[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],
Title
[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],
Creator
Date
Identifier
GFF 20/8
Description
Handwritten letter from Thomas R. Lyle, Christchurch New Zealand, to George F. Fitzgerald, dated 24 January 1891. Lyle details of a meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advocacy of Science which he attended and presided over a section of. 2pp.
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald,
I have been over here for the last ten days at the meeting of the Australasian Ass. for the Adv. of Science. We have had considering all the circumstances a most successful meeting. It is very far for the Australian people to come still a good number came over. I was President of Section A and send you a newspaper which contains a rough abstract of my address. I had been vert busy all year and when the holidays came on I got inflammation of the bowels and had a very bad time of it for about a week. So the preparing of my address was put off until the last minute.
I first got read a paper on magnetic induction but thinking that too stiff for a popular address I wrote a jumble of facts which as it turned out suited remarkably well. A good audience came to hear it and I am very glad that I changed the subject to something easy.
In our section there was not much of importance. Prof. Bragg. of Adelaide sent a paper on the Elastic [?] method of treating Electrostatic theorems. It was a very good one. He starts with Oliver Lodge's conception of the ether and deduces very simply all the electrostatic formulae. Threlfall sent a lot of notes about various things the most interesting being on some experiment about the diffusion of gas & [?] on the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
He says that the law will require to be further amended by another saving clause .a. if you have two [?] of O & H say at the same temp. a cylinder with piston, the end of the cylinder being porous and if you move the cylinder from O to H & back again in succession work will be obtained until the two gases become thoroughly mixed, His saving clause is that the substances considered must be both physically and chemically homogenous.
We got a great lot of the other matter some of which I had to reject and in consequence I have almost required [?] protection. Old fashioned facts from amateur scientific lunatics. That everything almost in the world, storms, disease, etc, can easily be foretold by observing the spots on the sun. That the law of quantatation is all wrong. A complete and perfect theory of cosmic evolution etc etc. -
The other sections were very well attended and everyone seems to be satisfied with the meeting.
With kind regards,
Yours very sincerely,
Thomas R. Lyle
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald,
I have been over here for the last ten days at the meeting of the Australasian Ass. for the Adv. of Science. We have had considering all the circumstances a most successful meeting. It is very far for the Australian people to come still a good number came over. I was President of Section A and send you a newspaper which contains a rough abstract of my address. I had been vert busy all year and when the holidays came on I got inflammation of the bowels and had a very bad time of it for about a week. So the preparing of my address was put off until the last minute.
I first got read a paper on magnetic induction but thinking that too stiff for a popular address I wrote a jumble of facts which as it turned out suited remarkably well. A good audience came to hear it and I am very glad that I changed the subject to something easy.
In our section there was not much of importance. Prof. Bragg. of Adelaide sent a paper on the Elastic [?] method of treating Electrostatic theorems. It was a very good one. He starts with Oliver Lodge's conception of the ether and deduces very simply all the electrostatic formulae. Threlfall sent a lot of notes about various things the most interesting being on some experiment about the diffusion of gas & [?] on the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
He says that the law will require to be further amended by another saving clause .a. if you have two [?] of O & H say at the same temp. a cylinder with piston, the end of the cylinder being porous and if you move the cylinder from O to H & back again in succession work will be obtained until the two gases become thoroughly mixed, His saving clause is that the substances considered must be both physically and chemically homogenous.
We got a great lot of the other matter some of which I had to reject and in consequence I have almost required [?] protection. Old fashioned facts from amateur scientific lunatics. That everything almost in the world, storms, disease, etc, can easily be foretold by observing the spots on the sun. That the law of quantatation is all wrong. A complete and perfect theory of cosmic evolution etc etc. -
The other sections were very well attended and everyone seems to be satisfied with the meeting.
With kind regards,
Yours very sincerely,
Thomas R. Lyle
Source
RDS Library & Archive GFF collection of letters
Contributor
Rights
Copyright RDS Library & Archives. Publication, transmission or display is prohibited without formal written approval of the RDS Library & Archives.
Relation
RDS Science Archive
Format
Manuscript
Language
English
Type
Coverage
1870-1901
Collection
Citation
Lyle, Thomas R. 1860-1944, “[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],,” RDS Digital Archive, accessed July 14, 2025, https://digitalarchive.rds.ie/items/show/1396.