Item 123 - James David Forbes to William Whewell

7 pp

Edinburgh - JDF is interested in what WW has to say regarding Barrow [Barrow and his Academical Times, 1859]. He is sorry to hear of Robert L. Ellis's very ill state. Is it true that Adams [Couch Adams] has accepted the mathematical chair at St. Andrews? There is endless talk on the improvement of the British universities and JDF thinks they 'may be materially improved; but the misfortune is that those who combine to make a clamour have few ideas in the least in common...I do not think however that the worst of us would do anything more ridiculous than Oxford has done with her associates'. Can WW advise him what to do regarding John Tyndall's 'papers which profess to rectify my theories about glaciers. I am not disposed now-a-days to enter into controversy if I can help it...and there is an especial difficulty in this case that Tyndall has gradually paved away so much of what was definitely controvertible in his earlier papers that one does not know where to hold him, the differences become so fine'. JDF would not therefore worry, but 'On the other hand I have been informed that he makes a considerable impression in London and that his repeated returns to the subject, and my silence, create an impression that he has obtained a victory'. Could WW find out what the prevalent opinion is?.