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- 5 Feb. 1845 (Creation)
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5 pp
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Edinburgh - JDF is very pleased with WW's published letter on the glacier question [see JDF to WW, 8 Jan. 1845]: 'the observations are excellent and I think unanswerable'. He received a 'pretty rude shock from looking over Hopkins's voluminous paper', in which he has developed a 'set of truths stolen from me which he formerly utterly repudiated, and yet professes to find them as mere corollaries from or [un]important concomitants of, his x and y process'. JDF brings other aspects of Hopkins's argument to WW's attention which he feels are suspect and injurious to his reputation: 'may I hope that you will again put in a word in my defence...a competent judge like yourself would not only set me straight with a majority, but would act as an antidote abroad, where Hopkins's pretended demonstrations will be received as law by those ill disposed to me already, and unable to either understand or refute anything expressed in mathematical language'.