7th April 1856
My dear Sir
I thank you for reviving my memory of ‘observations’2 in which I took great interest when I heard them delivered, and most heartily do I respond to the hope which you express at the conclusion.3 The claims of such men ought to need no urging.
Most sincerely yours | John Tyndall
BL–37196–464
Henry Provost Babbage (1824‒1918), the youngest son of Charles and Georgiana Babbage. After military service in India he returned to England and helped his father improve the designs of the difference and analytical engines.
‘observations’: Tyndall had attended Henry Babbage’s lecture on his father’s calculating engine at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 4 December 1855. The lecture had just been published as Henry Provost Babbage, ‘Scheutz’ Difference Engine, and Babbage’s Mechanical Notation’, I. C. E. P., 15 (1855–6), pp. 497–514.
The hope which you express at the conclusion: ‘[Babbage’s machine] had, as it were, photographed the footsteps of time; and with power more enduring than electric fire, it had conferred fixity and permanence on the swiftest motion…. Whatever course might be chosen, [Babbage] left it with the fullest confidence in the hands of a Society whose object was essentially progressive’ (n. 1, p. 514).
Please cite as “Tyndall1209,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on