Nov. 27th 1856
My dear Clausius.
My time is so much occupied at present with original work and with my lectures that I hardly ever find myself able to devote any time to translations, but I often recommend articles to be translated for the Philosophical Magazine, and in this way I recommended yours.1 I am happy to say they excite a great deal of interest, and are considered very important in this country—they were translated by Hirst and I think on the whole are well done.
It gave me great pleasure to receive your last letter,2 and I sat down immediately and translated the note for the Philosophical Magazine. I was greatly amused with your account of meeting and losing Mr Huxley: he told me he had met a friend of mine but could not recollect the name, so until your letter reached me I was ignorant that it was you. The party he met was that of my friend Dr Hooker, the botanist and Himalayan traveller, Huxley and I had left them behind us at Interlaken3, and I met them again by accident4 in the Hofkirche at Innsbrück,5 and accompanied them to Vienna,6 where we remained during the meeting of the Naturforscher.7 It would have given me great pleasure to have met you, but next to this it is a pleasure to me to know that you are well and able to enjoy the pure air of the mountains. I found my journey very instructive and it is gratifying to me to learn that the same thought struck you regarding the structure of the ice as struck Huxley & myself. There is in my mind no doubt whatever that the structure is produced by the united action of pressure and of tension.
I am at the present moment engaged upon this subject, and hope very soon to send a paper8 to the Royal Society upon it. I have felt far greater pleasure in following it up than I anticipated when I commenced it. I can hardly hope that Prof. Forbes, who owes his chief reputation in England to his writings upon glaciers, will be satisfied with what I have to say upon the subject, for I am compelled to differ essentially from almost all his views. But this cannot be helped—out of the difference of opinion truth will be sifted in the end.
I have recently read a paper9 in the Bibliotheque Universelle for the year 1843. In Vol. 45. page 131 M. Desor refers to a map constructed by M. Wild10 for M. Agassiz—Can you tell me whether this map has ever been published?11
I have taken the liberty of addressing you without your title,12 because I think such formalities are not necessary between such old friends as you and I. I have given your message to Huxley and he in return sends you many greetings, and desires me to express his regret for having left you so unceremoniously. He was very sorry not to have had the pleasure at least of saying goodbye.
Believe me dear Clausius | most truly yours | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/171
I recommended yours: R. Clausius, ‘On a modified Form of the second Fundamental Theorem in the Mechanical Theory of Heat’, Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 81–98; and R. Clausius, ‘On the Application of the Mechanical Theory of Heat to the Steam-engine’, Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 241–65, 338–54, 426–43. See letter 1297.
your last letter: letter 1297.
Interlaken: a town in Switzerland that serves as a gateway to the mountains and lakes of the Swiss Alps.
met them again by accident: see Tyndall’s journal entry of 11 September 1856 (Journal, JT/2/13c/907).
Hofkirche at Innsbrück: a gothic church in Innsbrück, the capital city of the Austrian state of Tyrol.
Vienna: Austrian capital.
meeting of the Naturforscher: 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.
send a paper: J. Tyndall and T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers’, Phil. Trans., 147 (1857), pp. 327–46.
recently read a paper: published separately as E. Desor, Compte rendu des recherches de M. Agassiz pendant ses deux derniers séjours a l’Hotel des Neuchatelois, sur la glacier inferieur de l’Aar (Genève: Bibliotheque universelle, Mars 1843), p. 70.
M. Wild: Johannes Wild (1814–94), a Swiss engineer, cartographer, and professor of topography (HLS).
ever been published?: Wild’s map for Agassiz, ‘Carte du glacier inférieur de l’Aar’, was published in Louis Agassiz, Nouvelles études et expériences sur les glaciers actuels (: Masson, 184).
your title: Professor.
Please cite as “Tyndall1302,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on