Royal Observatory Greenwich | S E | 1863 August 27
My dear Sir,
I have to thank you for copies of several papers, relating to the question of Radiation through Vapour1 and the attack in Good Words.2
The effect of aqueous vapour on radiation is, in my opinion, most important for meteorology. If in addition to this we could have information on the rate at which aqueous vapour disseminates itself through the air, I think that we should be in a way for beginning Meteorology—that collection of useless observations to which I cannot at present give the name of science—I was much interested in the account of your interview with Magnus.
In the matter of the Good Words animadversion you had good grounds for complaint.
I wish that I could acknowledge your kindness in a corresponding manner. But my occupations lead to little more in the first instance than very dull tabular results, which however I hope are of standard value in their kind. I have been longing for a Phil. Trans. paper3 to send you, but hitherto have no copies, I must try to get some.
I am, my dear Sir, | Yours very truly | G B Airy
Professor Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/A/37
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/27
question of Radiation through Vapour: see letter 2012, n. 1.
the attack in Good Words: Thomson and Tait critiqued Tyndall’s claims about Mayer’s contribution to energy physics in Good Words (see letter 1986, n. 5), and Tyndall’s lengthy reply, published in the Phil. Mag., is reproduced in this volume as letter 2002.
a Phil. Trans. paper: probably G. B. Airy, ‘On the Diurnal Inequalities of Terrestrial Magnetism, as deduced from observations made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1841 to 1857’, Phil. Trans., 153 (1863), pp. 309–16.
Please cite as “Tyndall2029,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on