24th Oct. 1861
My dear Mr. Stokes.
I have read the paper of Sir Snow Harris1 which was referred to me by the Council.
I do not think the publication of the first 30 papers of this memoir would materially advance our knowledge of electricity. They might I think be condensed with advantage to one tenth of their present volume.
In this condensed state they might form an introduction to a series of experiments which should consist of an expansion of the concluding portion of Sir Snow Harris’s enquiry. The experiments to which he refers at the end of his papers would, if expanded, furnish material for a memoir well worthy of publication in the Philosophical Transactions.2
Sir Snow Harris evinces an intimate acquaintance with the labours of the old electricians, but he sometimes permits those of the modern workers to escape his notice. The 7th volume of the Philosophical Magazine for example contains a masterly paper3 by the lamented Kohlrausch4 on the very subject which Sir Snow Harris has taken up. In this paper our author makes no reference whatever, and he appears to be quite unaware of its existence.
I would recommend that the paper be placed in the hands of its author with the recommendation to pursue the experiments touched upon toward the conclusion of the memoir.
Yours very truly │John Tyndall
RS RR/5/95
Sir Snow Harris: Sir William Snow Harris (1791–1867) natural philosopher with scientific interests in electricity and magnetism (ODNB).
well worthy of publication in the Philosophical Transactions: The paper was not published in the Phil. Trans.
a masterly paper: R. Kohlrausch, ‘Theory of the electric residue in the Leyden jar’, Phil. Mag. 7 (1854), pp. 315–20; 412–26; 476–89.
Kohlrausch: Rudolf Kohlrausch (1809–58), German physicist and associate professor at the University of Marburg. The Kohlrausch function, named after the discharge of a capacitor, stems from his article on the Leyden jar.
Please cite as “Tyndall1819,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on