Showing 7 results

Bayswater, London. Thanks WW for his letter. According to WW's instructions the work of Guizot [François P. G. Guizot] has been delivered to Mr Parker: WL has added a few mathematical papers as a token of admiration for WW's scientific genius. He is expecting to publish a volume of scientific researches soon, and hopes to visit Cambridge and pay his respects to WW.

On the spine is written ‘Narazioni Casi diversi’. The contents comprise a number of narratives by different writers (pp. 1–530), most of them unidentified, followed by verses by Giambattista Felice Zappi and others (pp. 532–57). The authors of the verses are not indicated in the manuscript.

3 Chepstow Villas, Bayswater, Londres - Wishes to send two volumes from Guizot.

The Athenaeum Club - JDF has read an account of the BAAS Dublin meeting and Professor Powell's [Baden Powell] account of Melloni's [Macedonio Melloni] and JDF's experiments: 'His chief object seems to have been to make out the accuracy of his own papers, and he certainly mistakes Melloni's results as completely as it is possible to do when he makes him say that there are two distinct kinds of heat. On the contrary there are an infinite variety which pass into one another insensibly. He equally mistakes my results when he makes them to depend upon Mr Murphy's [Robert Murphy, Elementary Principles of the Theories of Electricity, Heat, and Molecular Actions, 1833] Integration. This is precisely Biot's [Jean Baptiste Biot] objection, viz that the two positions of the plates are not symmetrical as regards the effect of conduction [JDF gives a diagram showing the angles of the plates]. Granted at once. But will the mathematical gentlemen only have the goodness to see the experiment tried and they will see that the effect is of an order quite superior to any effect of conduction whatever - that it is independent of the distances of the plates from one another, which requires, no nicety of adjustment, so that the integration (if practicable) will go for nothing. I have really a right to insist that my experiments shall be seen before they are judged. I admit all the mathematical perturbations, but the chief cause is as clearly developed as the influence of the moon on the tides'. The tables have turned in Paris in favour of JDF's theory: 'Arago [Dominique F J Arago], Libri [Guglielmo Libri] and Dulong [P. L. Dulong] have taken up my cause, Biot is at last silenced'. Could WW point out to Mr Murphy [Robert Murphy] 'that in the case of Depolarization by the mica plate there is the most perfect symmetry (mathematically) which he can desire'.

Nantes - JDF spoke to Arago [Dominique F. J. Arago] about the tide observations - at least regarding those being made this month: 'he had represented the matter in the strongest terms in the Chamber of Deputies as you may have seen by the newspaper - he read an extract from your letter, and told the minister of Marine that what was doing in England put him to the blush, and quoted yours and Mr Lubbock's [John W Lubbock] Papers. With regard to the Brest observations he assures me that they are half-printed and going on'. JDF was not so successful regarding Arago's magnetical observations 'which I much fear he will never print'. Arago 'lives in a perpetual turmoil, in which science has no serious part, and yet he seems to feel that he was born for that and not for the petty concerns of daily objurgations'. Biot [Jean Baptiste Biot] attacked JDF's experiments on polarised heat 'in most unmeasured terms: this pleased JDF 'because it shewed how much importance he attached to them'. Biot regretted that JDF had not brought his apparatus with him so as to repeat the experiments: However, JDF offered to repeat them 'with the aid of a few bits of Mica to shew the chief results to Melloni [Macedonio Melloni, who argued that light and radiant heat are effects directly produced by two different causes]...This I did, and afterwards more at large to Mr Libri [Guglielmo Libri] who has taken up my cause very warmly and is perfectly satisfied'. JDF was astonished that even though Biot and Melloni attacked his experiments, neither of them 'had attempted to repeat one of the experiments'. There would have been a meeting at the Institute last week in which Libri was to defend JDF. The only person doing anything of value is 'as usual' Poisson, who is just bringing out his book on heat: 'I know of nothing else doing at the moment in Paris'. JDF has 'never seen anything connected with the origin of Gothic which appeared to me nearly so interesting as the Abbey of Fontevrault and the church at Candes'.

7 Camden Street - ADM has dislocated his shoulder. Regarding WW's inquiry concerning Galileo he has consulted Libri could not 'find the least ground for supposing that any pope had done anything...I feel confident that all the rumour is a mere sham'. Shares a story told by Biot to Libri, who quoted the Chief Inquisitor in Rome that he would not allow a professor at Sapienza university to teach the motion of the earth.

7 Camden St., Camden Town - His friend Libri has just bought a Newton letter, part of letters bought by Rodd in 1847, to Sir John of Lincoln [probably John Newton] dated May 23, 1715 - four days after Halifax's death [Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax] - in which he writes: ''The concern I am in for the loss of my Lord Halifax, and the circumstances in which I stand related to his family will not suffer me to go abroad till his funeral is over''. He believes Newton was related to Halifax through his niece.