Queenwood Friday.
My Dear Francis.
Your letter2 reached me yesterday morning and it was my righteous intention to reply to it by last night’s post. But being pushed to the last extremity in preparing apparatus and experiments for the two lectures which are to come off at Warminster and Southampton on Monday and Wednesday next3 I forgot my duty till it was too late. I rose early this morning and my first job is to write to you while every body else is asleep. Brewster4 has reached me and I am exceedingly glad to have secured it at the price. The mag.5 has also come and Feilitsch.6 Feilitsch7 is a representative now to some extent – I think I have a very clear picture of him in my mind’s eye – He is evidently the 1st man of a little circle there at Greifswald; – but I wont run off into a biographical sketch – His pamphlet is written in a clear and satisfactory manner, It is not like a scientific memoir as the laws of interference which he explains at some length would in the latter case be assumed as known. I had a portion of a review of it written, but I will look into it again and if any thing can be [squeezed] out of it for the Magazine it shall be done.
Your treatment of8 the extra figure in Magnus’s paper9 meets the difficulty concisely and completely.
I did not at all expect you to reinsert that advertisement,10 for the mistake was certainly as much ours as yours. I can only say that I am exceedingly obliged to you.
The accounts11 I have looked over and found all correct. I now return them.
These lectures have made a tremendous draw upon my time for I have had to make a considerable portion of my apparatus – Had it not been for [this] unlucky interference I should now have a paper in the hands of Sabine,12 and Kopp13 and Feilitsch done besides – I shall have both of the latter most certainly ready in time for the next number of the Magazine. – Will not the 16th be sufficiently early?14 You know they wont be long.
Could you tell me in your next letter how is the misletoe propogated15 – that is how are the seeds sown.
most faithfully yours, | J Tyndall
StBPL T&F, Authors’ letters
[6 February 1852]: the reference to the lectures at Warminster and Southampton ‘on Monday and Wednesday next’ dates this letter to early February 1852 (n. 3 below). The many allusions to papers in the Phil. Mag. also suggest early February. The only possible Friday is 6 February.
Your letter: missing.
two lectures ... Wednesday next: Tyndall lectured at Warminster on Monday, 9 February and at Southampton on Wednesday, 11 February (Journal, 20 January and 20 February 1852, JT/2/13b/558). The Hampshire Advertiser and Salisbury Guarding reported that Tyndall lectured on ‘Light and Electro-Magnetism’, and proferred on Tyndall ‘great credit for the manner in which he conducted his numerous delicate experiments under circumstances of great difficulty’ (‘The Southampton Polytechnic Institution’, Hampshire Advertiser, 14 February 1852, p. 4).
Brewster: a book by David Brewster, possibly his Treatise on Magnetism (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1837) or A Treatise on Optics (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1837).
The mag.: i.e. the Philosophical Magazine. Allusion suggests that this letter was written early in the month, soon after the publication of the latest issue.
Feilitsch: F. Feilitzsch, Optical Untersuchungen veranlasst durch die total Sonnenfinsternis 28. Juli 1851 (Greifswald: C. A. Koch, 1852), a 75–page pamphlet. A short summary was published in the Phil. Mag. (see letter 0603, n. 2).
Feilitsch: Fabian Ottokar Carl von Feilitzsch (1817–85) was a German physicist who worked on magnetism and galvanic currents. He had been professor ‘extraordinary’ of physics at the University of Greifswald since 1848.
treatment of: Tyndall first wrote ‘correction of’, which might imply a fault in the version he submitted.
Magnus’s paper: an abridged translation of Magnus’s ‘Ueber thermoelektrische Ströme’(cited letter 0556, n. 10) was published in the February issue of the Phil. Mag. (see letter 0581, n. 20). The published paper included one plate containing six figures.
that advertisement: not identified.
The accounts: perhaps accounts for Tyndall’s translation work for the Phil. Mag.
a paper in the hands of Sabine: this was sent in late February (see letter 0606).
Kopp: Hermann Kopp, ‘Ueber die Ausdehnung einiger fester Körper durch die Wärme’, Poggend. Annal., 81:1 (1852), pp. 1–67. Tyndall sent an abridged version to Francis with letter 0602.
in time ... sufficiently early?: in time for the next issue of the Phil. Mag. Tyndall sent the summation of Kopp to Francis in mid-February (with letter 0602); it was published in the April issue. The summation of Feilitzsch was sent slightly later (letter 0603) but published earlier, in the March issue.
How ... propagated: Tyndall was asking on behalf of Mrs Steuart (see letter 0593).
Please cite as “Tyndall0599,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on