From William Francis1

I have made inquiries respecting Shortredes Logarithms2 and beg you to present my respects to your friend Mr Hirst and inform him that the

Logarithmic Tables complete royal 8vo costs £1.10.0

do3 1 to 120.000 places decimals costs 12/

If he wishes for a copy I can easily procure it for him or a note from you to our clerk C. Gyde will be all that is necessary

Lastly my respects to friend Debus and tell him I am greatly obliged to him for his papers which shall find a place in one of the next Numbers4 – I wish he had exerted his talents a little and put it into English – However I will tell him that when we meet –

Yours most sincerely | W Francis

Dr Tyndall | & &

I have just received a remarkable paper from Faraday on Lines for5 Magnetic Force for the Mag – 6

RI MS JT/1/T/550

1

[6–13 April 1852]: this letter was enclosed to Hirst in letter 0617 (14 April), and was therefore written before 14 April. It has no address or heading which suggests that we have only the end section of a longer letter, the section which Tyndall forwarded to Hirst. Tyndall must have received the letter on or after 7 April because until that date Hirst was with him at Queenwood. Thus the earliest date of writing is 6 April.

2

Shortredes Logarithms: Robert Shortrede (1800–68), Logarithmic Tables: Containing Logarithms to Numbers from 1 to 120,000 … to Seven Places of Decimals, etc (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1849). We have not been able to identify the ‘royal’ edition.

3

do: ditto

4

his papers ... next Numbers: Francis seems to promise Debus a place in Phil. Mag., but no paper by Debus appeared in this period.

5

for: Francis meant lines ‘of’ magnetic force

6

remarkable paper ... for the Mag: Faraday, ‘On the Physical Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force’, Phil. Mag., 3:20 (June 1852), pp. 401–28.

Please cite as “Tyndall0615,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0615