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Observatory - GA gives his views regarding Barlow's [correction] of ship-magnetism: 'The importance of its error (other changes not considered) increases as the directive force of terrestrial magnetism on the horizontal needle decreases, that is as the dip increases. Under this circumstance, the absolute error is small, because the section perpendicular to the dip is nearly the same in all portions of the ship. So that the error is small in the circumstance in which its relative effect is great. On this account it is doubtless a good thing when most wanted' GA gives his breakdown of the 'facts' concerning the theory of humming tops.

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].

Greenwich - RA offers her condolences on the death of Cordelia Whewell.

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.

Greenwich - Thanks WW for 'writing yourself to give us the intelligence about our boy which has been very delightful to us. His success was perfectly unexpected by us' [Wilfred Airy gaining a Trinity Scholarship].

Greenwich - RA and George Airy were sorry they missed WW and EA in Spain [to witness the total eclipse]: 'I never before saw a country so uncivilized and so deficient'.

Devonshire Rd, Portland Place - Babbage received WW's thirty guineas and has paid 31 for his fees at the Royal Society. Three members of the Astronomical Society have donated 100 guineas toward the Cambridge Observatory (50 came from William Pearson). 'Sir J. B [Joseph Banks] is about to resign and has recommended Davies Gilbert. But all sorts of plans speculations and schemes are afloat, and all sorts of people proper and improper are penetrated with the desire of wielding the sceptre of science. Whether this elective throne shall be filled by a philosopher or peer a priest or prince is a problem pendent on the fortuitous course of events. The Society is in a position of unstable equilibrium or rather it is like a comet which has not made up its mind whether it shall soberly circulate round the light of truth or traverse boundless space through endless time frying and damning the predestined infidels of other systems until some starry giant shall fascinate to its destruction this erring ball which has "run a muck" through creation'.

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'.

Philadelphia - ADB is happy to contribute as best he can to the materials WW seeks for his book. He has made copies of the tracts on tides which accompanied WW's note, and intends to distribute copies 'to those who may aid by furnishing observations upon the plan which has been sketched'. ADB may be able to get the various tide observations 'kept irregularly and at different times, at places on the Atlantic coast of the United States'. Some of the gentlemen of the military service as well as men of science 'may be willing to observe systematically'.

Philadelphia - Letter of introduction for the Rev. President Wayland [Francis Wayland] of Brown University - who is visiting Europe 'for the examination of institutions for Collegiate education, with a view to the improvement of our own establishments of a similar grade'.

Washington - WW's letter of May 5 has arrived: 'When I received your former note on the subject of the tides I wrote at once to correct your misapprehension in reference to tidal observations in connection with the U.S. Coast Survey. I infer from your present note that my letter was not received'. ADB has done all he can to ensure his observations are valuable since taking charge of the Coast Survey in 1844: 'If I have not done all that was desirable I have done all that was then possible, and I appeal distinctly from the verdict which you have presumed without knowledge of the facts of the case, as to the tidal observations being without value!'

Foreign Office - JB has enclosed a letter [no longer attached] from a 'Mr. Morin who is described to me as being engaged in making astronomical experiments, in Paris; from whence it has been sent to me together with many others of the like import for the "Directeurs des Observatories" at Gibraltar the Cape of Good Hope & Port Jackson'. JB does not know who the astronomer is that the letter is addressed to - does JL?

Peckham, Surrey - Thanks WW for £2.2.D 'to be redeemed by copies of my Hermesianax. JB describes his printing difficulties and his weak financial position. He gives a brief outline of the origin of WW's name: 'which is a very rare one, & mispronounced by all South-county men. It is a corruption of WHEELFELL, a place between the rivers North Tyne & Read'.

Trin: Coll: - Gives his 'critical' comments of WW's treatise on dynamics. He considers WW's enunciation of the laws of motion 'very far preferable to any other that I have seen'. GA emphasises the importance of attaching the same meaning to the word: 'It matters not whether there is at all such a thing as velocity in the world, provided we mathematicians know what we mean by it, and always attach the same meaning to the word. This latter is essential to logical reasoning: and in a science which is not founded on hypothesis but on experiments it is of the greatest consequence that the same word shall signify the same thing in the reports of the experiments and in the mathematical properties founded on them'. Drawing upon Atwood's machine and the philosophy of Locke, GA gives his definition of velocity: 'It is measured by causing the weights (as far as is in our power) to combine during a unit of time in the same rate of motion or at the time for which we desire to find the velocity, and the space thus described is called the velocity. To me the limit of ds/dt is rather difficult to get, but I find no difficulty in conceiving a body to continue to move with the same degree of motion which it has at any time (This perhaps appears absurd - but Locke says that we can comprehend relations between two things without having a clear idea of either)'. GA gives various mathematical corrections to WW's work: 'when I see Mr Whewell led astray in the use of the differential calculus by obscure principles and a bad notation I cannot help wishing that better were substituted'.

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'.

New Peckham, Surrey - WW holds the power with regard to settling JB's dire financial difficulties: 'The Assistant Master of the Perse School (formerly a pupil of mine) informs me that the money intended by Lord Monteagle for the redemption of the moiety of the pension which I hold from the Perse trust is in your hands'. JB would be forever grateful if WW could settle the matter.

New Peckham, Surrey - JB is grateful to BC for seeing WW on the subject of his pension [see JB to WW, 26 June 1843]. Although he has not yet had a reply from WW to his note outlining the problem, 'it is quite clear from your letter that, with his usual ability & decision, he has already removed the main obstacle'. JB gives an account of his financial difficulties. The Press Syndicate have granted £100 to go towards the printing of the second part of his Greek Comic Fragments [Analecta Graeca Minora ... Novam ed. Homer's Iliadis...instrux it, 1843]. He has been unable to complete this work because all his books are at the pawnbroker's.

Islington, London - Sends WW a specimen of his proposed new translation - 'Martial Fragment of Tyrtaeus' [enclosed] - 'to be published as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers to the little work shall have been obtained'. Can he add WW's name? JWB announces the declining health of his father.

37 Tavistock Place - Would WW restate the formula he suggested 'for determining the specific gravity (reduced to a vacuum) of hollow bodies, not hermetically sealed'. FB has received a letter from Frederick Bessel in response to FB's 'remarks on his experiments with hollow cylinders (not hermetically sealed) which has rather staggered me; & makes me fear that I may myself be in error'. Although FB's 'case is not exactly the case in point: but is, in fact, one still more erroneous: - at least in my opinion'. Could WW give his opinion [an extract of FB's letter to MB is enclosed].

37 Tavistock Place - When FB last saw WW, 'I think you said that Pontécoulant had verified the result of Prof. Airy's computations, relative to the correction for the long inequality of Venus'. In FB's Address to George Airy on delivering him the Medal [Astronomical Society], FB alludes 'to the calculation &c, & that few persons would be likely to repeat the process'. Does WW see any objections in noting Pontécoulant's verification in the printed version of his Address?

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'.