From George Gabriel Stokes   16 April 1862

Lensfield Cottage | Cambridge | 16 April 1862.

My dear Prof. Tyndall,

What you stated¹ about the contradictory statements on two different pages of Melloni’s book² is of course a fact; your inference from that fact—that Melloni’s mind was so preoccupied with the common notion of the absorption by lamp-black of rays of all kinds of heat that he forgot that he had found that such was not the case I think exceedingly improbable. I suggested designed suppression, but I have since thought that though the experiments of Chap. 4 could not have been made (in all probability) while the sheets were going through the press, it is not unlikely that during that interval lamp black was added to the list of substances experimented on as to their diathermancy, so that in fact when chap 2 was written the partial diathermancy of lamp-black had not yet been discovered. Both of my conjectural explanations of the discrepancy seem to me more probable than yours. To make a mistake in such a long enquiry is natural enough, but for an experimentalist to forget that he had himself discovered and corrected an important mistake, and so to fall into it again, implies an amount of carelessness or prejudice with which one should not lightly be charged.

There is nothing in what you said of Magnus as far as I recollect that is in the least discourteous, or calculated to wound his feelings.³ If in looking over the review anything strikes me of that nature I will point it out to you.

I have no doubt the Council would authorize

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the engraving of a new plate instead of the reprint of an old one. The type may be set up as the paper stands, the alteration being but trifling.

Yours very truly | G.G. Stokes

RI MS JT/1/S/231

RI MS JT/1/TYP/4/1386