Monday
My dear Pollock.
Would you kindly cast your eye over this for me? You will see that after the establishment of the principle of reciprocity in radiation & absorption with regard to gases I try to unite together Radiation, absorption & conduction. What I chiefly want you to look at is whether the mechanical conception of the molecules & ether & their mutual relations is fairly & clearly carried out. The gist of the thing lies as you will see in the union of the atomic and undulatory theories, and the reduction by this means of Radiation absorption & conduction to the same principle.
Ever yours | John Tyndall
If you could manage to glance over it before Wednesday night I should be really obliged: I want to hand it in to the Royal Society on Thursday.2
I should rather like to have been “Ernest” in the last chapter of Ida:3 but poor Warburton: what is to be done with him? If he could make experiments on Radiant Heat he would be all right. The revelation of the fact to him4 is to my mind extremely well done.
RI MS JT/1/T/1248
Tyndall is asking for comments on the draft of his paper of the Bakerian lecture, which he produced for publication in the Phil. Trans. It was submitted to the Royal Society on Thursday 10 January 1861. See letter 1757 for Pollock’s reply.
I want to hand it in to the Royal Society on Thursday: see n. 1.
“Ernest” in the last chapter of Ida: Juliet Pollock’s novel Ida Conway was being serialised in Frasers’s Magazine (see letter 1729, n. 6). Chapters 10 and 11 were published in the January 1861 issue. In the latter, Ida, who is secretly enamoured of Count Ernest, instigates a horse race with Captain Richard Warburton, who is secretly enamoured of Ida. Ida’s horse bolts, and she swoons into Ernest’s arms after he brings her horse under control.
The revelation of the fact to him: as Ida regains consciousness in the presence of Warburton she calls for Ernest, revealing to the disappointed Warburton where her affections lie. At the end of the novel she marries Count Ernest.
Please cite as “Tyndall1756,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on