London 17th Feb. 1854
My dear Professor.
I was much gratified to receive your long kind letter,1 and shall feel the greatest pleasure in complying with the request which it conveys. I have consulted with my friend Francis who is accustomed to receive papers from the continent for the Philosophical Magazine, and he recommends you to send the lithographs2 through a bookseller. If you send them through the post they are almost sure to be crushed and spoiled and there is also danger of difficulties arising with the post office in England. We have a foreign Bookseller here, Mr Nutt3 who often receives papers from Giessen4 directed to the Philosophical Magazine, and I think your safest plan would be to send your papers5 as the Giessen people send theirs. Perhaps Herr Elwert6 is in connexion with Winter of Frankfurt7 or Marcus of Bonn;8 either of these would forward the parcel to Nutt in the Strand.9 When the lithographs reach me I shall at once gum the cards upon them and have them forwarded to the proper persons. I am much obliged to you for including my name in the list.
I am at present much occupied with my lectures and were it not for this I would send you a long German letter in return for your long English one. Your letter brought to my mind the occasion of my first seeing you in Marburg10 – I believe you are truly one of my very oldest friends there, certainly you were the first that ever spoke a word of English with me. I have passed through a variety of places and scenes since I used to be a visitor to your lecture room but the remembrance of those days are still fresh in my recollection, and I can never think of Marburg save as a place where during upwards of two years I was constantly treated with kindness and friendship.
With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Gerling11 and to the young ladies12
Believe me ever│Yours sincerely│John Tyndall
A gentleman named Guthrie13 has written to me from Marburg, he is evidently an Englishman and probably not living at Marburg, this thought has prevented me from writing to him there, but I have arranged that his letter14 (a scientific one) shall be published in the Philosophical Magazine. If you know him perhaps you would be kind enough to communicate this to him.
UB Mbg 319:738
your long kind letter: letter missing.
the lithographs: not identified. Lithographs are prints produced through an engraving on stone or metal. Ink is applied to the stone or metal to make impressions (OED).
Mr Nutt: see letter 0820, n. 5.
papers from Giessen: not idenified.
your papers: not identified.
Herr Elwert: Universitätsbuchhandlung Elwert, a well-known publisher and bookshop in Marburg, Germany.
Winter of Frankfurt: reference to the publisher and politician, Christian Friedrich Winter (1773–1858), who owned the C. F. Winter university bookshop in Heidelberg, located approximately fifty miles south of Frankfurt, Germany.
Marcus of Bonn: likely A. Marcus, a publisher located in Bonn, Germany, a city located three hundred miles southeast of Berlin.
the Strand: a major street in the city of Westminster, which ran along the bank of the north Thames River.
the occasion of my first seeing you in Marburg: they met on 27 October 1848, two days after Tyndall arrived in Marburg, when Tyndall called on Gerling (Journal, 27 October 1848, JT/2/13b/396).
Mrs. Gerling: see letter 0871, n. 4.
the young ladies: see letter 0871, n. 5.
Guthrie: Frederick Guthrie (1833–86), an English chemist and physicist. In 1854, Guthrie was working on his doctorate at the University of Marburg, which he would complete in 1855 (ODNB).
his letter: not identified. The earliest paper by Guthrie to appear in Phil. Mag. was published in 1857 (F. Guthrie, ‘On Iodide of Acetyle’, Phil. Mag. 14 [1857], pp. 183–86).
Please cite as “Tyndall0883,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on