Dear Mr Gassiot,
I think I must ask you to substitute the accompanying note1 for the former one.2 It is altered in one particular only, apparently trifling, but involving a matter of conscience to me. I say ‘men of eminent standing in science’ instead of ‘eminently qualified judges’ for how high soever their standing may be it is my conscientious conviction that in the matter before us they have not qualified themselves to judge aright and that they are now taking up a position which they will be unable to stand by at a future day. The matter reminds me of Melloni’s struggle with the Paris Commissioners3 and I can well appreciate the smile which the safety of his position enabled him to indulge in when eminent names4 pronounced against him.
Believe me | very truly yours | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT/2/13b/638
LT Typescript Only
the accompanying note: this was a different version of letter 0830 that included an important alteration (see letter 0830, n. 5).
the former one: see letter 0830.
Melloni’s struggle with the Paris Commissioners: reference to Macedonio Melloni (1798–1854), an Italian physicist and political exile in Paris, notable for his work on radiant heat. Melloni struggled to get the Commissioners of the French Academy of Sciences to examine his work for publication, but Faraday recognized its merit and helped Melloni obtain the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal in 1834 (J. Tyndall, ‘Life and Letters of Faraday. By Dr. Bence Jones’, in W. H. Bidwell [ed.], The Eclectic Magazine, or Foreign Literature, Science, and Art 12 [1870], pp. 353–7).
eminent names: see letter 0828, n. 5.
Please cite as “Tyndall0831,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on