Royal Institution | 10 Aug 1858
My dear Tyndall,
We had your letter1 this morning, and was very glad to hear of you, especially as we had some reason to think that Ramsay’s2 circumstances and trouble would derange you. I find you have both been together, but I suppose you will know before you receive this that he has been informed of the death of his mother,3 i.e. if Anderson’s answers to the enquiries here have caused the letter sent to him to arrive. It must be a great grief and disturbance to him. I have given Anderson your message, and I take two letters from the hall today, that I may send them to you with this. We arrived at home from Eastbourne4 two days ago, all well, and all desiring to be remembered to you kindly. My wife does not like losing the letter you had written.5 We have no news like yours to send you in return for your descriptions, but we can enjoy your letter very much, for we have been at so many of the places—not the summits that you talk of, but the bases of the elevations. I remember how weariness and illness laid hold of us at the little inn6 at the foot of the Rhone glacier.7 I shall be very glad if you meet Mr. Barnard,8 but I doubt he will have left. Dr. Bence Jones is well and active. He had two of the Niger electrical fishes,9 and we had the luck of electrical shocks from them; since then they have gone off to Dubois Reymond10 and arrived safe. They must have been very hungry, nevertheless a couple of minnows that went in company with them arrived alive and well in Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow11 are off, and I suppose by this time near to Bad Homburg.12 We have been a good deal disturbed, since we came on, with the accounts of Mrs. Edwd. Forbes.13 You have probably heard that she married in Edinburgh a while ago, but another lady claims the new husband as her husband,14 and I understand he admits a simulation of marriage with that lady, but denies the legality. The affair must be a sad one for all concerned. Anderson says he sent off a letter15 to you at Zermatt,16 and hopes you have received it.
Ever, my dear Tyndall | Yours most truly | M. Faraday
I sent off Miss Moore’s letter.17
Dr. J.T. | Poste Restante18 | Saas19 | Canton Valais20 | Switz21
RI MS JT/1/TYP/12/4147
Faraday Correspondence, 5:3497
Typed Transcript Only
your letter: letter 1537.
Ramsay’s: Andrew Ramsay.
death of his mother: Elizabeth Ramsay. When Tyndall and Ramsay arrived in Zermatt, Ramsay learned that his mother had died unexpectedly and returned immediately to England. Tyndall thus climbed Monte Rosa without him.
Eastbourne: a seaside resort town on the southern coast of England.
losing the letter you had written: a reference to a letter Tyndall wrote to Sarah Faraday and then did not send, mentioned in letter 1537.
little inn: probably Hôtel du Glacier du Rhône, managed by Joseph Seiler of Zermatt, who managed other hotels in the Swiss Alps as well.
Rhone glacier: see letter 1297, n. 12.
Mr. Barnard: George Barnard, a painter, alpinist, and brother of Sarah Faraday. See letter 1537, n. 31.
Niger electrical fishes: an electric fish of the Niger and other rivers in Africa, Nile silurus. Expeditions into Africa in the mid-nineteenth century had reported coming across fish with electric properties, and specimens were brought back to Europe for investigation. See M. Piccolino, ‘Electric fishes research in the nineteenth century, following the steps of Carlo Matteucci and Giuseppe Moruzzi’, Archives Italiennes de Biologie, 149 (2011, Suppl.), pp. 10-17.
Dubois Reymond: Emil Dubois-Reymond (1818–96), a German anatomist and physiologist from Berlin who focused on the emerging field of electrophysiology and challenged views propounded by Matteucci (CDSB). He delivered a course of lectures on electrophysiology at the RI in the spring of 1855. Dubois-Reymond published ‘Note sur le Malaptérure électrique’, Annal. Chim. et Phys., 52 (1858), pp. 124–5.
Mr. and Mrs. Barlow: John Barlow, and Cecilia Anne Barlow (née Law, d. 1868), the daughter of a wealthy member of Parliament, were married in 1824.
Bad Homburg: a popular spa town in central Germany.
Mrs. Edwd. Forbes: Emily Marianne Forbes (née Ashworth, 1825–1909), the daughter of Sir Charles Ashworth and widow of naturalist Edward Forbes (who died in 1854; see letter 1493, n. 9).
new husband as her husband: Emily Forbes married William Charles Yelverton (1824–83), who had kept secret his marriage with Theresa Longworth (1833–81). A marriage dispute resulted in the 1861 case Thelwall v. Yelverton, which ruled in favor of Yelverton’s marriage with Longworth. An appeal in 1864 reversed the decision and favored the marriage with Forbes (ODNB). See C. Schama, Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of a Marriage, a Trial, and a Self-Made Woman (New York: Walker & Company, 2010).
a letter: letter missing.
Zermatt: see letter 1297, n. 7.
Miss Moore’s letter: letter 1539 to Harriet Jane Moore or Julia Moore which Tyndall possibly sent via Faraday with letter 1537.
Poste Restante: see letter 1293, n. 5.
Saas: see letter 1537, n. 33.
Canton Valais: see letter 1537, n. 34.
Dr. J.T. | Poste Restante | Saas | Canton Valais | Switz: written on the envelope.
Please cite as “Tyndall1542,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on