R. I. | Tuesday
My dear Mr. Faraday,
I have often thought of writing to you, and should have done so before now had I not been tossed about in body and soul more than I anticipated.
The examinations1 took me a long time. It is dreary work plodding out these answers, hunted by the consciousness that you may possibly do a candidate wrong. Then this time the examiners had to accompany their returns with a report, which to draw up properly also took time. I have a suspicion that this is one result of that correspondence.2 I have put my notations again strongly, but have done it by arranging facts, rather than by expressing an opinion. This I shall continue to do whenever I have an opportunity, as long as I find natural philosophy, taken together rated equal to French alone, Latin alone, and at 250 marks less than the number awarded to English literature. Such an absurdity I think cannot live long in the world, if there be only somebody to hold it up to the attention of men.
I have made a number of experiments connected with the passage of a current across the place of junction of two metals – Peltier generalised3 – Here there is a conversion of heat into electricity; I fear the knowledge is a long way off still one does long to know something more of the intimate nature of their conversion. As yet I am in perfect darkness.
Monday I was swept suddenly down to Hampshire to see my young friend4 who, in accordance with the advice of Dr. Stokes of Dublin,5 goes off to the South of France immediately with his wife. She manifestly has no idea of her danger6 which makes it all the sadder. She talks about coming back as a matter of course, when it is the opinion of some that she hardly ever will return.
I have had rather a strong letter from Mr. Sorby7 the geologist complaining of my misapprehension of his views, in my late lecture8 at the R.I. He has also sent a paper on the subject to Francis.9 In his eagerness to make out a strong case against me, he has left one little more to do than to quote his own words. This I have done10 without any show of feeling – indeed before I wrote I got all feeling under, for the longer I live the more I feel that these personal discussions are a perfect nuisance to science. There may be an avarice of the intellect as well as of the pocket, and one, in quality is not very much superior to the other. Snow Harris has sent up a violent response to Riess’s last short communication,11 which also might have been far milder and more courteous. Francis has written to him advising him not to print it – I do not know what the result will be.12
One morning soon after you left I received a note from Stokes13 informing me that the grant committee had acceded to my application for £100. I wrote to him14 requesting him to return my thanks to the committee for this proof of their confidence; I said however that having been led to conclude that my application had been considered ineligible I had resorted to private sources and obtained from them all the funds I needed. If therefore the grant committee thought the money voted to me could be otherwise usefully employed, I should be glad if they would consider my application as extinct, and the £100 again at their disposal. I concluded by saying that at some future time, if permitted, I should probably be glad to avail myself of the assistance which the grant offers.* Stokes has written to me again,15 the upshot of his note is that he does not think it likely that it will be recalled, so the matter rests at present.
The morning on which Sorby’s letter reached me I met Prof. Haughton of Trinity Coll. Dublin. He is an eminent mathematician and geologist; Professor indeed of Geology in Dublin, and he told me that his interpretation of Sorby was precisely the same as mine.
Now a truce to science. I hope you are well, I hope Mrs. Faraday and Miss Barnard are well. This is glorious weather in the country – but at Newcastle16 with its artificial atmosphere it may be the reverse. I associate with the name visions of foundries, smoke, and grimy miners – perhaps the reality is not quite as bad as my picture of it.
I am half inclined to write this letter again, for it is very confusedly written but I remember that you are accustomed to Matteucci,17 and after him you will not find me difficult to decipher.
Believe me ever | faithfully yours | John Tyndall
22nd. July 1856
*Bence Jones agreed with this view of the subject.
RI MS JT/12/4049–51
Faraday Correspondence, 5: 3166.
LT Transcript Only
The examinations: the Artillery and Royal Engineers examinations for entry to Woolwich.
that correspondence: see letters 1213 and 1217.
Peltier generalised: The French physicist and clockmaker Jean Charles Peltier (1785–1845). In 1834, while constructing a galvanometer to measure the different conductivities of antimony and bismuth, he discovered the so-called ‘Peltier effect’ in which the junctions of two metals in an electric circuit display heating or cooling effects. J. C. A. Peltier, ‘Nouvelles Experiences sur la Caloricité des Courans Électriques’, Annal.de Chimie., 56 (1834), pp. 371–86. See also letter 1155, n.2.
my young friend: Hirst, who had returned with his wife from Ireland on 16 July, was back in Broughton on 18 July 1856. Tyndall had visited them on Monday 21 July.
Dr Stokes of Dublin: William Stokes (1804–78), Regius Professor of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and author of A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest (Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 1837).
her danger: Tyndall implies here that Anna Hirst had no idea that she was dying from tuberculosis.
a strong letter from Mr Sorby: letter missing, though recorded in Tyndall’s Journal as received in July (RI MS JT/2/13c/862).
my late lecture: J. Tyndall, ‘Comparative View of the Cleavage of Crystals and Slate Rocks’ delivered on 6 June 1856. Sorby had read the version of the lecture in the July issue of Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 35–48.
a paper on the subject to Francis: Henry Clifton Sorby, ‘On the Theory of the Origin of Slaty Cleavage’, Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 127–9.
This I have done: J. Tyndall, ‘Observations on the Preceding Paper’, Phil. Mag. 12 (1856), pp. 129–35. The paper immediately followed Sorby’s paper.
Riess’s last short communication: P. Riess, ‘On the Law of Electric Discharge’, Phil. Mag.,11 (1856), pp. 524–7. This was published in a Supplementary issue in July 1856.
what the result will be: It was published as W. Snow Harris, ‘On Certain Phenomena of Electric Discharge’, Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 136–40.
I received a note from Stokes: letter missing.
I wrote to him: letter missing.
Stokes has written to me: See letter 1256.
at Newcastle: The Faradays had gone to Newcastle to visit the Sandemanian community there. They also visited the mining engineer Thomas Sopworth at Haydon Bridge. Faraday Correspondence, 5: 3163.
you are accustomed to Matteucci: a reference to Matteucci’s staccato style rather than to his atrocious handwriting.
Please cite as “Tyndall1259,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on