Royal Institution of Great Britain | 30th July 1856
Dear Sir
I write to ask your permission to publish in the next number of the Philosophical Magazine the interesting letter to which you have favoured me.1 I placed the letter today before the proprietor2 of that journal and he agrees with me that it would be most desirable to have it published. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the letter there are, I know, many who would be delighted to hail it as an evidence of the improvement of your health.
I quite agree with you that there is no necessity whatever for assuming the action of violent or sudden forces. I have at present before me a portion of a rail sent to me a few days ago from Basingstoke3 and the laminar structure of which is striking in the extreme. This was brought about by the accumulated displacements due to the passage of many thousand trains, the mass having been subjected to this action for a period of 18 years.
In a few days I intend setting off to Switzerland & the Tyrol and shall make it a principal object of my journey to see with my own eyes some of the phenomena of glacial descent. At a future day I hope to be able lay before you the result of my observations on this much disputed question.
Believe me dear Sir | most faithfully & respectfully yours | John Tyndall
Royal Society Letters, Herschel 384
letter to which you have favoured me: letter 1261.
the proprietor: William Francis.
Basingstoke: a town in north-east Hampshire some 19 miles from Winchester. It was a junction for the Great Western and the London & South West Railway Companies. Tyndall’s remark implies that he was still being consulted by railway companies following his 1855 report on boiler explosions.
Please cite as “Tyndall1262,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on