Pise 7 juillet
Mon cher monsieur,
Je vous remercie bien de votre lettre: je desire que votre sejour en Suisse retablisse bientot votre santé. Je voudrais bien etre avec vous aux glaciers, mais je ne puis pas et ma santé aussi n’est pas bonne.
Vous verrez donc M. de la Rive et toute sa famille et je vous prie de me rappeler a tous.Vous me parlez d’experiences sur des tons obtenus dans la condensation des gaz, quand vous en aurez le temps, je vous prie de m’en ecrire plus largement ainsi que sur les glaciers. Cela me promet d’abord une lettre de vous et puis une nouvelle Scientifique pour le Nuovo Cimento.
Savez-vous si l’eau des glaciers est pure, comme l’eau de la neige ou usé ou bien si elle contient des sels?
Adieu. Croyez-moi [word illeg] | C. Matteucci
Pisa 7 July
My dear sir,
I thank you for your letter.1 I wish your stay in Switzerland will rapidly restore your health – I would love to be with you on the glaciers, but I cannot as my health is not good either.
You will be bound to meet Mr. de la Rive and all of his family, and I ask you to send them my regards. You talk about experiments on the tints obtained in the condensation of gas;2 when you find some time, please write more extensively about it as well as about the glaciers – I shall expect a letter from you and then a scientific paper for the Nuovo Cimento.3
Do you know if glacial water is as pure as water from the snow or spoiled or if it contains salts?
Goodbye. Believe me, yours truly | C. Matteucci
RI MS JT/1/M/66
your letter: letter missing.
tints obtained ,,, condensation of gas: Since we do not have Tyndall’s letter, it is unclear what observation of Tyndall’s Matteucci is referring to. Tyndall’s work on absorption of heat by gases did not begin until 1858; instead Matteucci may be referring to Tyndall’s experiments on pond water at Wandsworth. When he sprinkled olive oil on pond surfaces, ripples caused by the breeze disappeared and coloured diffraction patterns (Newton’s rings) spread over the surface. Tyndall attributed the effect to trapped gas bubbles rising to the surface. See Journal for 15 February 1855 (RI MS JT/2/13c/825).
Nuovo Cimento: see letter 1123, n.3.
Please cite as “Tyndall1253,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on