Cambridge <1>
Janry 4th 1821
Dear Trevelyan,
I am going to take my degree in a few days, so after the 20th direct to me at No 31 Sackville St. <2> I take in the Edinburgh Journal but have not yet seen the last number. – I think it excellently well conducted, more so than any other I know of. I see Dr Thomson <3> has resigned his annals of philosophy to other hands. I never liked them much. I saw the Eclipse of the Sun at Boulogne in France. We had a very fine day: and during the height of the eclipse the sky was without a cloud in any quarter. The gloom was very considerable, and had something unnatural in it, in the midst of a cloudless sunshine. Within doors it was extremely gloomy – The shadows had a very peculiar & striking appearance; I noticed it, but do not remember ever to have heard it remarked before, except in your letter. However it is obvious that if a luminary whose apparent diameter is very small, Venus for instance, were bright enough to cast a shadow, the shadow would be perfectly well defined, and without any penumbra. And it would be nearly the same thing in a total eclipse of the Sun, just before the Sun disappeared. The day had been sultry, and the cold during the eclipse was remarkable, the thermometer placed in the sunshine sunk no less than twenty-five degrees, from 99º to 74º – I could look on the Sun without any inconvenience at the time – with a telescope we saw the lower limb of the Moon to be rough with mountains, but this I suppose may be seen in any eclipse. We saw the planet Venus very plain, to the right of the Sun, and lower down, but no other star. I was curious to know what sort of day it was elsewhere, and I found by the newspapers that at Edinburgh the observation was totally prevented by thick clouds – In Yorkshire & Somersetshire the observation was very bad – At Cambridge & London and most parts of France it was a very fine day If you are fond of astronomy I advise you to b[ecome]<4> a member of the New London Astronomical Soc[iety.]<5> We are going to build an observatory at Cambridge, the instruments are ordered. I am going to Paris at Easter, & thence to Switzerland, perhaps for some time. Have you any thoughts of a similar tour? Sir R. Vyvyan <6> is gone a long tour I believe, do you know where Neill Malcolm <7> is? – Is not Hooker <8> professor at Glasgow now? do you know him?
Believe me Yours ever sincerely
W.H.F. Talbot
W. C. Trevelyan Esqr
Post Office
Edinburgh
Notes:
1. Trinity College, Cambridge.
2. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
3. Thomas Thomson, Annals of Philosophy, first published in 1814. [See Doc. No: 00780].
4. Text torn away under seal.
5. Astronomical Society of London (later Royal Astronomical Society), London.
6. Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 8th Bart (1800-1879), Tory MP, FRS.
7. See Doc. No: 00889. Neill Malcolm, 13th Laird of Poltalloch (1797-1857), Scottish politician, merchant and landowner. Vyvyan and Malcolm were with WHFT and Trevelyan at Harrow School. They both went to Christchurch College, Oxford.
8. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865), Prof & botanist.