Royal Institution of Great Britain | Monday
My dear Frankland
To Cassel it was impossible to come.1 Hooker had made many deviations in his plans on my account and finally agreed to accompany me to Paris. The most I could ask him to agree to was to stay a single night in Halle. we travelled day and night till we reached Paris and remained there 4 or 5 days. Thence over Calais to England where I terminated the happiest excursion which I ever made.
We were like a little family in Vienna, always in harmony, always helping each other and contributing to each others pleasure. We went to Reichenbach2 and saw all his paraphernalia, his magnets his crystals and his electrical apparatus – He described his processes minutely3 but could shew us nothing as he had no sensitive person to operate on. I asked him how he knew that among the number there present including Frankenheim[,]4 Gustav Rose, Dr. Daubeny his two nieces,5 Hooker & Mrs. Hooker, Grailich6 and others, there was no one sensitive: he replied that we had all walked up the hill to his house, and if we were sensitive the state of our health would not permit us to do this. Columns of light are seen by his patients issuing the poles of magnets – one pole also gives a sensation of cold, the other of heat. Crystals emit differently coloured lights from their ends – Indeed some of the people there present imagined they felt something issuing from the crystals they required only a little encouragement to make them quite sure of it. An hysterical woman surrounded by crystals & magnets & dense darkness could be made I think to see almost any thing. However I think the whole matter may be readily reduced to an experimentum crucis,7 and if I have time I will try it before the close of the year.
I sent your letter to the Hookers.8 They were much pleased with it, and desire your presence at Kew9 when you come to London. I shall feel very thankful to you for Adolf’s Book10 and will probably write a review of it11 if I have the time. Happy man to be able to travel 3rd class,12 but we had the luxury of 1st or 2nd all through – We bribed the guards and they always left us to the peaceful enjoyment of a carriage to ourselves. Really it was delightful, and I shall always remember the trip with pleasure.
I must try and put my observations on the glaciers into some form. Huxley is not yet in Town and I must consult with him on the way in which they ought to appear. We must be guarded; for Forbes is sure to swoop down upon us – the subject is the great foundation of his reputation. Present my kindest regards to Mrs. Frankland.
Ever yours | J. Tyndall
I will send you your cash shortly13
JRL Frankland, 248
To Cassel it was impossible to come: Tyndall had probably suggested meeting Frankland in Kassel where he had gone to visit his wife’s parents on his way back from Vienna to London.
Reichenbach: See letter 1153, n. 22. Reichenbach owned a castle at Reisenberg, near Vienna, where he conducted the magnetic experiments on ‘sensitive’ people that were recorded in his ‘Untersuchung über den Magnetismus und damit verwandte Gegenstäde’ that Justus Liebig published as a special issue of Annalen der Chemie, 53 (1845), pp. 1–270. Reichenbach subsequently published Physikalisch-physiologische Untersuchungen über die Dynamide des Magnetismus, 2 vols. (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1850) which appeared in William Gregory’s English translation as Researches on Magnetism (London: Taylor, Walton & Moberly, 1850).
He described… processes minutely: Reichenbach attributed the ability of mediums to detect hidden magnets and crystals in darkened rooms to their possession of an ‘odylic force’, as outlined in Untersuchungen in n.3.
Frankenheim: Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim (1801–69), German physicist. Professor of Physics at University of Breslau who had published on thermoelectricity. His interest in crystallography no doubt prompted his curiosity concerning Reichenbach’s claims.
Dr Daubeny his two nieces: Charles Daubeny (1795–1867, FRS 1822), Anglican chemist and botanist. Professor of Chemistry at Oxford since 1822 to which he added the chair of Botany in 1834 and a chair of Rural Economy in 1840. He had been President of the BAAS at Cheltenham in 1856. Nieces not identified.
Grailich: Josef Grailich (1829–59), Austrian physicist and crystallographer. Professor of Physics at the University of Vienna.
Experimentum crucis: a crucial experiment (Latin); an experiment that decides between two alternative hypotheses.
letter to the Hookers: letter missing.
desire your presence at Kew: presumably a social visit.
Adolf’s Book: Frankland’s brother-in-law was Adolphe Fick (1829–1901), Marburg–educated physiologist and ophthalmologist. Professor of Physiology at the University of Würtzburg. He had just published Medizinische Physik (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1856).
a review of it: Tyndall never published such a review.
travel 3rd class: With the introduction of railways in the 1840s most European countries deployed three classes of compartments and comfort that reflected the existing class structure of the upper, middle and working classes. 3rd-class travel offered the cheapest fares and least comfort. Frankland (a middle-class scientist) had evidently returned to Paris from Kassel by cheap 3rd class train.
send you your cash shortly: Tyndall must have borrowed some money from Frankland while they were on the Continent.
Please cite as “Tyndall1282,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on