Item 78 - Letter from Richard Sheepshanks

4 pp.

Thanks WW for the University information. RS has put pressure on Troughton and Simms to send the 'top' as soon as possible. An update on RS's horse riding lessons. He ought to find a way of repaying the £100 he owes WW. RS 'had got a clumsy scheme in my head of supporting an invariable pendulum not by knife edges but upon a well ground steel cylinder said cylinder resting upon capital friction wheels...I am however inclined to suspect that the work of such friction wheels would be very expensive and their action a little uncertain'. A pendulum 'with a spring and with the clips invariably united to the spring would be more invariable than knife edges and Troughton [Edward Troughton] says that is the way he always asserted the experiment should be made'.