Queenwood Saturday –
My Dear Francis.
I send you a question <for> Dr Woods2 if you like to send it to him. I have confined myself to one point which I imagine he cannot get over without involving himself in manifest absurdity.
I send you also a note3 which you will oblige me much by publishing in the forthcoming number of the magazine. I am engaged with Magnus4 – the investigation admits of being greatly drawn together without the slightest injury to its real merits.
I got the following note from Sir John Herschel a few days ago.
Sir. […] John F.W. Herschel 5
As you are not in a hurry for Elie’s paper6 I will delay it a little – that is if you do not give me instructions to the contrary.
I am my Dear Francis | most truly yours | John Tyndall
If you see any advantage in it I have no objection <to> your publishing all about Woods’s affair as he suggests.7 I am perfectly indifferent about it. It would however be a matter of amusement rather than of instruction.8
StBPL T&F, Authors’ letters
[15 November 1851]: this was written ‘a few days’ after Tyndall had received letter 0566 (10 November) from Herschel, making it likely this letter was written on Saturday 15 November. As letter 0569 (also a Saturday in November, probably 22 November), postdates this letter, 15 November seems certain.
question <for> Dr Woods: Tyndall had promised to write again about Woods (letter 0563) and continues here the questioning method proposed in letter 0556.
a note: in response to letter 0560, Tyndall was seeking public clarification. Given that both his and Thomson’s papers had been published in the Phil. Mag. this was the appropriate forum. His ‘note’ (which is missing), probably added his comments to a paraphrase of Thomson’s letter. As events unfolded, only the last paragraph of the note was published (see letters 0569 and 0570).
engaged with Magnus: Tyndall was translating and – this letter suggests – condensing a paper by Magnus for publication in the Phil. Mag. (see letter 0556, n. 10).
following note ... days ago: Tyndall here copied out Herschel’s letter (0566) acknowledging receipt of his Sydney application. The only differences are in capitalisation and punctuation (Tyndall uses fewer capitals and omits one dash), and in the signature (he expanded J to John).
you are not in a hurry for Elie’s paper: refers to a paper by Élie Wartmann that Tyndall was translating for the Phil. Mag. (see letter 0563, n. 7). The letter from Francis about deadlines is missing (it would be dated 10–14 November).
as he suggests: later letters (0581) indicate that Woods had suggested that Tyndall’s objections be printed alongside his paper; this was not done (see 0589).
If you see … instruction: postscript written vertically in the left hand margin of the first page of the letter.
Please cite as “Tyndall0567,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 10 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0567