Lieber Herr College!
Erlauben Sie mir, durch diese Zeilen Herrn Dr. Esselbach bei Ihnen einzuführen, und Sie zu bitten, sich seiner freundlich bei seinem Besuche in England anzunehmen. Einen weiteren Empfehlung des Herren Esselbach an Sie wird es nicht bedürfen, da derselbe Ihnen durch seine schonen Untersuchungen über den ultravioletten Theil des Spectrums hinlänglich bekannt sein wird.
Ich hatte gehofft Sie in diesem [Sommer] bei uns in Basel [oder] [dies] auf der Naturforscherversammlung hier in Bonn wiederzusehen. Leider ist indeß [meine] Hoffnung getäuscht. Um so mehr wünsche ich, [daß] das nächste Jahr eine Gelegenheit bieten möchte, [und] Sie uns zuführen könnte.
Mit der Bitte, auch Ihrem verehrten Collegen Herrn Faraday auf das Angelegentlichste zu empfehlen
Ihr | [Sehr] ergebener | G. Wiedemann
Bonn. 25. Septbr 57.
Dear Colleague!
Permit me, through these lines, to introduce Dr. Esselbach2 to you, and to ask you to kindly look after him on his visit to England. A further recommendation of Herr Esselbach to you will not be required, as he will be sufficiently known to you through his fine investigations on the ultraviolet part of the spectrum.3
I had hoped to see you here again this [summer] in Basel,4 [or] [this] at the meeting of natural scientists here in Bonn.5 Unfortunately, [my] hope has been deceived in the meantime. All the more do I wish [that] next year might provide an opportunity, [and] could bring you to us.
With the request to give my warmest compliments to your honoured colleague Herr Faraday as well
Your | [Very] humble | G. Wiedemann
Bonn. 25. September 57.
RI MS JT/1/W/39
Gustav Wiedemann: Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann (1826–99), German physicist who studied under Gustav Magnus at the University of Berlin. He was professor of physics at the University of Basel from 1854–63 when he took a position at Braunschweig. Following Poggendorff’s death in 1877, Wiedemann became editor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie until his own death in 1899 (CDSB).
Dr. Esselbach: Ernst Esselbach (1832–1864), a German physicist who studied at Göttingen and at Königsberg under Hermann Helmholtz. In 1858 he began working for the telegraph works of Werner von Siemens at first in Berlin, then in London, and later as a Chief Superintendant of the telegraph to India. See B. Feddersen and A. von Oettingen (eds), J. C. Poggendorff’s Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch der exakten Naturwissenschaften: 1858–83, (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1898), vol. 3, p. 419.
fine investigations on the ultraviolet part of the spectrum: E. Esselbach, ‘Eine Wellenmessung im Spectrum jenseits des Violetts’, Poggend. Annal., 98 (1856), pp. 513–46.
Basel: a city in northwestern Switzerland, located on the Rhine river.
meeting of natural scientists here in Bonn: see letter 1414, n. 17.
Please cite as “Tyndall1438,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on