[The British Association]2 could not, even if they proposed anything so foolish, confer upon Dr. Akin any exclusive privileges in the matter.
J. Tyndall, ‘On the History of Calorescence,’ Phil. Mag., 29 (1865), p.222.
[December 1864]: letter dated by Tyndall to late December. It relates to Tyndall’s ongoing dispute with the Hungarian physicist C. K. Akin. See the introductory essay to this volume for further commentary and context.
[The British Association]: these words were inserted by Tyndall. The original handwritten version of this letter has not been found, and the transcription of this extract comes from Tyndall’s article ‘On the History of Calorescence’. The significance of this letter becomes apparent when read in conjunction with letter 2197 from Sabine and others in the series of letters relating to Tyndall’s ongoing priority dispute with Akin. Akin had clearly implied that because he had received funding to perform experiments from the BAAS that he therefore had exclusive right to investigate these questions. Sabine, like Armstrong here, stated that this was by no means the case. See the introductory essay to this volume for further commentary and context, as well as letters 1925, 2075, 2076, 2079, 2114, 2162, 2167, 2168, 2170, 2173, 2182, 2183, 2190, 2197, 2198, 2201, 2204, and 2214.
Please cite as “Tyndall2208,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on