March 1854.
My dear Tom
I am very glad to hear that you have accomplished your lectures2 satisfactorily. The magnet3 shall be sent away to day or tomorrow as you desire.
Yours as ever | John
Friday
You had no right to expect a letter from me – for you are deeply in my debt.
I would strongly recommend Debus to make his lecture4 as experimental as his subjects will admit of. It is far too soon to ask him to engage in a thing of the kind. It is no matter what the Secretary5 ‘seems to think.’ The Secretary has no deep interest in the matter.
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/324
LT Typescript Only
[16–17] March 1854: the dating of this letter is highly speculative. Even though Tyndall already responded to letter 0898 with letter 0900, he did not comment on Hirst’s lectures as he does here. The ‘Friday’ referred to here could therefore be 17 March.
your lectures: see letter 0898, nn. 3–5.
The magnet: presumably a reference to an electro-magnet that Hirst was borrowing from Tyndall (see letters 0847; 0879; and 0965).
his lecture: reference to Debus’s lectures at Queenwood (see letter 0897).
the Secretary: not identified.
Please cite as “Tyndall0902,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on