Showing 16 results

Slough - WW and George Peacock have 'absolutely turned his [Babbage] brain by your inflammatory conversation'. Babbage has been 'running analysis mad' and so has JH: 'I really have read and written more in the last fortnight than ever I did in twice the time in any other part of my life and I advise you to go and do likewise'. 'The distress of the poor and the pressure of the times forms the subject of conversation here'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA is sorry to hear of the death of George Peacock: 'He was my earliest and best friend in College'. This is a good time to revise the relative positions of the Plumian and Lowndean Professorships - the latter is well endowed and has nothing to do, while the former is insufficiently endowed and is overloaded with too heavy duties: 'Here is an opportunity for removing a scandal'. WW should write to the Vice-Chancellor on the matter.

37 Tavistock Place - FB has 'for a long time past, had it in contemplation to give a new edition of Flamsteed's [John Flamsteed] British Catalogue [An Account of the Rev. John Flamsteed...to which is added his British Catalogue of Stars, Corrected and Enlarged, 1835]; and this intention is now fully confirmed by the recent & singular discovery of Flamsteed's M.S.S. at the Royal Observatory'. Through JF's original computing book 'I have been enabled to detect the source of most of his errors, & to rectify them accordingly'. In producing this amended and enlarged edition of the British Catalogue, it will not be possible for me (neither would it be fair or just to the memory of Flamsteed) to conceal the various other matters contained in those M.S.S...You will readily see, from the tone of Flamsteed, that he is very sore respecting the part which Newton took in the publication of the "Historia Celestis"...I am anxious, before I publish any thing, to discover (if possible) whether there are any M.S.S. in existence that will throw any light on this subject, & tend to set the character of Newton, in this business, in a fairer point of view'. Could GP check the Newton manuscripts and also inform WW. FB would like to see the whole of the manuscripts of Newton, in the possession of the University, published: 'There never was a time when they would be hailed with so much pleasure & satisfaction'.

JH and Babbage are 'analysing outrageously'. Could WW ask [George] Peacock whether he is making progress in the printing of a work entitled 'A Supplement to Lacroix' which should have been published some months ago.

Slough - Lord Melbourne told JH that the South Polar Expedition will not meet with any opposition on his part. He would be ready to receive a formal application on the 11th or 12th of November - 'but added that there must be a Cabinet Council meeting upon it'. If they agree and the expedition sails next spring will it give enough 'time to order, procure, distribute and get into activity the Gaussian or other instruments'? Since they have to be totally prepared on views such as this - could WW and [George] Peacock draw up a programme of the whole thing. JH will do the same after which they should all 'meet in town compare notes and consult with [Francis] Beaufort and [John] Ross as to the nautical outline of the thing to be recommended'.

JH to meet Captain Ross and probably [Humphrey?] Lloyd on the 5th November to discuss the South Polar voyage expedition. A statement will 'be handed to Government in our official interview with Lord Melbourne'. WW to tell Peacock of this preliminary meeting, which JH thinks it 'desirable' that at least one of them should attend. 'PS a note just in from Lord Minto is much in the nature of a wet blanket on the whole concern...Are you fully prepared to declare the objects proposed are really worth a great material undertaking involving much expense and to defend the expenditure tooth and nail?'

WW to read the enclosed and give his opinion whether part of the money granted by the British Association for magnetic research, should be used to purchase one or both of the instruments mentioned for the magnetic observatory at [Breslau?]. WW to get Peacock's opinion. Even if they purchase both it will leave a large surplus for which JH can think of no other use 'at home is likely to occur'. JH wishes WW or Peacock would write a review of the magnetic subject for the next quarterly 'to enlighten the public mind about it'.

JH would like to know whether WW will authorise him to pay for the two actimometers, for a vertical force magnetometer and for a bifilar magnetow for the [Breslau?] observatory. JH doubts whether they should purchase Osler's anemometer since he doubts whether their power extends to the ordering of meteorological instruments, and unlike the actimometers this is a very expensive instrument. Further 'they cannot be constructed abroad having never been described'. If WW and Peacock agree on the grant can they tell [Edward] Sabine. There will be no grant for the Hammerfist as was originally thought.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - George Peacock has advised GA to apply to WW for names of weights and measures: 'I want a good name for 1/1000 part of an acre, or 1/100 of a square [chair?], or a square of 2 1/5 yards each side'.

Slough - JH thanks WW on his wife's behalf for his Hexameters. The two halves of the magnetic project devised by JH, WW and Peacock have now been granted - albeit with different measures of 'graciousness and possibly also of ultimate fulfillment'. Nevertheless the naval expedition 'is certainly resolved on'. Although the land stations have been given the go ahead 'nothing is ordered - nothing is referred to the Council of RS nor to the Commn. B. Assoc for discussion, or management - and we know not with what department of the public service we shall be put in communication. This is in a high degree embarrassing'. Since Peacock is a personal friend of Spring Rice he should explain to him 'the extreme awkwardness and inconvenience of the present state of things'. The BAAS grant of '£400 will not meet the cost of the mere magnetic instruments for the fixed stations'.

They must give a report to the British Association outlining the history of their activities as the Committee for the magnetic expeditions and observatories, and a conclusion regarding the 'actual state of the whole affair'. Has WW or Peacock a letter from Spring Rice or document, 'authorising us to report that Govt. will bear the whole expense, and that in consequence the grant of the Br. Assoc. will not be needed'. Conversely do they need a continuation of that grant or an increase of it. JH will draw up the report as long as WW and Peacock correct it. He is fed up with the whole business: 'The affair has eaten up a year of my life and thrown me back in all my projects, and in some irreversibly'.

Slough - JH playing on WW's enthusiasm for hexameters. Edward Sabine has proposed to spend £520 of the British Association's grant on a portable declination magnetometer on Weber's construction to send to [James Reddie?]. Have WW and Peacock any objection? JH sees none 'provided R. can satisfy himself that he has so completely reduced the work to regular systematic procedure'.

49 Charlotte St., Portland Pl. - Thanks WW for his Mechanics [An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, 1819]: WW has made too many 'concessions to the cramming system...and that the work would have been productive of more extensive good...had you conformed a little more to the taste of the age and a little less to that of the University'. JH has recommended WW's application to become a fellow of the Royal Society to Joseph Banks. 'Peacock's pamphlet is singularly stupid' and not worth being made the subject of a paper war. The new rules of the [Cambridge Philosophical] Society 'are very good with I think one exception, that which seems to authorize a system of debating on motions. If this be permitted I cannot conceive the possibility of the Society holding together long or maintaining its respectability'. JH thinks the meetings might receive great additional interest by admitting 2 sorts of communications to be read, one in the form of memoirs, formally got up with a view to publication, and another of a less formal character, containing notices of new facts, sketches of new views, such as give a kind of half publicity by being thus read in public, and thus at once send to secure a claim in case of future discovery, and to excite an interest in the pursuit of truths by railing a kind of philosophical hue and cry'. JH is to read his paper on polarisation to the Royal Society on Thursday: 'The object of the paper is to upset certain overhasty generalisations, a nuisance too common in optical science, and to prove the competency of Biot's theory of periodicity to explain all the phenomena of the polarised rings, which in crystals with 2 axes have hitherto presented anomalies of the most perplexing kind'.

JH and Margaret Herschel will be delighted to see WW. He is very pleased to hear that WW is editing Jones' posthumous works - JH has some sheets of RJ's lectures which went to the press but were never published. He is grieved to hear that George Peacock is so ill. 'What a queer book that is of Herbert Spencer!'

Collingwood - Thanks WW for his account of how 'capillary attraction used to be put in the good old time. I must confess I am not convinced - still less by Young's notice that the column is held up by the tension of the upper surface'. JH is to write a brief biographical sketch of George Peacock for the Royal Society, and needs WW's help with dates and events at Cambridge relating to GP.