27th June 1862
My dear Sir.
I have read the abstract of Mr. Hopkins’s paper1—unhappily I am at present unable to read2 the whole paper. The abstract is able and clearly written, and I do not therefore doubt that the paper itself ought to be published in the Philosophical Transactions.
The older a scientific subject grows the more accuracy is needed in its treatment, and to the future student of glacial phenomena Mr Hopkins’s paper will be extremely valuable, giving as it does, a definition to the subject which has not even been aimed at by any other writer.
A further claim to publication is founded on the fact that the Philosophical Transactions already contain an elaborate paper on this subject3 many portions of which require the revision which Mr. Hopkins’s has bestowed upon them.
In expressing my opinion that the paper ought to be printed I do not say that my views coincide in every particular with those of Mr Hopkins’s. I look at the paper broadly and in this aspect regard it as an extremely valuable contribution to glacier science.
Yours very sincerely | John Tyndall.
Prof. Stokes | &c &c &c
1862 | Hopkins | by | Tyndall4
RS RR/5/118 Tyndall 27 June 1862
Hopkins’s paper: W. Hopkins, ‘On the Theory of the Motion of Glaciers’, Phil.
Trans., 152 (1862), pp. 677–745.
The sense of the sentence suggests that Tyndall was in fact unable to read the paper and based his thoughts on the abstract.
the Philosophical Transactions already contain an elaborate paper on this subject: in
reference to J. Tyndall and T. Huxley, ‘The Structure and Motion of Glaciers’, Phil.
Trans., 147 (1857), pp. 327–46.
1862 | Hopkins | by | Tyndall: written either on an envelope or reverse side of letter.
Please cite as “Tyndall1908,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on