Royal Institution of Great Britain | Saturday
My dear Sir.
The Royal Society Council grant the use of the plate, but they require that the copies should be struck of by
Mr Basire3 | 7 Princes Street | Lincoln’s Inn Fields
the Society’s engraver.
The plate however will be in the hands of Messrs Longman4 till about Friday next—after that Mr Basire would print you as many as you require. You of course will arrange your terms with him.
You speak of a “block”, but I suppose you mean the copper plate at the end of my book on Heat. On this point you will please be precise on writing to Mr Basire.
Yours truly | John Tyndall
Dr Lawson
Wellcome, MS. 7777/81–81a
Dr. Lawson: not identified.
[March 1863]: dated in relation to content. The line ‘The plate however will be in the hands of Messrs Longman till about Friday next’ implies that Tyndall’s book Heat as a Mode of Motion was in the process of being published (published 4 March 1863).
Mr Basire: James Basire III (1796–1869), a London engraver, like his father and grandfather before him, who did the engravings for figures that were printed in the RS’s journal Phil. Trans. (ODNB).
Messrs Longman: the brothers Thomas Longman (1804–79) and William Longman (1813–77) of Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, publishers of Tyndall’s Heat as a Mode of Motion.
Please cite as “Tyndall1992,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on