TALBOT4366

Dear Sir,

I beg leave to introduce to you my Friend Major Playfair, ¹ about whose Daguerreotype & Talbotype ² labours I have so often written you.

He will be much gratified by seeing your manipulations and Instru-[ments]³ tho’ I fear you may not have your Apparatus in Sackville Street. ⁴

I had three hours hard work last night in re-examining the flames of Nitre deflagrated upon burning coals. ⁵ I observed again the double lines at A and B and the Group at á; but saw none corresponding with C. There were three yellow lines on the Green side of the Double yellow line D, and three beautiful Green lines which perhaps are the same as those which you observed in the Red Fire ⁶ of the Theatres. If they are the same this observation proves that there must be Nitre in the Composition.

I will thank you to let me know in which manner you burn the Nitre with the Sulphur as mentioned in your Paper as mentioned in the Ed. Journ. ⁷ N^o IX p. 80.

The other lines in the Red Fire are doubtless, as you suppose, the Strontia ones between C and D, and the Nitre one, which I have found to consist of A á and B.

I am Dear Sir Ever Most Truly y^rs
D Brewster

S^t Leonards
S^t Andrews
Nov^r 14^th 1841

H. F. Talbot Esq^r