Record

RefNoHS/16/352
LevelItem
TitleLetter, from Sir John Herschel to Mary Somerville, dated at Collingwood
CreatorJohn Frederick William Herschel
Date2 November 1845
DescriptionAutograph letter signed by sender. On recto, John Frederick William Herschel discusses Mary Somerville's experiments on actinochemistry (photography), sent to him on 20 September 1845. He sees prospects in the field and encourages her to continue her work. John Frederick William Herschel describes a clockwork to be attached to a "prismatic apparatus" which would improve the performance of the experiments. He takes the liberty of sending her experiments to the Secretary of the Royal Society, after consultation with Mr Greig [Mary Somerville's son, Woronzow Greig], to be published in the Philosophical Transactions in the form of "an extract of a letter" to John Frederick William Herschel. Confident of her results and that they will lead to a "vast field of curious and beautiful research". Recently attended a meeting on continental magnetism and meteorology. Comments on Humboldt' s book "Cosmos'(Vol. I)".
On verso, correspondence from Margaret Brodie Herschel on family matters.
[Contains an illustration: drawing of prismatic apparatus and clock movement]
LanguageEnglish
Extent3pp
FormatManuscript
Place originCollingwood, Hawkhurst, Kent
Origin coordinates51.035306, 0.513556
AccessStatusOpen
RelatedMaterialHS/22/254
RelatedRecordHS/22/254
URLDescriptionAlso available on Epsilon
URLhttps://epsilon.ac.uk/view/herschel/letters/Herschel2661
Fellows associated with this archive
CodePersonNameDates
NA8238Herschel; Sir; John Frederick William (1792 - 1871); astronomer1792 - 1871
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