22nd Dec. 1855
My dear Sir
I have just one word to say with regard to your letter of the 19th.1 I have no commercial connexion whatever with the Philosophical Magazine – My name stands on the cover at the request of the proprietors. When I meet an interesting paper I recommend its translation but I have no time to devote to translation myself. I recommended your paper2 to be translated but beyond that I am not responsible. I sometimes do not even read the magazine for 2 or 3 months together so that whether things are rightly translated or not is altogether beyond my knowledge. All I can do now is enclose your errata to Dr Francis and to request him to attend to it.
I am acquainted with the paper of Quintus Icilius3 – I am not aware that he has added anything to the results of Weber as he has operated with Bismuth only. It grieved me to hear of the loss sustained by my friend Knoblauch4 – it is a terrible infliction and will be felt keenly by him.
To Du Bois offer my warm congratulations5 – His letter to Prof Magnus6 will I believe appear in the next number of the Philosophical Magazine – I said in my last note to you that Prof. Magnus’s paper would appear in the next number. This Francis now informs me will be impossible. The paper however is translated and will appear in an early number.7
Yours very sincerely | John Tyndall
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Stabi) Slg Darmstaedter 1855 Tyndall Be. 1–58, 50–1
letter of the 19th: letter missing.
your paper: P. Riess, ‘On the action of non-conducting bodies in electrical induction’, Phil. Mag., 9 (1855), pp. 401–13.
Quintus Icilius: Gustav von Quintus Icilius (1824–85), ‘Ueber die Polarität des diamagnetischen Wismuths’, Poggend. Annal., 96 (1855), pp. 81–109 [On the polarity of diamagnetic bismuth]. As a Privatdocent at the University of Göttingen, Quintus had assisted Weber in 1852. He eventually became Professor of Physics at the Royal Technical University in Hannover.
Knoblauch: Hermann Knoblauch (1820–95), German physicist who had studied with Gustav Magnus in Berlin. Professor of Physics at Marburg (1852–53), where he worked with Tyndall, and Professor of Physics at Halle (1853–95). Tyndall evidently knew that Knoblauch’s son and wife had died before receiving letter 1180 below.
my warm congratulations: Du Bois-Reymond had been elected Associate Professor of Physiology at the University of Berlin.
his letter to Prof Magnus: ‘On a Method of Exhibiting fine Galvanometric Experiments to a Large Audience’, Phil. Mag., 11 (1856), pp. 109–11.
in an early number: G. Magnus, ‘Hydraulic Researches’, Phil. Mag., 11 (1856), pp. 89–107.
Please cite as “Tyndall1171,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on