17th, Nov, 1856.
My dear Sir
I am much indebted to you for your friendly letter1 and shall find the information which it contains of considerable use to me. It is a matter of surprise that a phenomenon so interesting, and so beautiful as the colour of the Rhone2 should not have received a greater share of attention, and been made the subject of more exact and extensive experiment than has been the case hitherto. Surely the subject comes within the range of experimental examination, and it certainly is one likely to repay the man who takes it up. With regard to my going to Geneva3 it is within the range of possibility that I may go there next year or the year following, but my attention would be more directed to the glaciers than to the rivers, as what I have seen of these great ice masses has merely augmented their interest, and made me desirous of seeing more of them.
With regard to the ‘nouvelles’4 I am in the first place happy to say that Faraday’s health is excellent, and he has been working through the autumn with great success. His subject has been the transparency of metallic films, and the modifications which light undergoes in its passage through them. He has either sent, or intends to send, a long paper5 to the Royal Society upon the subject, which I think will be read with interest by men of science generally
Grove has just returned from Honfleur6 where he has been staying with his family; his health is good; I do not know what he is now engaged upon—he described to us at our club7 meeting a few days ago the appearance of Jupiter8 as he observed it during the recent occultation.
Gassiot is quite well and the same straightforward true-hearted man as usual. Sabine has had a severe cold, but is I believe now better. He caught it in Burlington House,9 which is now being prepared for the Royal Society. You know the house I suppose; it is near the Burlington Arcade10 in Piccadilly,11 and the Royal Society is going to move from Somerset House12 and establish itself in new quarters: there will be more room, and the position will be more convenient for the majority of the Fellows.
Wheatstone is also well; I spent the whole of last Saturday with him at Hammersmith.13 He has had a quarrel14 with Sir David Brewster lately, and a long correspondence on the subject of the stereoscope has been published in the Times.15 It is a great pity that those personal feelings should be allowed to mix so largely with scientific questions. A man occupying the high position of Sir David Brewster, ought to shew an example of forbearance and magnanimity to younger workers in science. How simply grand Faraday stands out in comparison with these disputants—he has done more than they all, and if he died tomorrow he would not leave a foe behind him. His example is valuable in many respects, but not the least by shewing the possibility of forty years successful work in science, and of living at the same time in peace with his fellow-labourers.
With regard to your book16 I will write to you in all frankness. I have a great deal of work to do, and therefore could not promise to read your proofs speedily. But if Mr Walker sends them to me gradually, I shall be glad to devote to them every hour I can spare. I do not expect to go through them without making corrections, for there are many points in the style of the two first volumes which I should deem capable of improvement, and which I should hardly pass over in reading the proofs of the third.
I had a very pleasant letter some time ago from M. Matteucci.17 He and I, as you are aware, have differed upon some scientific points, but this is not likely to make us the worse friends. The greatest blessing of my connexion with Faraday is that he allows me to think for myself: he knows that if I differ from him I do so conscientiously, and not as a partisan, and I feel perfectly sure that there are scientific men in Europe from whom if I dissented so widely and so publicly as I have done from Faraday I should make them my foes for life. But Faraday knows that my reverence for him is far more high and independent, than if I compromised my opinion to make it agree with his. I found my visit to Vienna18 very pleasant—I met M. Plücker there, but he was not friendly. He has written both to Mr Faraday and to Wheatstone in a manner which I think was hardly justifiable. But I was prepared to talk over our differences in Vienna if he wished to do so. His demeanour however was cold, and seeing this I became indifferent. Time will settle it all. I beg of you to excuse this egotistical letter, but want of other matter compelled me to write about myself.
Believe me dear Sir | Ever Yours Sincerely | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/343–4
LT Typescript Only
your friendly letter: letter 1293.
Rhone: see letter 1293, n. 6.
Geneva: see letter 1293, n. 3.
nouvelles: news (French).
a long paper: M. Faraday, ‘Experimental Relations of Gold (and other Metals) to Light’, Phil. Trans., 147 (1857), pp. 145–81.
Honfleur: a coastal town in northwestern France.
our club: probably the Philosophical Club of the RS, founded in 1847. Tyndall was elected a member on 10 May 1855 (Journal, JT/2/13c/745).
appearance of Jupiter: Grove’s notes about his observations of the moon passing in front of Jupiter were published as W. R. Grove, ‘Note on the Occultation of Jupiter, November 8, 1856’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 17 (1856), p. 3.
Burlington House: a private mansion purchased by the British government and made home to the Royal Society, Linnean Society, and Chemical Society in 1857. Three other learned societies and the Royal Academy of Arts joined them later.
Burlington Arcade: a covered shopping arcade on Piccadilly.
Piccadilly: a main road in London on which Burlington House is located.
Somerset House: in the Strand, London, the RS’s headquarters from 1780 until its move to Burlington House in 1857.
Hammersmith: Charles Wheatstone’s house in Lower Mall, Hammersmith (a district in west London). See B. Bowers, Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS 1802–1875, IEE History of Technology Series 29 (London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2001), p. 188.
a quarrel: Brewster claimed that Wheatstone did not invent the stereoscope in 1838, but rather James Elliot did in 1834. See Bowers, p. 51.
published in the Times: Brewster and Wheatstone exchanged letters arguing their perspectives in the Times, the dates as follows: 17, 20, 25, and 31 October, and 5 and 15 November 1856. See Bowers, pp. 50–4.
your book: see letter 1293, n. 16.
I had a very pleasant letter some time ago from M. Matteucci: see letter 1286, Carlo Matteucci to John Tyndall, 10 October 1856, Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 5.
my visit to Vienna: Tyndall attended the thirty-second meeting of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte held in Vienna from 16–22 September 1856. On 19 September he presented a paper, ‘Über die Spalten im Gletschereise’, to the physical section. See Tageblatt der 32 Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte in Wien im Jahre 1856 (1856), p. 78.
Please cite as “Tyndall1299,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on