Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Meteorology, Aeronautics, Heat, Instruments, Measurement, Observation, Science Communication, Narcotics, Psychology

    Describes a recent party in which 'the well-known and justly celebrated aeronauts' James Glaisher and Henry T Coxwell were among the guests. Explains how Glaisher felt the 'urgent necessity of communicating to the world at large [...] the interesting discoveries that had been that day made', and presents Glaisher's 'Sitific Count', evidently written under the influence of alcohol, of his fabulous observations. These include Glaisher's claim that 'the weight of the water on Mr. Coxwell's cubic foot was affected by the Sun's ray', that 'a Blackened Bulb Thermometer' was caught 'reading with its rays and blacking the eye of the sun', and that 'Professor Tindall' (a reference to John Tyndall) 'filled with two bags of air, was washing the blackened bulb'.