My dear Ramsay
I was delighted with your letter2 & delighted with your paper.3 I think we have given the enemy4 something to think of. No doubt they will come to the front once more but their case is hopeless, & we may await their onset with the calmness of philosophers—God is sure to defend the right!
Yours ever | John Tyndall
I meet Logan5 tomorrow at Sir Edmund Head’s6
Bonhams, Knightsbridge, auction, 15 Nov 2017, lot 93.
[October 1864]: the month and year are given by relation to letter 2152. This letter refers to the dispute about glacial/river versus fracture theory of formation of alpine valleys.
your letter: letter 2152.
your paper: see letter 2146, n. 2
the enemy: this refers to an ongoing debate between Ramsay and Roderick Murchison on the action of glaciers. See letters 2100, 2146, and 2152.
Logan: William Edmond Logan (1798–1875), a Canadian geologist most noted as the founder and director of the Geological Survey of Canada (C. G. Winder, ‘Logan, Sir William Edmond’, in F. G. Halpenny (ed), Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 22 vols (Toronto and Quebec: University of Toronto and Laval University Press, 1972), vol. 10 (1871–80), p. 444–9).
Sir Edmund Head: Edmund Head (1805–68), a British politician, diplomat, and governor-in-chief of British North America (1854–61) (ODNB). Head attended lectures and events at the Athenaeum Club with Tyndall and was an advocate for increased public awareness of science. Tyndall said that it was Head who had inspired him to write his popular science books (see Ascent of John Tyndall, p. 277).
Please cite as “Tyndall2164,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on