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Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA has sought to get rid of the imaginaries ever since the Root of Equation appeared and believes that he has at last succeeded: 'And now I have faith in the real thing: i.e. that every algebraic expression is divisible by a quadratic trinomial. I abominate all duplicate square roots, even when real, and I proceed thus with an ordinary quadratic' [GA gives the mathematical demonstration].

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 - WW needs to amend the date with regard to the Sheepshanks Exhibition [for background see GA to WW, 30 Sept., 1856]. Le Verrier's [Urbain J. J. Leverrier] 'speculation is a fair one [see GA to WW, 4 Oct. 1859]: but it almost excludes explanation of another matter which he thought he had established, namely the retardation of mean motion of Mercury'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA received Mathison's [William C. Mathison] letter this morning announcing that the Sheepshanks Seniority should meet tomorrow [for background see GA to WW, 30 Sept. 1856]. GA will catch the 10.57 train.

Playford near Ipswich - GA sends 'the orthodox map of the Ecliptic path. Mr. Hind [John Hind] I know not why has squeezed up the degrees of longitude most uncomfortably'. GA gives suggestions for travel routes in Spain [this is to do with WW's trip to Spain to witness a total eclipse on 18 July 1860]. If the claims of the un-credible village doctor are true, and that there is a planet between Mercury and the Sun, then it is odd 'that it should have been kept so long unrevealed'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA has written to Lord John Russell about the high amount of duty on telescopes charged by the Spanish: A 'Telescope about 10 inches long, a Tripod stand...is very desirable. The Sun will be about 50 degrees high'. More advice on travelling in Spain and suggestions on the best location to observe the total eclipse [see GA to WW, 17 Jan. 1860]. GA presumes that James Challis and the Syndicate are still pursuing 'their policy of laying up money for an instrument, which I think very good'. GA is willing to pay for the printing of his paper on equations for the Cambridge Philosophical Society [see GA to WW, 4 Oct. 1859].

Flamsteed House, Greenwich - Has any application been made by the Observatory Syndicate for any portion of the proceeds of the Sheepshanks Fund? [For background see GA to WW, 30 Sept. 1856]. WW should keep GA informed of his eclipse plans since there is a heavy duty to pay at the Spanish border on instruments. GA will try to find a solution: 'What is likely to be your geographical course?' Wilfred Airy is about 'to learn the management of iron malleable and weldable' in the smithery, 'and of the men who inflict those operations upon the metal'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Can GA borrow the map of Spain that used to be in the apartments of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. GA wants to make a statement concerning the forthcoming total eclipse in Spain.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA will come to Cambridge for the day on Wednesday. Did WW see GA's article on the landing of Plautius in Britain in the Athenaeum? He read 'with infinite advantage' WW's work on Plato: 'What a terrible bore old Socrates must have been (except to the few)'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA is 'never free from Government matters. I have now to look to some little points connected with the Westminster Clock'. Thus could 'the Trinity organist go to St. Mary's, and accurately record the tones of the Quarter Chime Bells? And, which would be still better, could he procure and send to me tuning-forks or other apparatus accurately presenting to our senses in London the tones which you hear in Cambridge?'

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA presents his analysis of the Chimes of St. Mary's Bells [see GA to WW, 24 Mar. 1860].

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA assumes that Lubbock [John W. Lubbock] 'has sent copies of his letter to each of the Visitors [Board of Visitors]. GA will write to Worthington 'desiring him to make my letter official to Sir B. Brodie'. Immediate action by the Government must be suspended till the Board have considered GA's letter.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA encloses the card of Don Francisco de Paula Marquez, which 'will serve as an official introduction to the Commandant of Marine or the Captain of the Port of WW's debarcation in Spain for observing the eclipse, or to the Chief of any Custom House which you may have occasion to pass'."

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA has just returned from observing lighthouses in France. He cannot tell WW everything about the Board of Visitors meeting since both GA and Adams [John C. Adams] were not informed that the meeting was to be an hour early: 'So I found Lubbock [John W. Lubbock] in full speech, very absurdly as I thought, in the same strain as his printed papers. I endeavoured to explain in reply that there was no notion of preferring numerical to algebraical expressions &c'. A vote was taken before GA left early for his train to Dover. Sir James South was there protesting against any recommendation of grant to any body for any thing. Hansen [Peter Andreas Hansen] has theoretically investigated the variation and evection, and concluded that these rays do not agree perfectly with those observed because of the figure of the moon - 'this is the whole that Lubbock means by empirical'.

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'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA is glad that WW and Everina Affleck saw the total eclipse in Spain: 'it is a merry thing to see the corona so well, and to see the stars so bright, and to see the orange-yellow horizon'. GA gives a description of his party and their experience observing the eclipse.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Further to the Sheepshanks Scholarship: 'I have no wish to make any change. But it seems right to take such questions into consideration when there exist facilities on one side which cannot be expected to last many years longer'. He will ask Miss Sheepshanks how much more money there is [see GA to WW, 28 Aug. 1860]. There is a 'general feeling among us of the Himalaya Expedition', [GA's party which observed the recent total eclipse, see GA to WW, 28 Aug. 1860] that they should collect their accounts and publish them in the Astronomical Society's Memoirs.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Can WW make it known to the relevant persons, that Miss Sheepshanks anonymously 'is willing to give to the [Cambridge] Observatory any good, handsome, splendid, expensive, instrument that may be useful to it' [see GA to WW, 28 Aug. 1860].

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Have the relevant persons made up their mind as to what instrument they wish to acquire for the Cambridge Observatory (as a gift from Miss Sheepshanks): 'she looks despondingly to the duration of her own life (Her age is above 70). She would be very glad to have any thing of the nature of a gift settled as early as possible' [see GA to WW, 28 Aug. 1860].

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Miss Sheepshanks will give £2000 (and possibly up to £3000) towards a new instrument for the Cambridge Observatory [see GA to WW, 12 Nov. 1860].

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA requested Simms [William Simms, instrument maker] to give an estimate for Transit-Circles of different uses, and he encloses the estimates [no longer attached].

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'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA wants the proceedings of the "Managing Body" [of the Sheepshanks Trust] to be audited by the Trustees: 'I think it is quite proper that the "Managing Body" should exhibit to us a Db. & Cr. statement of what has become of the money since it left our hands'. This 'is partly for our own information, partly to prevent mistake, partly for the verification of balances in what must be (in the nature of things) a running account'. James Challis 'leaves the observatory [Cambridge Observatory] in some weariness and in some disgust' - this could have been avoided if he had listened to the judgments of various persons over the last twenty four years.

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'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich- Further to WW's letter concerning the Sheepshanks Exhibition: 'I am entirely disposed to adopt the views of the Seniority on the co-current Exhibition'. If GA is to take part in the examination, October is as good a time as any.

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 - The 'grant of £50 to Challis [James Challis] for his computations is evidently right - I wish it had been twice as much'. Presumably 'the "Managing Body" or Observatory Syndicate made the application: that intermediary form is indispensable'.