London 4th November 1854
My dear Sir.
My next course of lectures at the Royal Institution is to be on Electricity,2 and I should like very much to be able to shew, if it were possible, the phenomena of the Nebenstrom,3 and the dependance of the discharge upon the shape of the circuit. Will you kindly let me know whether there is any way of shewing these effects to an audience of one or two hundred. If you know any likely means I should feel under a great obligation to you if you would order the necessary apparatus and have it sent to me from Berlin. I should like to be able to shew the effect of the Nebenstrom in as many different ways as possible: by its heating power, its magnetising power, and its power of imparting a shock to the human body. If any other experiments which you deem likely to interest an audience such as ours – sehr gebildet aber nicht sehr wissenschaftlich4 – should occur to you within the next two months, I should deem it a great kindness if you would communicate them to me.
I find that Matteucci has just sent his ‘Cours Special Sur L’Induction, &c.’5 to the Philosophical Magazine for review: now this brings to my mind that you also wrote a work on Electricity6 which however has never, so far as I am aware of, been reviewed in this country. Few therefore know any thing about it – Now if you wish to have the work known in England there is no other way of doing this than by sending it to the principal reviews. If you like I will write a notice of it for the next number of the Philosophical Magazine,7 and there is another periodical in which I think I could have it reviewed also.8 Having gone to the trouble of writing a first rate work it is a pity not to take the proper means of making it known throughout the world.
With kindest remembrance to your wife and family, and many greetings to my friends in Berlin
Believe me | most sincerely yours | John Tyndall
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Stabi) Slg Darmstaedter 1855 Tyndall Be. 1–58, 44–5
[Peter Riess]: while the letter does not explicitly state that it is from Riess, letter 1000 appears to have been written in reply.
Lectures … on Electricity: before Easter 1855, Tyndall delivered a series of eleven lectures on ‘Magnetism and Frictional Electricity’ (see ‘General Monthly Meeting’, Roy. Inst. Proc., vol. 2, p. 5); after Easter he delivered a series of eight lectures on ‘Voltaic Electricity’ (see ‘General Monthly Meeting’, ibid., p. 56).
Nebenstrom: German for ‘secondary current’ (see letter 1000).
sehr gebildet … wissenschaftlich: German for ‘well educated but not very scientific’.
Cours Special Sur L’Induction: see C. Matteuccci, Cours Spécial sur L’Induction, Le Magnétisme de Rotation, Le Diamagnétisme, et sur les Relations Entre la Force Magnétique et les Actions Moleculaires (Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, Gendre et Successeur de Bachelier, 1854).
a work on Electricity: see letter 0727, n. 14.
I will write … Philosophical Magazine: a notice of Riess’s book appeared as ‘Notices Respecting New Books: – M.P.T. Riess’s Treatise on Frictional Electricity’, Phil. Mag. 62 (February 1855), pp. 150–51.
another periodical … reviewed also: presumably the Westminster Review. Tyndall had recently agreed to co-author the regular ‘Science’ column with Huxley (see letter 0989). Riess’s book does not appear to have been noticed there.
Please cite as “Tyndall0996,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on