TALBOT3677

My Dear Sir

I ought to have thanked you long ago for the very beautiful drawings ¹ which you sent me of the optical phenomena exhibited by the circular crystals ² of Borax and Phosphoric Acid; and I am doubly indebted to you for the kindness with which you have overlooked this apparent negligence and again written me.

Having been appointed Principal of the United College ³ of S^t Andrews, I have been resident there since February and my time much occupied with the many unimportant concerns which a change of position creates. Excepting delivering a few Lectures on the Double Refraction & Polarisation of light, I have been able to do nothing of a scientific nature all winter.

I was surprised by your saying that the Coloured drawings of which you sent me specimens were too expensive. Perhaps it would not be necessary to make them so minutely accurate, as the general character of the phenomenon is all that is required; & from my experience of these matters, I should be disposed to think that they could be executed at a moderate price.– The custom is to get one copy done by the author or the artist and to have all the rest copied from it by Women or girls who are employed for such purposes. – If this were done by estimate I have no doubt that it would be done cheaply.

I heard lately a very singular account of the Patients of a German Doctor who is now in London employing Animal Magnetism ⁴ as a Remedy; but I did not expect that the subject would excite such notice as to come under discussion of the Royal Society. ⁵ I should like much to hear from you if any specific facts are clearly established; for the facts always seemed to me to be of the same ambiguous character as phrenological ones ⁶ – a sort of cross between conjecture and observation.

If you should happen to meet with M^r Dollond ⁷ at the R. Society, you would oblige me by urging him in your capacity of a Councillor of the R.S. to complete the Telescope which he undertook. The Brit. Association ⁸ has put at my disposal a handsome sum for Exp^ts on the action of Gases &c and M^r Dollond had done nothing so far as I know to the apparatus which I wanted for this purpose. I have for three months nearly had the benefit of a Sea Horizon for my observations, and have thus been able to do nothing whatever.

I am glad to see that Sir John Herschel ⁹ has returned safely. He must be richly laden with nebulæ, and clusters of stars, & binary systems, and worlds on the anvil and in their dotage, and I long to hear some news of his most interesting discoveries.

I am My Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster

Rankeilor Hope ¹⁰
May 23^d 1838

P.S. Be so good as to address to me as usual at Allerly where I shall be in ten days.