Royal Institution | Saturday | 30 March 1861
My dear Mr Best
I am very sorry that I missed you—I had just run down to the Athenaeum2 for a basin of broth when you called. With regard to Mr Thomson’s query3 I can only say that I am sure many of my London friends would feel an interest in a good case of cleavage developed in mud by pressure.
Would you present my kind regards to Mrs Best4 & to Miss Grace5
Most truly yours | John Tyndall
We had a field day at the Geological Society6 a few days ago about cleavage.
Private Collection, Roland Jackson
Samuel Best: the Reverend Samuel Best (1803–73), a member of the RI. He was the rector of Abbots Anne, Andover, and rural dean of Andover. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Best started a non-denominational primary school at Abbotts Ann in 1831 as well as a Friendly Society for the villagers.
the Athenaeum: The Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall.
Mr Thomson’s query: not identified.
Mrs Best: Emma Best (née Duke), his wife, b. 1811 (1861 Census). They married in 1835 (Westminster Marriages Transcription).
Miss Grace: Grace Best, their daughter, b. 1841 (1861 Census). She was the eldest of three children.
field day at the Geological Society: though it was more than a month previously, rather than ‘a few days’, this may refer to the meeting at the Geological Society on 20 February when a paper by Roderick Murchison and Archibald Geikie was read ‘On the Coincidence between Stratification and Foliation in the Crystalline Rocks of the Highlands’. Andrew Ramsay reported the discussion in his diary, noting that he had to put the audience straight when Tyndall appeared to claim Ramsay’s ideas for his own. See J. C. Thackray (ed), ‘To see the Fellows fight: Eye witness accounts of meetings of the Geological Society of London and its Club, 1822–1868’, BSHS Monographs, 12 (2003), pp. 207–8. We are grateful to Caroline Lam and her colleague at the Geological Society for suggesting this.
Please cite as “Tyndall1775,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on