WCP3013

Letter (WCP3013.2903)

[1]

6th Jan [18]71

My dear Wallace,

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see my views1 appreciated by a man like yourself. They are to create in the mass of the public such an interest in scientific things as will enable the leaders of science to obtain fair play for it in all our educational institutions.

To effect this we must appeal to the public in a [2] language they can understand, and in a manner with which they can sympathise. This I try to do.

In air and in ocean particles are [1 word illeg., struck out] diffused — They never [1 word illeg., struck out]

With regard to the "criticism"2 the cause I assign is a true & demonstrable cause,3 and renders the flight to a purely hypothetical cause unnecessary. The blue [3] of heaven is by no means a constant quantity. Nor are the morning and the evening red. They vary just as one might suppose them to vary if caused as I suppose them to be caused.

Excuse this scrawl — I have just come from Africa4 & have a host of letters to answer.

Yours faithfully | John Tyndall5 [signature]

1
Probably Tyndall's address, 'On the scientific use of the imagination', given at the fortieth annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Liverpool on 16 September 1870 (the meeting was from 14-21 September; see Report of the Fortieth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Liverpool in September 1870. 1871. London: John Murray). This address was published on its own (Tyndall. J. 1870. On the Scientific Use of the Imagination. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.), and in Tyndall, J. 1871. Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. [pp. 125-168]).
2
This likely refers to a criticism that ARW shared about Tyndall’s address, on the topic of the colour of the sky; however, such a letter to Tyndall has not been found.
3
In his Liverpool address, Tyndall discussed the use of imagination in his own investigations into the blue colour of the sky (and its red colour at dawn or dusk) as a result of the scattering of light through foreign particles in the air. See Tyndall. J. 1870. On the Scientific Use of the Imagination. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. [pp. 16-28]. See also Jackson, R. 2018. The Ascent of John Tyndall: Victorian Scientist, Mountaineer, and Public Intellectual. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [pp. 268-269].
4
Tyndall had travelled to Algeria in order to view a total solar eclipse on 22 December 1870. Tyndall published an account of his journey and observations as Tyndall, J. 1871. Voyage to Algeria to Observe the Eclipse. In Hours of Exercise in the Alps. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. [pp. 429-473]. See also Jackson, R. 2018. The Ascent of John Tyndall: Victorian Scientist, Mountaineer, and Public Intellectual. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [pp. 270-271].
5
Tyndall, John (1820-1893). Irish physicist and mountaineer. Appointed Professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution in 1853, and Superintendent of the Royal Institution from the death of Michael Faraday in 1867 to his retirement in 1887.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP3013.2903)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Powell, Jane [2015-06-05] Transcription checked by Barton, Michael [2020-06-09]

Please cite as “WCP3013,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3013