Item 23 - Letter from John Herschel

4 pp

Cape Town - JH and family have safely arrived at the Cape. Their female servant went mad on the trip and is now in a lunatic asylum. During the voyage JH kept a careful register of the temperature of the water: 'an extremely regular and steady rise from Lat. 20 N. to about the Equator'. He worked the actimometer when he could: 'in the open ocean in typical regions the sun's direct power is usually much greater than in England or the south of France on land at the hottest'. JH hopes to get WW tide results from Mauritius and Madagascar, and will 'make a point of furnishing you data from this place'. During the voyage JH caught quantities of luminous animals. Cape Town is an 'Earthly Paradise'. JH hopes to have his 20-foot reflecting telescope erected within a month. WW to tell [Charles] Lyell that JH 'read with the highest delight his 3rd Vol.' [Principles of Geology, Vol. 3, 1833].