Correspondence of John Tyndall – serie

The 230 letters in this inaugural volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall chart Tyndall's emergence into early adulthood, spanning from his arrival in Youghal in May 1840 as a civil assistant with just a year's experience working on the Irish Ordnance Survey to his pseudonymous authorship of an open letter to the prime minister, Robert Peel, protesting the pay and conditions on the English Survey in August 1843. The letters, which include Tyndall's earliest extant correspondence, encompass some of the most significant events of the early 1840s. Tyndall's correspondents also discuss their experiences of British military expansion in India and economic migration to North America, among other topics. The letters show the development of many of the traits and talents, both mathematical and literary, that would subsequently make Tyndall one of most prominent men of science in Victorian Britain. They also afford broader insights into a period of almost unprecedented social upheaval and cultural and technological change that ultimately shaped Tyndall's development into adulthood.

The 161 letters in this volume encompass a period of dramatic change for the young John Tyndall, who would become one of Victorian Britain's most famous physicists. They begin in September 1843, in the midst of a fiery public conflict with the Ordnance Survey of England, and end in December 1849 with him as a doctoral student of mathematics and experimental science at the University of Marburg, Germany. In between, Tyndall was fired from his position in the Ordnance Survey, worked as a railway surveyor at the height of British railway mania, read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and Lord Byron, taught mathematics, and seriously contemplated emigration to the thriving new city of Cincinnati, Ohio. He began lasting friendships with Thomas Archer Hirst and Edward Frankland, who, along with Tyndall, would eventually become influential figures in nineteenth-century science. The letters also allude to some of the most important events of the 1840s. Documenting a period of political agitation, professional uncertainty, and personal transformation, this volume traces the events that led to Tyndall's decision to devote himself to natural philosophy.

As this volume begins, John Tyndall was a PhD student living in Marburg. He was unknown, almost broke, and working himself to the brink of mental and physical exhaustion in his determination to forge a reputation in science. In the period covered by this volume, he completed his degree, published his first scientific papers, became a regular participant in the British Association meetings, established friendships with leading men of science in Berlin and London, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and applied for, but failed to obtain, various scientific positions. As the volume ends, he was preparing his first lecture to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the catalyst for a profound transition in his life. Taken together, the 305 letters herein offer a behind-the-scenes view of nineteenth-century publishing processes, the practices and challenges of diamagnetic research, the application procedures for university positions, the use of patronage in establishing a scientific career, and the often anxious and weary-worn personality of Tyndall, the ambitious protagonist.

The 329 letters in this volume represent a period of immense transition in John Tyndall's life. A noticeable spike in his extant correspondence during the early 1850s is linked to his expanding international network, growing reputation as a leading scientific figure in Britain and abroad, and his employment at the Royal Institution. By December 1854, Tyndall had firmly established himself as a significant man of science, complete with an influential position at the center of the British scientific establishment.Tyndall's letters throughout the period covered by this volume provide great insight into how he navigated a complicated course that led him into the upper echelons of the Victorian scientific world. And yet, while Tyndall was no longer as anxious about his scientific future as he was in previous volumes of his correspondence, these letters show a man struggling to come to terms with his newfound status, a struggle that was often reflected in his obsession with maintaining an "inflexible integrity" that guided his actions and deeds.

This volume contains 266 letters covering a period of twenty-two months, when Tyndall was in his midthirties and had been employed by the Royal Institution as professor of natural philosophysince September 1853. Many of the letters printed here concern the lectures he delivered at the RI and other institutions and his attempt to establish his reputation as a researcher. Although he published in several other areas—including the cleavage of rocks, colorblindness, and glaciers—the main focus of his research was the newly discovered and problematic phenomenon of diamagnetism. Tyndall reported his experimental results and theoretical views on this subject in several lectures and papers that greatly enhanced his scientific standing, which was further extended by his contact with other scientists, not only in London but across the British Isles and in France and Germany. By the end of this period, Tyndall was a man of science with a European reputation that was recognized in November 1856 when the Royal Society elected him a member of its Council.

This sixth volume of Tyndall's correspondence contains 302 letters covering a period of twenty-eight months (1856-1859). It begins shortly after Tyndall returned from his first glacier research in the Alps and follows him as he experimented and lectured on physics in central London at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), visited friends, joined London’s fashionable social circles, published and reviewed scientific articles, corresponded with fellow men of science on a wide range of topics, and developed his theories about the structure and movement of glaciers. Importantly, volume 6 includes Tyndall’s major expeditions to the Alps and also documents some of his most dangerous mountaineering exploits. In letters to his closest friends, Tyndall captured the excitement and achievement of his expeditions. By the end of the period, his is increasingly respected as a scientist in the wider academic world.

The 308 letters in this volume cover a critical period in Tyndall’s personal and scientific lives. The volume begins with the difficult ending of his relationship with the Drummond family, disputes about his work in glaciology, and his early seminal work on the absorption of radiant heat by gases. It ends with the start of his championship of Julius Robert Mayer’s work on the mechanical equivalent of heat. In between, Tyndall carefully establishes his own priority for his work on radiant heat, and he accepts the position of professor of physics at the Government School of Mines. The lure of the Alps also becomes ever stronger. In this period comes perhaps Tyndall’s greatest mountaineering achievement, the first ascent of the Weisshorn, and a remarkable winter visit to Chamonix and the Mer de Glace. As his reputation grows, Tyndall continues to make his way in society. He is elected to the elite Athenaeum Club on January 31, 1860.

The 318 letters in this volume reveal a great deal about Tyndall’s personality, the development of his career, and his role in attempting to better establish science as a respectable and professional enterprise. However, Tyndall was not above controversy, and on more than one occasion he entered public disputes either in defense of his own or a colleagues’ priority claims over scientific discoveries. Perhaps the most dramatic letters—if not those detailing the accounts of his cousin Hector Tyndale’s courageous exploits in the American Civil War—are those relating to Tyndall’s mountaineering adventures. He climbed in pursuit of science, and often with only a guide, making an attempt on the Matterhorn just days after Edward Whymper had failed in the effort. Toward the end of this volume, Tyndall, Thomas Henry Huxley, and others acquired the Reader. Although short-lived, the journal intended to promote and publish the works, society meetings, and correspondence of scientific men, and demonstrates Tyndall’s commitment to the popularization of science and to facilitating communication within the international scientific community.

The eleventh volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall covers the period from January 1869 to the end of February 1871 and contains 427 letters with more than 130 individual correspondents, as well as letters to several newspapers. These years find Tyndall an internationally established scientist with broad influence and feeling increasingly confident in that role. They were highly productive research years, and Tyndall had a wide scope of interests, publishing in scientific journals, popular magazines, and newspapers on a variety of topics, including diamagnetism, germ theory, comets, and atmospheric phenomena. The results of this research were presented in numerous papers and lectures in various venues and complemented by his regular public lecture series and annual Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution.

The twelfth volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall contains 326 letters and covers the fifteen months of Tyndall’s life from March 1871 through May 1872, a time when he was a central figure in the field and had a substantial reputation in both the UK and the United States. It begins just before the publication of Fragments of Science in April and Hours of Exercise in May. It includes a number of small but public disputes about science, most notably the start of a controversy about Kew Gardens involving botanist Joseph Hooker. Tyndall was visited by friends and dignitaries; he traveled to Switzerland, Ireland, and the countryside for scrambles; and he began planning a trip to the United States. He dealt with issues concerning his family in Ireland, which were troublesome for him. He was busy administering the Royal Institution and the Royal Society; he was also working as the scientific consultant to Trinity House, which was involved in overseeing lighthouses in the United Kingdom, of which Ireland was a part at this time. Unlike other volumes, this one is not defined as much by one or two major endeavors or events for Tyndall, but instead includes a number of smaller projects as well as personal and professional issues.