Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA has just sent WW the Greenwich Observations for 1848.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA sends by rail the Greenwich Observations for 1849.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA returned from Gottenberg almost three days ago '& have my eclipse very well...and very wonderful it was: - doubtless the reds belong to the sun's atmosphere (not to the moon, nor to the sun's body)'. He has not yet drawn up his account of the eclipse due to work: 'Main is gone out for holiday and I am master and man. I am as it were up to the elbows in refractions...no bad thing, occasionally, to be fairly forced to go through the details of the books: for I always find a multitude of little things which though perfectly venial are almost intolerable'. He will present his account of the eclipse at the November meeting of the Astronomical Society.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - 'Richarda Airy has determined on taking our daughter [Elizabeth Airy who is ill] to Madeira. This, I need not say, is a grave measure; the mere expense is to me not a slight thing; but the most serious part is the separation for so long a time of the head of such a family'. GA proposes to come to Cambridge at some time and among other things talk to WW about the Sydney Professorships: 'These good people in Australia suddenly sent a commission to Herschel, Malden, H. Denisen, and myself, to ship them off 3 professors'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - The ship Richarda Airy is to sail on 'probably will not sail outward from Southampton before December 5' [see GA to WW, 20 November 1851]. This will probably prevent GA coming to Cambridge next week.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - GA has received a letter from his wife: 'With one day's roughness the voyage had been very smooth. They had scarcely any sickness, but Mrs Airy had suffered constant nausea; and they seem weary of the voyage' [see GA to WW, 20 November 1851].
Flamsteed House Greenwich - GA encloses the Tide Memorial for WW's signature: 'I should think that it would be best addressed to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and sent with a letter to the Secretary of the Admiralty'.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Edward Sabine has given GA a letter from Francis Beaufort to pass to WW: 'It seems that the Admiralty of the present day are not so good men of business as some of their predecessors, and a little private action upon them is desirable'. It appears to be the opinion of all concerned that no formal application can be made: 'Therefore will you write at once privately to the Duke of Northumberland. - The Treasury have demanded the Annual Estimates earlier than usual, and there is no time to be lost'.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA is 'busy in the pendulum reductions, and till they are pretty far advanced or indeed completed we cannot tell how good the results are'. He sent six observers to Haston Colliery: 'I put up the apparatus and gave a few lessons, but I did not take a single observation'. GA gives a description of the tests: 'Galvonic wires were laid from one station to the other, and a telegraph needle was mounted by each clock face, and thus our clocks were compared by simultaneous signals without any necessity for chronometers'. GA is surprised at WW's report of Scoresby's remark on the non-correction of varying inductive force, and he should direct Scoresby [William Scoresby] to look at the Phil. Trans. for 1839 (p. 182-183): 'The effect of induced magnetism is very small, and I believe that ship-correcters very commonly neglect it'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - GA is 'very well inclined to accept the Caius invitation, especially if it is agreeable to you to go there'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - Further to GA's letter written in January and WW's subsequent answer: 'I do not know that any thing could have passed more to my mind than did the proceedings in Hall on the last Commemoration Day. I am sure that the impressive words addressed by the Master to the Class men will have a lasting and beneficial effect on them' [see GA to WW, 6 Jan. 1854]. GA has had the 'measures of Jupiter overhauled quo ad ellipticity. They extend from 1840 to 1851...The mean result is a-b/a = 1/16.84'.
Confidential. Royal Observatory Greenwich - Miss Sheepshanks [Richard Sheepshanks sister] wants to use some of her brother's money in a way he would have liked: 'Her thoughts naturally turn to Astronomy, Cambridge, Trinity. and she has in the final instance consulted me about it'. It is her wish that GA and WW 'should decide entirely about it'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - GA has already sent three copies of the Account of the Haston Experiments [see GA to WW, 1 Nov. 1854]: 'Pray cause a search to be made for them'. Two copies of the Greenwich Appendixes were sent to WW: 'But if they trouble you, I can send only one in future'. GA will think of a time when they can 'talk over Italian and other matters'.
Further to Le Verrier's principle, that France ought to be in the first rank in observations as well as every thing else, GA thinks his 'bold talk is admirable' - but he does not agree: 'The Greenwich Observatory has grown up like the British Constitution under pressure of circumstances, and has thus adapted itself to the genius of the people, and is likely to receive permanent support under circumstances in which a French observatory would not receive much support. I can abandon such showy things as discovering comets and planets, and can therefore do the dull meridian work surprisingly well, and this is known to and approved by the astronomical public of England but it would not do in France'. However the mathematical and astronomical parts of Le Verrier's Annales are admirable and should be adopted 'as the authorised exposition of modern astronomy (Lunar Theory excepted)'
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Can WW procure for GA from one of the libraries Horsley's [John Horsley] 'Britannia Romana'. Wilfred [Wilfred Airy] 'has made an awful mess of his examination...and must I conceive be set down to physical derangement, cerebral and nervous'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich -- Thanks WW for his letter of congratulations on Hubert's [Hubert Airy] Scholarship. GA gives a few remarks concerning the questions set in WW's papers. The confusion arising from the first question probably arises from 'the floating idea, that inches multiplied by inches produce square inches'. GA found the solution to question 23 very quickly.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - Further to his paper on the Roots of Equations, GA would be happy to pay the Cambridge Philosophical Society for the printing of it. In Aberdeen, as Robert Willis can confirm, GA placed his 'opinion in opposition to that of all fashionable engineers as to the effect of the tides in tidal harbours'. GA is pleased he did not go to Balmoral: 'It seems as if the Queen was haughty and in a pet, and the Prince was weak. Heaven defend us from such associations!' GA has not heard of Le Verrier's [Urbain J. J. Le Verrier] belief that 'a little planet is to account for the movements of Mercury - can WW give him the reference?
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA accepts WW and Lady Affleck's invitation to stay on October 11 and 12.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Miss Sheepshanks has unexpectedly received some money from her late brothers property [Richard Sheepshanks], and would like to put it with the existing Sheepshanks Fund [for background see GA to WW, 30 Sept. 1856]. It could be used toward the purchase of a Transit-Circle. 'The [Sheepshanks] Exhibition was, with my consent, practically limited to Trinity: I think that the College have good right to claim such prerogative as recompense for their trouble. But it would perhaps be more efficient if perfectly open'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - GA 'like many other people, am occasionally picking up a crumb from your Plato'. He 'is beginning to see the merit of Socrates, not in what he taught, but in what he led some men to think on...it was very valuable that men should be led to think of mental and verbal philosophy instead of constant materialism. If yankees could so be stirred up, to forget dollars for a moment and think (rightly or wrongly) on mental subjects, they would rise in character'. GA is just preparing to publish a little tract on the errors of observation: 'It is a very pretty subject, very little known in England, and which I actually want for the reference of my own Assistants'.
GA would be glad to see WW's Republic of Plato [trans. by WW, 1861]: 'The Republic seems to me, however, to be more nonsensical than the dialogues. But good illustrations of that remarkable creation of ethical literature are invaluable'.
GA has fallen behind in his official observatory work: 'I have to work well in order to bring it to a respectable state'. He has been going through the Horizontal Magnetic Forces from ten years photographic self-registration, and has found that 'twice in every lunar day, the needles N.pole is drawn vertically, and twice returns easterly. But the vertically is not true W. but, as far as our numbers can be trusted, about 20 [degrees] N. of W. It may be, among these small quantities that there is sufficient uncertainty to allow us to take the direction as truly W.'
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Further to the Sheepshanks Exhibition John C. Adams and [Edleston?] 'will be excellent cooperators. But if they will examine without me I shall be well satisfied'. GA has received letters from Carrington [Richard C. Carrington]: 'I cannot conceive how a man could be so stupendously foolish. The notion of taking a position by storm in that manner [Director of Cambridge Observatory]. But in every way you are well to be rid of him...in a short time you would have been compelled to turn him out by force, and to stand a lawsuit and criminal prosecution'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - GA and family spent six weeks at the Grange in Borrowdale. GA is to preside over Section A of the BAAS and gave a lecture on the Eclipse on the 9th of September.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - John C. Adams would be happy 'to have the present from Miss Sheepshanks communicated to the Observatory Syndicate' [see GA to WW, 13 Feb. 1862]. GA has drawn up the letter and if WW approve it, he should hand it to Adams.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA will come on October 3 and is 'much obliged to you for assigning an occasion which is definite and will be so agreeable'. GA has told John C. Adams that he cannot attend the whole meeting [probably the Cambridge Observatory Syndicate].
Playford near Ipswich - Further to Miss Sheepshanks £2000 plus donation - intended for a Transit Circle or some large work, it was thought at the time that the new instrument would be wanted immediately and thus it seemed convenient to leave the money in GA's hands [see GA to WW, 15 Nov. 1860]. However, he is growing old and it would be advisable to put the money in somebody elses trust: 'Is there any individual who would act in it nearly as I should? Or would the Master & Seniors of Trinity accept the reversionary trust?'
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA congratulates WW and Trinity College 'on the late mathematical Tripos display. I congratulate you, because I conceive this to prove the success of a policy which I believe you to have at heart; and I congratulate the College because I think it argues that combination of studies which I hold to be the most valuable that men can follow and infinitely superior to one taken alone'.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA had thought of retiring from the Sheepshanks Scholarship: 'But with great pleasure accept your invitation to do it this time'. GA's son Osmond wants to compete for a Minor Scholarship: 'his probability of success would be expressed by a small fraction'. Nevertheless GA encloses the two certificates required by the College Circular.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA 'will be at your service in the matter of the Sheepshanks Scholarship' [as an examiner].