12th July 1858
My dear Sir
I have been so unfortunate as to miss seeing you three times. Today I should have waited had not the time at my disposal been very brief. —What I intended to say to you however can be easily said in a note.
I have not been able to write out the lectures on Heat:1 nor shall I be able to do so this year. I go to Switzerland this week and purpose remaining there for a couple of months. While there I intend to throw my observations & reflections into the form of a book2 which I think might be made very interesting to the public generally. Besides embodying my glacier work it would contain the description of the more striking natural phenomena which I have encountered during the last 2 or 3 years, and would connect in a strict, yet simple and lively manner, these phenomena with their physical causes. I should write it in a very free spirit and should devote a chapter now and then to subjects of present & general interest, which however have not as yet at all made their way into the mass of society. Mr Longman3 asked me to write such a book, but I think it right in the first place to bring it under your notice. What do you think of it?
Very sincerely yours | John Tyndall
NLS
lectures on Heat: Murray had proposed publishing Tyndall’s lectures. See letter 1512.
I intend to throw my observations & reflections into the form of a book: see letter 1512, n. 2.
Mr Longman: either Thomas Longman (1804–79) or William Longman (1813–77) of the London publishers Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green (ODNB). William Longman is more likely as he was also a mountaineer. See letter 1533a.
Please cite as “Tyndall1530,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on