Experimental essays / by Charles Tomlinson.

  • Tomlinson, Charles, 1808-1897.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental essays / by Charles Tomlinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ignorant that bodies on the surface of the earth becom much colder than the air in a clear night; this being one o the principal facts on which my theory of dew is built.” 50. We must here remark, that although Prevost was igno rant of this important fact, it had been made sufficiently cleai by Patrick Wilson (17, &c.) and Six (35), with whose experi ments Dr. Wells was acquainted. He states, however, tha when he wrote his Essay he had not read the explanation o Prevost’s experiments in Dr. Young’s works. He read th( fifty-first lecture and the sixtieth, but not the intermediate one which contained the explanation in question. He con- sulted Dr. Young’s work in a public library, and was ir haste ; and as he found no reference under Dew in the index he searched no farther. He admits Dr. Young’s conjecture a to the true explanation of Prevost’s window experiments t< be original. “ It was most happy too, since, if admitted U be just, it completely accounted for several important cir- ^ cumstances in M. Prevost’s experiments. If then, its learner ^ and ingenious author had established its truth by facts clearh ^ seen by himself, and had afterwards pursued the subject o ^ dew through its various ramifications by means of the clu< '] which would have been thus obtained, he must soon havr “j acquired a knowledge of the theory which has lately beei ( :oi but soon found that I had greatly miscalculated the time which it woul< !Vj employ me. I determined, however, to proceed, from the nature steadiness of my disposition, which would never allow me to abandon an; pursuit that I had seriously undertaken. I soon found that I wa altogether unequal to it; for each night’s labour fatigued me so mucl free that I could not undertake a second for several days after. In the mean jDf;, time, my ankles began to swell in the evening, which I regarded as : mark of general weakness. At length I became so infirm, about the en> of 1813, that I was absolutely obliged to give up any further visits to th country. “ In the beginning of 1814, a considerable snow having fallen, I eoul not resist the temptation of going for several evenings to Lincoln’s In Fields, during a very severe frost, in order to repeat and extend some o Mr. Wilson’s experiments on snow. I soon, however, was obliged t desist.” His symptoms became so alarming, that his friend, Dr. Lister thought he could not survive more than a few months. He says,—' set about immediately composing my Essay on Dew, as my papers con, taining the facts on which my theory was founded would, after my deatf be altogether unintelligible to any person who should look into then I laboured in consequence for several months with the greatest eagernes and assiduity, fancying that every page I wrote was something gaine from oblivion.”