Showing 29 results

Edinburgh - Thanks WW for his last letter. He is sorry that there is a view in the south prevailing, which suggests both he and David Brewster have been at 'dagger's drawing' over their late contest [for Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, see JDF to WW, 31 Mar. 1833 ] - the opposite was the case. JDF still thinks that an abridgement to WW's book on mechanics [The First Principles of Mechanics: With Historical and Practical Illustrations, 1832] 'with some leading propositions for the 3 first sections of Newton (taken from your 'Introduction') and concluded with a comprehensive mathematical theory of Hydrostatics' would be really useful [see JDF to WW, 31 Mar. 1833].

7 Camden Street, Camden Town - He has been meaning to respond to the last point of Whewell's letter on enunciation, but he has been looking through the proofs of an account of Newton by David Brewster. He describes how his check of the references has shown a story to be false: the story about Newton being offended by being represented as an Arian by Whiston that he blocked the latter's entry to the Royal Society. De Morgan discusses his definition of enunciation at length.

Edinburgh - JDF feels a great regret that he will be unable to invite WW to stay in Edinburgh at the time he is expected at Glasgow. JDF is sorry and astonished by the 'species of persecution to which you had been subjected by Sir D. Brewster, and I heard privately that your forbearance on the occasion had been remarked with admiration'. JDF has an incomplete series of WW's tidal researches and wants him to supply him with the missing ones.

Item 19: Draft of a letter from William Whewell to Adam Anderson, 22 Apr. 1842, 3 pp.
Item 20: Letter from Adam Anderson, 27 Mar. 1841, 5 pp.
Item 21: Letter from David Brewster, 19 Apr. 1842, 3 pp.
Accompanied by the printed "Problem of Solar Images", 7 Apr. 1842 (with a pencil drawing on the verso) and the printed minutes of the Literary and Philosophical Society, St Andrews.

Has RJ read David Brewster's review of WW's history? ['On the History of the Inductive Sciences', Edinburgh Review, 66, 1837]. Does he think there is anything he needs to answer? Brewster 'has made the article for the most part an angry remonstrance in favour of his own rights unjustly withheld'. For example, WW does not quote from Brewster's 'Life of Newton' or his Edinburgh Journal of Science. That he does not give more credit to Brewster's arrangement of crystals or support his demands for more public rewards to men of science. And by referring to Brewster's controversies with French discoverers: 'I am disposed to stand upon my character and hold my tongue, till I can write my philosophy, and then I can get all to right that is really wrong'. The real injustice is in his history of physiology and neglect of Charles Bell [see WW to RJ, 6 September 1837]: 'If I could find any mode and channel of modifying this I would do it'. Brewster has also taken 'special care to overlook all that I have said of his rival Forbes' [James Forbes] discoveries'.

Edinburgh - JDF observed the eclipse on Sunday with Murchison [Roderick Murchison]. JDF made it the occasion of trying out an experiment to test David Brewster's hypothesis regarding the solar spectrum. According to DB's theory the solar spectrum lines are a product of the sun's own atmosphere: 'if so, the edges of the sun which afford light which must have traversed a much greater thickness of the sun's atmosphere should shew an infinity of lines which are filled up by the more complete light derived from his central parts'. JDF found no difference in the solar spectrum during and after the eclipse, hence this theory of absorption will not hold: 'I presume that the sun's light (like that of the Electric spark etc) is primitively deficient'. JDF thinks that an interesting point worth developing would be to look at 'the variation in the kind and quantity of proof required as demonstration by the human mind in different ages'. Edinburgh University is in need of some good candidates for the Logic Chair - 'I wish you could send us some'. JDF is glad 'you have got some new supporters of the undulatory theory'.

Greenhill, Edinburgh - Thanks WW for his last letter. JDF has forwarded the last part of the Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. He has also enclosed an unpublished paper to WW by his friend Dr. Gregory [Duncan Gregory?], and another paper obtained by Mr Robison (Secretary of the Edinburgh Royal Society and son of the late Professor John Robison) by 'a most ingenious artist in Edinburgh' concerned with the escapement of a clock. Perhaps George Airy would like to see it. JDF has been studying Poisson everyday with 'a great deal of pleasure and advantage'. It will be a while before he understands Joseph Fourier's Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur, [1822]. He has begun George Airy's tract on the Calculus of Variations, and been engaged in several enquiries, especially the vibrations of hot metals: 'I have been enabled to arrive at such general laws as will I think demonstrate that Leslie [John Leslie] and Faraday were far wrong in their conjectures'. JDF hopes WW will come to the first meeting of the BAAS at York: 'I have known Dr. Brewster [David Brewster] long enough to be aware that he sometimes takes up particular views with a bigotry which defies conviction, and I am certain that there is no one who can more sincerely regret than myself the most unwarranted attacks he has made upon professors. But how this can affect the York meeting I cannot conceive'. DB will have no superintendence at all of the meeting.

Edinburgh - Further to WW's letter JDF will visit Cambridge in mid-May. JDF is really pleased to hear that the second part of WW's work [The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History, 2 vols.,1840] is well in progress. 'The article in the Edinburgh is considered so purely personal that it is seldom mentioned but as such and with the authors name' [David Brewster's review of WW's 'History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Times', Edinburgh Review, 1837]. JDF has been working hard reducing the results of his long thermometers, which will hopefully be complete for the next BAAS meeting in August. He read WW's address to the Geological Society with great interest ['Address Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society of London, on the 16 Feb. 1838']. He is 'a little sceptical as to the efficiency of Herschel and Babbage's new mechanical agent'.

10 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh - DB intended to call upon WW to thank him for his formulae, which he will first place among the notices.

Allerly by Melrose - DB does not know what Mr Weiss's [Christopher S. Weiss's?] motions are. He is glad to hear that WW is a candidate for the Mineralogical chair at Cambridge: 'This charming science has hitherto been a mere piece of quackery in the hands of Charlatans'. DB has begun his treatise on mineralogy. He has several of Weiss's papers in Edinburgh.

10 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh - Sends No. 127 of the Edinburgh Journal of Science to WW. Could WW send him the Proceedings of the Cambridge Society. It would give DB great pleasure to receive a paper occasionally from WW or his friends at Cambridge.

Allerly by Melrose - DB has read WW's essay on mineralogical classification with much pleasure, and considers it a vast improvement upon Mohs's system [Friedrich Mohs] - 'a provisional system which will soon disappear'. Hopes WW will now devote his time to examining the properties of individual minerals. Could WW send him any unknown information on Isaac Newton to assist him with his biography.

Allerly by Melrose - DB is 'much obliged to you for your account of Goethe's theory of refraction, and I cannot conceive how a man in a sane state of mind could publish such nonsense'. DB will be happy to publish WW's observations on Dr Lardner's [Dionysius Lardner] Mechanics. Pleased to hear George Airy is giving lectures on polarisation. DB is working hard on this subject: 'I have discussed the mathematical law which expresses the quantity of light polarised either by reflexion or refraction of any angle of incidence', and a new phenomena of polarisation he calls 'Elliptical'. DB thinks he has proved that 'pressure is the cause of double refraction in regular crystals'.

Allerly by Melrose - DB will be happy now, and at all time, to publish any thing WW may send him. He wrote the decline of science article in the Quarterly: 'I did hope that there would not be a man of science in England that would not thank me for having expounded his cause, and exposed myself to the power of Government from the single motive of advancing the interests of Science'. WW is very mistaken in charging the reviewer with 'entire ignorance of everything belonging to English universities'.

Allerly by Melrose - DB is sorry he did not send him the letters (copies) of Isaac Newton earlier, but wanted to check them against the proof sheets from the printers. DB has sent RN the sheets which discuss 'the subject of Newton's supposed derangement', and because of the delicate nature of the subject would appreciate any suggestions RN and WW may offer.

Allerly by Melrose - WW will no doubt have heard of the vacancy in the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University: Would WW give a testimonial with reference to DB's scientific labours. He has just discovered lines produced in the spectrum of the action of the Earth's atmosphere. It will be curious 'to determine the specific absorbent action of the atmospheres of all the planets and satellites'.

Allerly by Melrose - A young friend of DB's, Mr Jas. Forbes, wishes to visit Cambridge and make WW's acquaintance. DB has sent Lord Braybrooke [Richard Neville] the fly sheets to his biography of Isaac Newton, and hopes both Braybrooke and WW will favour him with any comments. Trusts WW and some of his Cambridge friends will be attending the BAAS meeting at York.

12 Savile Row - Thanks WW for the 'new edition of his 'Non-Plurality of Worlds'. BCB is neither convinced by WW's argument on the one hand or David Brewster's on the other.

Chiefswood by Melrose - WW for his long letter: 'How pleasant it is to have a good old fashioned grand epistle!' JDF is especially grateful for the attention WW gave his remarks on colours and the reference to Merimee, but thinks the diagram WW refers to has some defects. JDF prefers the triangular arrangement of Mayers to the concentric circles of Merimee [he gives the diagrams], since 'the true relations of the colours to one another and to grey are preserved'. He has received some correspondence generated by his recent paper on the application of probabilities to doublestars ['On the Alleged Evidence for a Physical Connexion between Stars forming Binary or Multiple Groups, arising from their Proximity Alone', London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, August 1849]: 'not one of whom seems to entertain any doubt that Mitchell and all his followers were labouring under a complete deception, when they considered the calculus of probabilities applicable to such a question'. JDF went to the BAAS meeting in Birmingham: 'the most prosaic that I have been at ; no marked failure, no enthusiasm or great success...The depreciated value of our Transactions strikes everyone, even the 'Athenaeum'!' JDF can give no information on the subject of the life and letters of Newton, but has heard that David Brewster wants a copyright which nobody will give. He is pleased the Trinity College MSS are to be printed. JDF has been to the Orkney and Shetland Islands with Mr and Mrs Airy.

Edinburgh - JDF has lost no time in distributing WW's circulars. His main reason for writing is to suggest Edinburgh for the BAAS meeting next year. Edinburgh is not to be considered a University town: 'The University can do nothing, it has no status, no power , no funds'. While David Brewster promised to give the most entertaining course of lectures ever given at the University, JDF adheres 'to the very opposite principle' and will be striving 'to foster a spirit for sound physico-mathematical attainment at present nearly unknown in Scotland'. His lectures will be a 'cautious mixture of pure demonstration with experiment and collateral illustration'. However, JDF feels his labours will be wasted for want of an adequate textbook in theoretical mechanics: 'your mechanics has appeared to me far the best book I have met with for teaching from [The First Principles of Mechanics: With Historical and Practical Illustrations, 1832]...But for my purpose it is to long: it is on the whole rather too difficult, and in statics, too complete'. JDF would like WW to do an abridgement of it with less mathematics, coupled with some problems taken from WW's recent work on Dynamics [An Introduction to Dynamics Containing the Laws of Motion and the First Three Sections of the Principia, 1832]. The only work which approaches JDF's criteria is a textbook by Dr Jackson of St. Andrews University: 'but it is a little repulsive, and does not afford the means of passing over the more difficult parts'. John Leslie's 'book is incredibly bad, but its division into Statics and Dynamics renders it preferable to those which want it'.