Observatory | Glasgow | 15th June | 1857
Dear Dr Tyndall.
Some time ago I desired a copy of a ‘Cyclopaedia of the Physical Sciences’2 to be sent you. And presuming that you have got it & may have turned over some of its pages, I venture to ask of you a very great favor. The book necessarily abounds with defects, nor can the list of absolute errors be a slight one. I am going over it now very carefully, with a view to a Second Edition3 next winter. Would you oblige me by calling my attention however briefly to the defects & errors you may have noticed: and what is of the greatest importance, will you consent to send me any statement that you may deem requisite in reference to cases where I may have misunderstood, or not adequately represented your own most valuable researches? Notes of this sort from you, however rough will vastly assist me in the attempts to produce a work that may for a number of years be a useful & safe guide to the student. —I feel most strongly that I have no right to intrude on you thus, further than the right which you will recognize, given by the fact, that assuredly without a hope of personal pecuniary recompense, I am desirous to hasten the student of Physical Science.
Ever very faithfully yours | J.P. Nichol
D. Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/N/11
John Nichol: John Pringle Nichol (1804–59), a Scottish astronomer, political economist, and professor of astronomy at the University of Glasgow. Nichol was widely known for his popular accounts astronomy (ODNB).
‘Cyclopaedia of the Physical Sciences’: J. P. Nichol, A Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences (London: Richard Griffin and Company, 1857).
Second Edition: J. P. Nichol, A Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences, 2nd edn. (London: Richard Griffin and Company, 1860).
Please cite as “Tyndall1405,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on