2026-10-08 Royal Society Publishing (Notes and Records), royalsocietypublishing.org

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Query: Google "Tyndall correspondence project letters radiant heat gases 1859 Magnus" led to: Roland Jackson, 'Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and a question of priority', Notes Rec. 74 (2020) 105-118, doi 10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066, online 13 Feb 2019. [web] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066

Findings: - Abstract: "In 1856, an American woman, Eunice Foote, discovered the absorption of thermal radiation by carbon dioxide and water vapour. That was three years before John Tyndall ... Tyndall did not reference Foote's work." (Jackson's characterization; the paper goes on to analyse whether Tyndall knew of it.) - "Tyndall made his initial discovery of the absorption of radiant heat by gases on 18 May 1859, after only a few days' work" (note 17: Tyndall Journal, 18 May 1859, RI MS JT/2/13/1158). He announced it to the RS and at the RI, and in Cosmos, Il Nuovo Cimento and the Bibliotheque Universelle; "It was only in the last of those that he specifically mentioned his discovery of the absorption of heat by water vapour and carbon dioxide. He made no mention of the climate." Full experiments came "later in 1860" and the Bakerian Lecture early 1861. - Conclusion: "several people, as far apart as New York, London and Berlin, were exploring the possible interaction of radiant heat with gases" ("simultaneous discovery"). - Note 41: R. Franz, 'Ueber die Diathermanitat einiger Gasarten und gefarbten Flussigkeiten', Annln Phys. Chem. 94 (1855) 337-356 (an earlier gas-diathermancy study). Note 42: Stokes to Tyndall 7 May 1861 (RI MS JT/1/S/221) and Tyndall to Stokes 14 May 1861 (RI MS JT/1/T/1432) on this.

Bearing: claims 1 and 2 (dates and priority; Tyndall's 1859 announcement did not mention climate; the climate argument came 1861-1865). Priority 3 related work: Foote 1856 (sunlight heating of gas-filled cylinders), Franz 1855. Interested-party note: Tyndall's own priority statements in Heat are his; Jackson is a Tyndall biographer (no commercial stake).