Royal Institution | 24th July 1861
My dear Sir John
Let me mingle with my thanks for your letter1 an expression of sincere regret that my ignorance of the existence of your paper in the Edinburgh Transactions2 should have caused me to overlook your rightful claims as regards the spectra of coloured flames.
I trust you will allow the fact of my having been compelled to prepare this lecture in the interval of other pressing duties to weigh with you in estimating the magnitude of my sin of omission.
A slight reparation is still in my power. The lecture is to be republished in the Philosophical Magazine for next month;3 and I shall this day see the printers with a view of having due reference made to your researches.
Were it not that I am in the midst of my preparations for Switzerland,4 and therefore scientifically out of gear it would give me pleasure to say something on the subjects to which you have drawn my attention. I think however I ought to also absolve Kirchhoff; for the responsibility of dealing with the subject in the manner indicated in the report rests entirely on my own shoulders.
Believe me | Most sincerely yours | John Tyndall
RS HS 17.388
thanks for your letter: letter 1796.
your paper in the Edinburgh Transactions: see letter 1796, n. 4.
The lecture is to be republished in the Philosophical Magazine for next month: ‘Proceedings of the Royal Institution:– Prof. Tyndall on the Physical Basis of Solar Chemistry’, Phil. Mag., 22 (1861), pp. 147–56. Tyndall added a note on p. 156. He also penned an open letter to Herschel in October, published in the November issue (letter 1814).
in the midst of my preparations for Switzerland: Tyndall left for Switzerland a week later.
Please cite as “Tyndall1799,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on