25th, June, 1854.
My dear Prof Faraday
I was very sorry to find on coming to the Institution on Monday last that you had departed an hour before. I had been in town for two or three days previous, and once called at the Institution: But I had got wet in the country, sat in a draught on my way to town and done sundry other imprudent things: these brought on a cold and confined me to the house for two whole days.1 When I called at the Institution it was late and I was ill, for otherwise I should have intruded my bodily presence upon you. I am now at work, and as usual sadly bewildered – I know nothing of magnetism – The experiments which every body seems to understand are those which puzzle me most – At least I find the accepted theories of magnetic action no refuge at present. Well patience is sure to bring something out of the bewilderment at least. Magnus informs me that he has sent you a paper on black sulphur2 and that some specimens of the substance are also on the way to you. He obtains the black sulphur by melting the substance over and over again – perhaps 20 times – and cooling it very quickly each time. But I dare say you will be glad to forget science for the present so will not trouble you with it further.
Kind remembrance to Mrs Faraday
Believe me | Most sincerely Yours | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/TYP/12/4025
Faraday Correspondence 4:2858
got wet in the country … two whole days: in his journal Tyndall noted the bad weather and his catching of a cold ‘which kept me in the house all day’ (Journal, 10 June, JT/2/13b/678).
paper on black sulphur: G. Magnus, ‘Ueber rothen un schwarzen Schwefel’, Poggend. Annal . 92 (June 1853), pp. 308–24. It was translated by Hirst (see letters 0948, n. 4 and 0961, n. 7) and published in English as ‘On Red and Black Sulphur’, Phil. Mag. 8:51 (September 1854), pp. 177–86.
Please cite as “Tyndall0943,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on