Royal Institution of Great Britain | Aug 16th 1855.
Dear Sir
Your paper1 reached me yesterday and your note2 this morning, for both of these I offer you my sincere thanks.
Your speculation3 is a beautiful one and seems to me a fair, though daring, deduction from the hypothesis of internal fusion – indeed the facts alluded to must react upon this hypothesis and strengthen it.
Believe me your kind appreciation of my labours excites more than an idle gratification within me – it augments my force and cheers me on.
I have recently succeeded in establishing the converse of some of the experiments alluded to in the paper I sent you,4 making the magnets moveable and the magnetized bar of bismuth fixed – the opposite actions of the two ends of the bar upon the suspended magnets is perfectly manifest.5 Both Faraday and DelaRive have seen the experiment6 – they seemed much pleased and expressed themselves perfectly convinced of the polar state of the diamagnetic bar.
I took the liberty of sending you a short notice7 this morning, previous to the reception of your note.
Believe me dear Sir | most faithfully yours | John Tyndall
RGO MS 6/376.726–7
Your paper: see letter 1128, n. 2.
your note: letter 1128.
Your speculation: not identified.
the paper I sent you: Tyndall’s Bakerian Lecture; see letter 1028, n. 1.
making the magnets moveable … perfectly manifest: Tyndall published these experiments in his ‘Further Researches on the Polarity of the Diamagnetic Force’, Phil. Trans., 146 (1856), pp. 237–59.
Faraday and DelaRive have seen the experiment: On 14 July Tyndall recorded in his Journal: ‘Met DelaRive and Faraday in the morning and made experiments on diamagnetic polarity for them. They were greatly pleased, and Faraday expressed his perfect satisfaction with the experiments’ (RI MS JT/2/13c/781).
a short notice: probably J. Tyndall, ‘The Polymagnet’, Phil. Mag., 9 (1855), pp. 425–40.
Please cite as “Tyndall1129,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on