Description

Description: In this two page autograph letter signed (Aug 21, 1858), the eminent physicist and mathematician G.G. Stokes asks the editor, George Busk, of Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science to sample Mr. Bowerbank’s (naturalist and paleontologist) corrections and send his approval before Stokes can send it to the press:

“I am writing to Mr. White [zoologist Alfred White] requesting him to send you Mr. Bowerbank’s paper. Mr B. has returned it altered, but before sending it to the press I think it safe [?] to send it to you for your approval. I don’t suppose you need trouble yourself to read it all: a specimen will suffice to show the character of the alterations. The paper has been noted to be printed subject to alteration as recommended.

Please when you have done with it to [sic] return the paper either to the R. S. [Royal Society] or to the printer’s and to write me a line to Cambridge to say if you are satisfied.” Signed, G. G. Stokes.

Written on a 7” x 4 ½” sheet of black bordered stationery from Leisfield Cottage, Cambridge.  Item #A01823

Sir George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) was a conservative physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge (1848-1903) and  President of the Royal Society of Arts (1855-1890). He made significant contributions to the fields of optics (polarization, fluorescence, etc,) and hydrodynamics (law of viscosity, etc.).  To the field of mathematics, he gave the Stokes theorem or the curl theorem and with Felix Hoppe-Seyler demonstrated the oxygen transport function of hemoglobin.

George Busk (1807-1886) was a naval surgeon, zoologist and paleontologist.  He edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (1853-68) and the Natural History Review (1861-65). He was responsible for bringing the second Neanderthal (adult) skull to England from Gibraltar.

Condition: Mailing folds, otherwise very good condition.