TALBOT3836

Dear Sir,

I beg to thank you for the beautiful Photograph ¹ you have been so kind as to send me. I would have returned sooner the other specimens, but Prof^r Forbes ² wrote me to beg that I would allow him to have a sight of them; and requested, if I could not use that freedom without your permission, that I would keep the specimens till he applied for your permission. – I did not hesitate to comply with his request, and after receiving them back I kept them for a few days to shew to our Literary & Philosophical Society ³ here who were much gratified with the sight of them.

I have been repeating your beautiful exp^ts on analytic crystals; and on circular crystallisations ⁴. – I find great difficulty, however, in getting the Spheres of Boracic acid by Crystallising it in Phosphoric acid. I will thank you to mention the way in which one might succeed.– I should have continued to make the attempt, had not a friend who saw Mr Nicol, ⁵ (Inventor of the Nicol’s Prism) learned from him that he had experienced the same difficulty, but had found a way of surmounting it.

Can you tell me the name of the opaque yellowish white crystals which crystallise circularly. I got a good specimen of them from M^r Children ⁶ when I was last in London, but I have left the label in Roxburghshire, ⁷ and cannot recollect the name.

I will thank you to let me know of any other discoveries in France respecting the Electric light.

Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster

S^t Leonards
S^t Andrews
March 14^th 1839