8th January 1863
My dear Clausius.
I send you by this post two sheets of my book1 and should feel extremely obliged to you if you would read them over for me. The part relating to Mayer & Joule is delicate2 and I am anxious to have your opinion on it. I do not think either of them will have any fair reason to complain of what I have said.
In addition to these I will ask you to look at one other lecture—that in which I deal with specific & latent heat.3
Would you like a good fellow return me the proofs as soon as you can,—I want to get the book off my hands.
Be sure also to present my kindest remembrances to your wife4—I should have been very glad to see her in London along with you when you were here.
Yours ever truly | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/182
two sheets of my book: Clausius looked over sections of the manuscript proof for Tyndall’s Heat as a Mode of Motion (1863), which was based on his 1862 lecture series at the RI, ‘Twelve Lectures on Heat’, delivered on Thursdays at 3pm from 23 January to 10 April 1862 (RI Guard Book, vol. 3, p. 11). See also letters 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1972.
The part relating to Mayer & Joule is delicate: Tyndall discussed these issues in chapters 2, 3, and (more extensively) 12 in Heat as a Mode of Motion. He advocated for Mayer’s work as in fact preceding the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, which Joule claimed. Tyndall had been quite explicit about his support for Mayer in lecture, but clearly valued Clausius’ opinion on his phrasing here. This was a long-running dispute across the period covered by this volume (see the introductory essay to this volume for additional detail; see also volumes 7 and 9).
that in which I deal with specific & latent heat: Tyndall dealt with this in chapter 5 of Heat as a Mode of Motion.
to your wife: Adelheid Clausius.
Please cite as “Tyndall1962,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on