From John Frederick William Herschel   Mar 15/63

Collingwood | Mar 15/63

My dear Sir,

Accept my best thanks for the copy of your lectures on the Heat-Motion theory¹ which I rec[eive]^d. a day or two ago & which I shall not merely read but study as I doubt not to find in your clear form of exposition the solution of sundry misgivings which I have never been able quite to get over about the dynamics of the matter to say nothing of the difficulty of conceiving the sort of molecular motions, or the way into which vis viva² can be converted into (or embodied in) them.

Several of your experiments (in the little way I have read) appear wonderfully delicate.

I have also to thank you for your Lecture on Radiation through the Earth’s atmosphere³ - your brochure on “The Article headed Energy”⁴—& that on the conformation of the Alps.⁵ The view taken of the enormous degrading & grinding power of Continental ice in Lyell’s last work⁶ struck me exceedingly. How far it is original or new I can not of course say—but put in that form it struck me as quite such a new power in Geology.

I remain | my dear Sir | Yours very truly | J.F.W. Herschel.

PS. I find April 24 has been named for my son⁷ to deliver a lecture at the RI. on Meteors⁸—I presume it will be desirable for him to come up to arrange his diagrams &c. in the lecture room a day or two before, I do not know (nor I suppose does he) how these things are managed. Any hints from your own experience would be greatly valued.

RI MS JT/1/H/100

RI MS JT/1/TYP/2/522

RS HS/24/14