Item 42 - James David Forbes to William Whewell

Edinburgh - JDF has received both WW's mechanics and moral philosophy [An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, 6th edn., 1841 and Two Introductory Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1841]. JDF has been reading Sewell's [William Sewell] Christian Morals: 'a very different sort of work - yet one which notwithstanding his ultra views on the church question in which I little if at all sympathize with him, and certain Germanesque mystical analogies near the close, has afforded me matter for useful thought beyond any book I have lately read'. JDF will not make the BAAS meeting at Plymouth. He wants to take another view of the French volcanoes and then join Agassiz [Louis Agassiz] and visit the glaciers. JDF thinks he has 'come to some understanding about the queer planes of polarization of the sky which I will send you a little notice of soon'. He has been examining George Peacock's 'most comprehensive Reforms. The note about private Tutors I presume you agree with'. JDF and his sister are going to move actually into town. Kelland [Philip Kelland] 'has been going on with his wave investigations (I mean water in canals) which seem to afford good results'. JDF has been constructing 'a kind of inverted Pendulum for measuring Earthquake shocks'.