Identity area
Reference code
Add. MS a/207/12
Title
Letter from John Herschel
Date(s)
- 17 Aug. 1826 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
4 pp
Context area
Name of creator
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
JH's reasons for declining to become a candidate for the Lucasian Chair: He does 'not wish to devote myself exclusively or par excellence to any one branch of science - perhaps too a consciousness that I prefer physical to mathematical science'. Any science he does do 'I had rather should be considered as done an amateur than as a matter of duty and profession'. JH has written to [James] Wood to canvass for Babbage. JH has become 'an ultra-Huttonian in regard of long geological periods'.