Tuesday,
My dear Mr Stokes
I have read your remarks on my paper.2
With regard to the precipitation of aqueous vapour I have introduced the word “probably”3 which may qualify the statement sufficiently—I have myself no doubt that this was the cause, as at the time I made a series of contemporaneous experiments in a second table, and saw the precipitation occur. I have myself applied the explanation you suggest to other vapours.
The phrase “thus retaining the quality they possessed at the moment of emission” I have entirely struck out.4 Melloni’s results,5 however, would justify it.
With regard to Franz6 I fear the case must stand as I have stated it. His experiments are undoubtedly wrong. Just consider the case of carbonic acid7 which he actually makes less absorbent than oxygen. Even granting to him the watery vapour of an English November day he could not properly explain the result.
Your remarks on the connexion of absorption and conduction refer to the last two pages of the paper. If you are decidedly of opinion that these should be withdrawn I have no objection to omit them.8 I9
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am however quite willing to risk the publication of the paper as it stands.
Is your experiment with the graphite a fair one? is it the heat of conduction that you felt at the remote end of the carbon pole? At the point of contact of metal and carbon there is usually a considerable resistance, to which in some measure at least the heating of this end must be due. I will not be positive but I think I could find you a “vitreous substance” that would conduct heat far better than graphite.10
I know for a certainty that a cube of the carbon used by Bunsen in his battery, and thro’ which electricity passes with the utmost freedom, is almost impervious to heat. This however is a very porous kind of carbon.
However these are points which a few experiments will place beyond all doubt. I may say the objections you have urged and a good many more occurred to my own mind before I wrote the memoir.
Shall I transfer it to Taylor & Francis?11
very truly yours | John Tyndall
Stokes Correspondence, Cambridge University Library/MS.Add.7656/T597/1(2)-2(2)
RI MS JT/1/T/1432
RI MS JT/1/TYP/4/1467
[14 May 1861]: this letter replies to letter 1780. 14 May was a Tuesday.
your remarks on my paper: see letter 1780.
the word “probably”: Tyndall added the word to the manuscript (RS PT/63/1, p. 15) and it appears in the published paper. See Tyndall (1861), p. 5.
The phrase “thus retaining the quality they possessed at the moment of emission” I have entirely struck out: see letter 1780, n. 5.
Melloni’s results: Macedonio Melloni had published his major work in 1850, La thermochrôse ou la coloration calorifique (Naples: Baron, 1850).
With regard to Franz: see letter 1780, n. 4.
carbonic acid: carbon dioxide.
I have no objection to omit them: Tyndall omitted the paragraph in his manuscript making the strong case that good radiators are bad conductors and vice-versa, but retained a long section ‘On the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction’. See letter 1780, n. 6.
At this point, the fragment from the Stokes Correspondence, Cambridge University Library, ends. The rest of the letter is held at the Royal Institution.
conduct heat far better than graphite: see letter 1780. Stokes took issue with Tyndall’s comments on the relationship between conduction and radiation.
Taylor & Francis?: the publishers of Phil. Trans..
Please cite as “Tyndall1781,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on