TALBOT1452

Ans^d from Montpellier Sept. 17. 1826 ¹

Marquis of Lansdown’s ² Villa
Richmond Hill,
July 1826

Dear Sir,

I thank you for the trouble you took in forwarding my paper to D^r Brewster. ³ I never received any answer from Fraunhofer ⁴ respecting the your commission, which I attribute to his declining health. I have no doubt you are acquainted with his death, which is an incalculable loss to science. I am afraid his beautiful & valuable apparatus will fall into the hands of person unacquainted with the use of it. His method of making Flint Glass will be lost to the world as I am told it depended chiefly on his personal attention to the process as it went on & that the fumes of the lead were highly pernicious to his health. I saw your friend Amici ⁵ the other day, he is coming to London with a new invention which he expects will make a great sensation, he shewed it to me but I am not to divulge it. I hear your experiments on flint glass are more successful which I hope is the case. I received a letter from you at Florence the other day; when I was there I took a lesson from Pons ⁶ in the art of discovering comets; he shewed me the “comet of Taurus” on its return from the Southern Hemisphere, and I admired the dexterity with which he found it with a telescope unfurnished with any divided circles.

I remain Dear Sir Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot