To Maurice Holzmann   23rd December 1863

23^rd December 1863

My dear Sir

On my return from Wiltshire¹ this day I received your letter² informing me of Her Majesty’s desire that His Royal Highness Prince Arthur should be present at the two concluding lectures of our Christmas Course. I trust and hope that those two lectures will not be without interest to the Prince.

You are quite right in understanding that the Course I ventured to recommend³ would not consist in a succession of questions and answers. My idea was this:—The subject of our Christmas Lectures is Electricity,⁴ and I thought it might be agreeable to Her Majesty,⁵ and interesting to Their Royal Highnesses the Princesses, if for the first afternoon’s proceedings I made a selection from the experiments [embraced] in the first four lectures of the course. These experiments would be best seen if Their Royal Highnesses were tolerably close to the table at which the experiments would be made. My remarks on the experiments would therefore be naturally conversational in tone, and not in the manner of a lecture room.

I thought of devoting a second afternoon to the subject of sound, selecting such experiments as I thought most likely to interest Their Royal Highnesses. I trust however that I may rely on your kindness to advise me if any other course should seem to you more likely to be agreeable to Her Majesty. Were I to choose something connected with Light a certain experimental splendour would be attainable, which does not belong to other subjects; but to deal with Light I should require an electric lamp & it would be necessary to operate in a room capable of being darkened. The amount of apparatus required in the room would be very small, but a Voltaic battery would have to be placed outside, from which wires would be conveyed to the Electric lamp. If this could be arranged I should be equally ready to converse upon Light and Sound as upon Electricity and sound.

I shall be quite ready to attend on the two days proposed by Her Majesty.⁶

Your practical knowledge of Scientific matters will enable you to give me valuable advice, & I should be much obliged for your friendly counsel.

Believe me | dear Sir | yours very sincerely | John Tyndall

M. Holzmann Esq[ui]r[e] | &c &c &c

American Philosophical Society