Letter from Charles S. Peirce to Julius E. Hilgard
(Paris, 25.06.1880)



 
Spanish translation & annotations

 

Care Messrs. John Munroe & Co.
7 Rue Scribe, Paris

Paris
June 25, 1880

Prof. J. E. Hilgard
Asst. in charge

Dear Sir,

I have received your two letters of the 8th & 11st inst. and the twenty odd copies of my two papers in the Math. Jour. and the voucher blanks. The last thing before I sailed I received on board ship a letter from the office saying that these papers had not been received and could not be sent therefore hearing no more, I had no reason to suspect where they were. I thank you for sending these few; they are very welcome. It is a pity someone didn’t think of sending direct to the steamer at the pier & directing the others to be forwarded. However, I don't wish to complain.

When I carried your steel pieces to the


bureau at Sèvres, M. Pernet (Broch wasn't there) wanted to know if they were tempered. Of course, I didn’t know. I am going out there again before long, & will take out Dr. Clark’s memorandum.

Mr. Chapman you know will not work in summer & should not be urged to do so, if one want him to last. It seems to me speculum metal is excessively brittle to be used for plugs. Still if properly & well executed I see no objection to the plan.

I am pretty sure that your comparator will be found ill-adapted to comparing decimeters, because you need a high power and a short focus, and the movement will not be precise enough. On the other hand my apparatus compares decimeters to perfection, but is inapplicable to a meter scale of decimeters on account of having no proper arrangement for supporting the meter without flexure. I will enclose some results of our comparisons to show these two facts.

 

It appears to me then that the best way would be to construct a new apparatus on my principle.

I want Mr. Chapman to make a few more comparisons of gitters[?] on the apparatus as it is. I have the gitters[?] with me now, but he would not do anything this summer & it is hard to induce him to work with my apparatus; it is so fatiguing, a point which might perhaps receive consideration in making another.

I am now engaged with the measures made on the apparatus & continue to be satisfied with the way they bear all sorts of criticism. It is the way of comparing short lengths.

Yours very faithfully,

C. S. Peirce
Assist.


P. S. I wish you would kindly have any glass meter scale of decimeters, Nº 1, compared with a known meter at 70º-75º E. Because unsatisfactory as the comparisons were this will probably give a better decimeter than we have as yet. I want the numbers to use in my forthcoming paper.

 


Transcription by de Sara Barrena (2018)
Una de las ventajas de los textos en formato electrónico respecto de los textos impresos es que pueden corregirse con gran facilidad mediante la colaboración activa de los lectores que adviertan erratas, errores o simplemente mejores transcripciones. En este sentido agradeceríamos que se enviaran todas las sugerencias y correcciones a sbarrena@unav.es
Proyecto de investigación "The Cosmopolitan Peirce: Cartas de C. S. Peirce en su cuarto viaje europeo (abril-agosto 1880)"

Fecha del documento: 17 de septiembre 2018
Última actualización: 20 de septiembre 2018

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