8th Jan. 18581
My dear Tom
Your little note2 was like a bunch of violets to my moral sense. A happy new year to you my dear boy and dozens of them till both the heads of yourself & your father grow hoar.3 I am rather plunged in duties. Faraday4 is now lecturing—the Prince of Wales5 and his addentants6 come to every lecture, and the throng is immense. half a dozen French princes are also there. The Prince comes 10 minutes before the time & it sometimes falls to my lot to amuse him during this interval. Some days ago, I half choked him by the fumes of explosive antimony—Yesterday I showed him Chladni’s figures,7 and caused him to use the fiddle bow8 himself. He is a mild amicable boy. The glacier paper9 is finished but not yet sent in—I hope to be able to forward it in a few days. I thought I had sent you a copy of last years paper.10 This post will repair the omission. It gives me sincere satisfaction to see the ties of amity getting closer between you & Wertheim: from the first moment of my acquaintance with him I liked to him. He is a first rate moral workman, That is he works with sincerity and not for shew, and his results are worthy of all confidence. Pray present my very kindest remembrances to him when you see him next. And now as regards the bowels. For three years I was a martyr to constipation. I had almost given up all hope of being cured, but thank God it has completely vanished. I feel the strongest confidence that observation of the effects of food, smoking and exercise would lead you to a cure. Coffee I found very detrimental to me—taken after dinner it was within an inch of killing Goethe11—He said it paralyzed his bowels. Chocolate is good & gentle—A small thing may have very great influence; hence watch the small things.
I dine today with my friend Pollock.12 The more I see of him the stronger my affection for him becomes. His wife13 is altogether admirable. Huxley often asks after you—Whenever you come to London you will find a circle of ready made friends. I go to an excellent lady14 tomorrow evening to read for her & her daughters the account of our trip up Mont Blanc.15
I told you that I had given up the examination of the Artillery & Engineers,16 A Military Commission has been lately formed for extending & arranging the system of examination; and a member of it Gen. Portlock,17 called upon me a few days ago wishing me to become an examiner.18 I thought it might lead to something important and agreed to try it. There are to be 10 examinations a year & for this the sum of £150 is allowed. It is too small, but the labour I am told will not be great. This morning I received the notification that his Royal Highness the Comr. in Chief19 with the concurrence of the Secretary at War20 had appointed me examiner for the present year.
What do you intend to do with yourself next Summer. I have never seen the glaciers about Zermatt21 and they are essential to the completion of my knowledge. Shall we march there together and climb to the top of Monté Rosa?22 There is an Alpine Club established in London which I was asked to join but declined,23 one of their conditions is that a candidate must have reached a height of 13000 feet.
Now goodbye Tom. | Ever yours affectionately | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT/1/T/635
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/507
1858: Tyndall originally wrote 1857 but the 7 is crossed out and replaced by an 8.
Your little note: letter missing.
hoar: grey-haired with age (OED).
Faraday is now lecturing: Michael Faraday gave the sixth and final Christmas lecture in the series ‘Distinctive Properties of Common Metals’ at the RI on 7 January 1858. The Prince of Wales and his brother Prince Albert attended the entire series; their father Prince Albert attended the first lecture only. See letter 3068, Faraday to Roderick Impey Murchison, 7 January 1856, Faraday Correspondence, p. 42.
Prince of Wales: Albert Edward (1841–1910), eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VII when Queen Victoria died in 1901 (ODNB).
addentants: attendents.
Chladni’s figures: Ernst Chladni (1756–1827), a German physicist and musician, is best known for his work in acoustics (CDSB). In his lectures on sound and the later published version, Tyndall discussed and demonstrated Chladni’s discovery that when a fiddle bow is drawn across a side of a square glass plate with sand on top of it, the sand will move and create predictable patterns consisting of two or more discernible nodal lines and sometimes with more complex configurations depending on the placement of the bow. See J. Tyndall, Sound. A Course of Eight Lectures (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1867), pp. 139–48.
use the fiddle bow: the stringed bow with which a fiddle is played (OED).
The glacier paper: J. Tyndall, ‘On Some Physical Properties of Ice’, Phil. Trans., 148 (1858), pp. 211–9.
last years paper: J. Tyndall and T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers’, Phil. Trans., 147 (1857), pp. 327–46.
Goethe: see letter 1406, n. 2.
my friend Pollock: William Frederick Pollock.
His wife: Juliet Pollock.
an excellent lady: Maria Drummond and her daughters Mary, Emily, and Fanny. In letter 1367, Tyndall shared with Hirst his positive feelings toward the family.
the account of our trip up Mont Blanc: in letters to Faraday (1419), Juliet Pollock (1420), and Hooker (1428), Tyndall described his and Hirst’s ascent of Mont Blanc on 13 August 1857.
examination of the Artillery & Engineers: see letter 1476, n. 1.
Gen. Portlock: Joseph Portlock (1794–1864), a surveyor and geologist who was a member of the Council of Military Education and served as President of the Geological Society of London from 1857–8 (ODNB).
to become an examiner: see letter 1476, n. 1.
his Royal Highness the Comr. in Chief: George William Frederick Charles (1819–1904), Prince George, second Duke of Cambridge and cousin of Queen Victoria, was the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1856–95 (ODNB).
the Secretary at War: Lord Panmure (Fox Maule-Ramsay).
Zermatt: see letter 1297, n. 7.
Monté Rosa: the second highest mountain in the Alps located between Switzerland and Italy near the town of Zermatt.
I was asked to join but declined: see letters 1459 and 1466.
Please cite as “Tyndall1478,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on