Royal Institution of Great Britain [stamped] | 26th Aug. 1857
My dear Sir
Your letter of the 15th1 reached me at the Montanvert2 near Chamouni3 two days before I quitted the place to venture to England. It gratified me much to find that you were pleased with the little paper on the combustion of gases in tubes.4 With regard to the other part to which you refer—the study of your optical memoirs5—it is a matter which I have long had in prospect. Hitherto I have been compelled to content myself with a general and I may say superficial acquaintance with them, as magnetism has taken up so much of my attention. But I trust the day is not far distant when I shall be able to commence the calm study of the subject:—
Of all events I should never think of seriously experimenting upon optics without first making acquainted with all that you had written upon the point.
With regard to the induction apparatus I think Ladd of Chancery Lane6 is a thoroughly competent maker. & I have no doubt that he would be able to execute to your satisfaction any orders you might give him.
For the last 7 weeks I have been residing at an altitude of nearly 7000 feet above the sea. I climbed to the summit of Mont Blanc7 and discharged an extempore cannon there—I have carried two similar ones with me to London & purpose discharging them in Hyde Park,8 so as to test the observations of Saussure as to the enfeeblement of sound on the summit of the mountain.
Believe me dear sir ǀ very truly yours ǀ John Tyndall
RGO MS.RGO 6/378.519–20
Your letter of the 15th: letter 1421.
Montanvert: see letter 1415, n. 15.
Chamouni: see letter 1353, n. 9.
the little paper on the combustion of gases in tubes: see letter 1421, n. 1.
the study of your optical memoirs: G. Airy, Mathematical Tracts on the Lunar and Planetary Theories, the Figure of the Earth, Precession and Nutation, the Calculus of Variations, and the Undulatory Theory of Optics (Cambridge: J. Smith, 1831), pp. 249–409.
Ladd of Chancery Lane: William Ladd (1815–85), an English optician and maker of scientific instruments with a London shop at 31 Chancery Lane from 1857–60. See G. Clifton, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550–1851 (London: Zwemmer, 1995), p. 161.
Mont Blanc: see letter 1320, n. 6.
Hyde Park: a park in Central London, the largest of four Royal parks.
Please cite as “Tyndall1422,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on