My dear Dr Tyndall
Mr Faradays lecture is next Friday the 21st.1 I had asked Dr Hofmann to dine with us but a few minutes since Sir James Clark2 I sent to ask me to go there to talk to Dr Playfair about future schemes. I told Sir J C that you and Hofmann were coming to me and he has asked me to introduce you to him on that evening so that instead of dining here if you are not so inclined we will go there. We will go together if you will call here at a quarter before six next Friday. I have had a letter from Dr du Bois3 this morning. I have been in correspondence with him regarding a manual of electricity like Fownes on Chemistry.4 I thought he might think it worth his attention. He declines. Will you look at De la Rives book5 & at Fownes and tell me whether such a work would be agreeable to you. The terms are 100 pounds each edition. It must be illustrated like Fownes.
If you say yes, you could see the publishers on Saturday morning, or on Friday before four oclock.
Believe me | Yours very truly | H Bence Jones
Janry 17. 1853.
RI MS JT/1/J/38
RI MS JT/2/13b/596
Mr Faraday’s lecture: Bence Jones had invited Tyndall to attend the lecture. See letter 0702, n. 2.
James Clark: personal physician to Queen Victoria who encouraged Albert, the Prince Consort, to back the foundation of the Royal College of Chemistry and the appointment of Hofmann.
du Bois: Emil du Bois-Reymond.
Fownes on Chemistry: G. Fownes, Manual of Elementary Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical (London: Churchill, 1844).
De la Rives book: Auguste Arthur de la Rive’s Traité de l’électricité théorique et appliquée, which was translated into English as A Treatise on Electricity, in Theory and Practice (London: Longman, 1853).
Please cite as “Tyndall0704,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on