory of magnetic induction in crystalline and non-crystalline substances’, Phil. Mag., 1:2 (March 1851), pp. 177–86 (a paper read at the 1850 BA meeting). Tyndall quoted from p. 183 of Thomson’s paper in a footnote to his bismuth paper (cited 0525, n. 2) on pp. 333–4.

3

copy of my paper which I sent you: see letter 0528.

4

‘Errata ... last July): printed in the front matter, Phil. Mag., 1 (1851), p. viii. Communications from both Thomson and Tyndall clarifying the issue were subsequently published in the Phil. Mag. (see letters 0567, 0569, and 0570).

5

pointed out by Professor Stokes: the contrast between the meticulous Stokes and the enthusiastic Thomson is well brought out in The Correspondence between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, ed. David B Wilson (2 vols; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Please cite as “Tyndall0560,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0560