Copies of Letters. | 1. Prof. Tyndall to Mr Ellis.
Royal Institution 30th March 1863
Dear Sir—I have no hesitation in stating that the work of Professor Helmholtz to which you refer2 is excellent,—incomparably superior, in my opinion, to anything hitherto written on the same subject.—It is also written so clearly as to be quite intelligible to the general reader. I have had some thoughts myself of urging its translation. There cannot be a doubt that it would be a most important addition to our scientific literature.
Yours very truly | John Tyndall.
Professor Helmholtz I may add is a man of the very highest scientific eminence. His name alone is a guarantee of the superior character of any work to which it is appended.
J.T.
Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 131
Alexander J. Ellis: Alexander J. Ellis (1814–90), an English philologist and mathematician, later the translator of Helmholtz’s work On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1875).
to which you refer: letter missing. The reference is probably to Helmholtz’s Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik (Braunschweig: F. Vieweg und Sohn, 1863). Ellis went on to translate the 1870 third German edition into English in 1875 with Helmholtz’s approval (see n. 1).
Please cite as “Tyndall1991,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on