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.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - Could WW take the ministerial part in the marriage of GA's daughter, Hilda.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA understands that the Prince and Princess of Wales will be visiting Cambridge on the same day of the Visitation of the Royal Observatory. Presumably this means WW, James Challis, John C. Adams and George Stokes will not be able to attend, making the meeting a 'rather a lame one'.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA hopes to call on WW and Lady Affleck tomorrow but probably not to stay.
Isle of Man - Hilda Airy has decided on either August 31 or September 1 to get married, GA hopes WW will act as the Minister [see also GA to WW, 28 Apr. 1864]. GA is having a holiday on the Isle of Man with his son, Hubert.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA gives the address of the constructors in scagliola [imitation stone]: Bellman & Ivey, 14 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA is going to Newnham on Saturday evening: 'Are you likely to dine in Hall on Sunday?'
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA 'will be at your service in the matter of the Sheepshanks Scholarship' [as an examiner].
Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA thought that he 'could discover your desire to promote the Applied Sciences of liberal class as distinguished from and even as excluding the Formalistic Sciences' in the Smith's Prize Examination Paper. 'Now I have long brooded on the scheme of promoting the former but in conjunction with the latter'. GA has put his thoughts down in an enclosed paper [no longer attached]. Could WW give his opinion of it and whether he should send it to the Vice-Chancellor.
[Only the last page present.] GA sends a collection of rhymes [no longer attached].
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Thanks WW for his History of Induction [The History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time', 3 vols., 1837]. The next time WW is in London he should come and see them.
Royal Observatory Greenwich - Gives an account of the difficulties involved in constructing a self-registering machine to measure terrestrial magnetism: 'There is only one way in which I can conceive the possibility of such a machine, namely by making the magnet carry a point, and constructing [a] mechanism which should lift the paper up to the point to receive a dot and then withdraw the paper that the magnet might quietly make up its mind as to the position that it would take for the next dot: this to be repeated as often as necessary, say every minute. Taking into account the horizontal oscillation, the up-and-down-bobbing &c of the magnet, which may be checked, I think this may be mechanically possible: but what shall the dot be?' - there are problems with the different possible inks. Is puzzled by David Brewster's latest work - 'it amounts to this, that light from different parts of the spectra can interfere. This is quite opposed to all analogy'.
Letter of introduction for 'Mr Forbes [James D. Forbes] a friend of Dr Brewster's and mine'.
He congratulates him on his commercial tables: 'I admire your tables and have made use of one the 3 per cent. - It is exceedingly desirable to have the Constants of Commerce and Manufactures and when I have printed my volume I will try to make the manufacturers who are most interested collect more of them'.
Flamsteed House, Greenwich - An American gentleman, Mr Gould, has been 'working as amateur in the Observatory' and is coming to Cambridge: 'He is a well informed and well mannered young man'. GA has given him a letter of introduction but has told him not to use it to seek WW out in private but only if they meet in public.
(‘In Petty's list of his own writings … the entry “Verbum Sapienti, and the value of People” stands opposite the year 1665, and the internal evidence makes it probable that the booklet was written in the latter part of that year.’ (The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, ed. C. H. Hull (1899), vol. i.))