94 General Monthly Meeting. [April 4, 



GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, 



Monday, April 4, 1887. 



His Grace The Duke of Northumberland, E.G. D.C.L. LL.D. 



President, in tlie Chair. 



The Managers reported, That at their Meeting on the 7th of 

 March last the following letter from Dr. Tyndall to the Honorary 

 Secretary was read : — 



Hind Head, Haslemeke. 

 My dear Sir Frederick Bramwell, '^'^'■^''' ^'''' ^^^''^ 



The yeai''s holiday so graciously and considerately granted me by the 

 Managers will come to an end next month ; and it therefore behoves me to state 

 without further delay, for the information of the Managers, how matters stand 

 with me. 



A brief conversation with my friend Sir Frederick Pollock, and my own re- 

 flections thereupon, have convinced me that, instead of making a statement 

 myself at the Board Meeting on Monday, it will be more expedient to embody 

 what I have to say in a letter to you. 



For more than one-third of a century it has been my privilege to enjoy the 

 unfailing sympathy and encouragement of the Managers and Members of the 

 Royal Institution. It is now my duty to return to their hands the trust which 

 they first committed to me in the spring of 1853. I have come to this resolution 

 on account of the need I feel of thorough rest, and of freedom from engagements, 

 as to lecturing, the non-fulfilment of which W'Ould be detrimental to the Institu- 

 tion, and a cause of sore distress to myself. 



Worries connected with building, and other worries inimical to quietude of 

 brain, have for the last few years troubled me much. These are now, for the most 

 part, tilings of the past, so that the freedom I seek will, I doubt not, soon restore 

 me to good health. 



I returned from Switzerland in October so refreshed and invigorated that I 

 hoped to be able to cope successfully with all the duties then before me. I had 

 assured myself of the friendly aid of Mr. Crookes, and had even arranged to go to 

 Paris to purchase some instruments necessary for my contemplated work. To 

 the end of the year my health continued strong. Then came a long-continued 

 spell of withering easterly winds, which chilled me, dried me up, and brought on 

 an attack of sleeplessness, intense while it lasted, but which, happily, has iu great 

 part disappeared with its cause. 



Of my ultimate and complete recovery I entertain little doubt. Still it would 

 be obviously unfair to the Members, as it would be intolerable to myself, to allow 

 the fortunes of our great Institution to depend in any degree upon such caprices 

 of health. It is therefore my desire to make room for a successor whose years 

 and vigour will place him beyond all changes and chances of this kind. 



Of the feelings called forth by my separation from the Royal Institution I have 

 said nothing. But the Managers will understand that my silence in this res- 

 pect is due, not to the absence of such feelings, but only to the conviction that on 

 the present occasion the less said about them the better. 



Believe me, 



Most faithfully yours, 



John Tyndall. 



