| Description | Family transcription of Sir John Herschel's original diary. The volume describes Herschel's scientific and social life, with meteorological and a few astronomical observations. The diary commences with visitors to Collingwood and Herschel stating that 'the true meaning of Carrington's law of Sunspot rotation ocurred to me'. By 24 January Herschel notes that he 'is in a hornet's nest with the Weather Prophets'. He works on sunspots into February. He declines to lease 'Herschels' to [Felix Frederick] Taylor having read of his conduct at the Central Criminal Court libel trial of the Rev Thomas Richardson Birch. Herschel sends a pair of his binocular magnifying glasses to Smith & Best on 9 February and instructions on how to make them. He attends the British Association committee on changes to weights and measures in London, before travelling to Greenwich, where [George Biddell] Airy shows him the observatory's 'new magnetic cellar'. On his return to Collingwood he sends off a paper on sunspots on 24 February. He records William James Herschel proposal to Emma Hardcastle on 2 March [and their later marriage, 19 May]. The next day, 'Sent back Mrs Cameron's Photographs, corrected Proof of 'Sun Spots'. Following various health problems, Herschel records deafness in his left ear, in addition to the right, so that he cannot follow a conversation. On April 14, Herschel dispatches the first 25 pages of 'Sidereal mensuration' to Strachan, following up with the manuscript of 'Celestial measurings and weights' on 25 April. He notes a night dose of 30 drops of laudanum and 25 of chlorodyne on 30 April and takes laudanum into June of the year and again in September-October. He visits James Nasmyth at Penshurst on 25 May, commenting on Nasmyth's telescopes, then William Wells's home of Redleaf, 'full of capital pictures', by Landseer, Turner, Reynolds, Wilkie and Murillo. On 11 July he sends proofs for his nebulae paper to [William] Lassell and on 22 July corrected revisions for his catalogue of nebulae to [Urbain] Le Verrier. Copies of the catalogue are distributed on 30 August On the morning of 1 October, the house is shaken by what Herschel later learns is the explosion of gunpowder magazines at Erith. On 12 October, 'Letter from Sir Turbulent Smallman who is reviving the old Royal Society row of 1826 - vide "Infantine Society" ' and Herschel replies [to Charles Babbage?] on 14 October. He projects [James] Glaisher's first balloon ascent on 18 October and works in earnest on his Iliad translation, partly to stave off attacks of 'the brown creatures', recurring brochial problems.. He receives the Russian translation of 'Outlines of Astronomy' on 28 November. On 20 December 'the post brought a letter from Babbage about that dirty business between him & Sir Humphry Davy - necessitating my writing about it which I hoped to have avoided. Never say that wounded vanity to a little mind is not a motive power of a high order...to afford the world a miserable spectacle of a man unable to contain his spite & rage when the object of it is dead & buried...' He follows this up with a letter to the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine on 22 December. The year concludes with Herschel completing the 'dreary' book 13 of the Iliad - 'nothing exalted'.
With a note on the cover page '1864.' |