My dear Tom
I find myself compelled partly against my will to accept your offer of assistance2 with regard to the Scientific Memoirs. I had 60 pages translated and hoped my labour was drawing to a close but now find that the said 60 pages cannot be made use of as the cost of engraving the plates belonging to them would be enormous.3 I must therefore begin anew. Would you like a good fellow lay hold of the Annales du Chemie et de physique for October 1852. The first article is by M. Viard4 on the ‘Role Electro-chemique de l’Oxygene’ translate it for me.5 I am going to attach some German papers.6 You need not copy the tables as these may be printed at once from the original. After the present part is complete I must make some new arrangement with regard to the Memoirs. They are certainly of great value but the quarterly draw upon my time is more than I can stand.7
Your affectionate | John
RI MS JT/1/T/565
[21 June 1853]: Hirst wrote ‘23rd June 1853’ at the top of this letter, which was likely the day he received it suggesting that it might have been written a few days before that.
offer of assistance: letter missing.
I had … enormous: he is referring to his work on translating Schwerd (see letters 0768, n. 1 and 0771).
M. Viard: Henri-Stanislas Viard (1821–58) was a French professor of physics at the Faculté des Sciences de Grenoble, in Grenoble, France from 1850 until 1855, when he then moved to chair the faculty of science at Montpellier (‘Notice sur M. Henri Viard’, Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Montpellier. Mémoires de la Section des Sciences, vol. 4 [Montpellier: Boehm et Fils, 1858–1860], pp. 131–2).
translate it for me: M. Viard, ‘Du role électrochimique de l’oxygene’, Annal. Chim. et Phys. 3:36 (October 1852), pp. 129–55.
some German papers: not identified.
more than I can stand: in a letter to Francis, dated 22 June, Tyndall suggested that he will not edit any more editions of the Scientific Memoirs (letter 0771).
Please cite as “Tyndall0770,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on