Humphry Davy to Faraday   3 August 1815

At Lord Somervilles¹ | Melrose Aug 3 | 1815

I shall be much obliged to you if you will put the little light single barrelled gun which I begged you to keep in your room into some common canvass & send it addressed to the right Honble Lord Somerville near Melrose to be left at Selkirk, N. Britain. It may be sent by the Selkirk coach or mail which ever you may think best; it should be entered as sent on the books in the coach office & 2d paid for entry. If the lock of the case is not good the case may be nailed down. I am sorry to give you this trouble; but my friend Lord Somerville has had an accident which renders his arm so weak that he cannot use a common gun & I think this little gun will enable him to shoot.

I received all the things you were so good as to send me.

You will find in the Phil. Magazine I think for July in the account of the Trans: of the Royal Society an account of a new acid said to be discovered by Mr Donovan² & which he calls the sorbic acid made from the ripe berries of the mountain ash³. I wish you would repeat his process[.] From some few experiments I made at Northampton on the unripe berries of the mountain ash, I suspect that his new acid is only pure malic acid. You will find ripe berries of the mountain ash in Kensington Garden I believe. Pray make an investigation of this subject. I think you are a better chemist than Mr Donovan & if no new result should result from the investigation it will at least enable you to procure pure malic acid a substance the properties of which are little known, for future expts.

I beg you will be so good as to inform me by what coach you send the gun: address it not to me but to Lord Somerville.

The address should be very legible & in duplicate

I am always | Your very sincere wellwisher | H. Davy

Mr Faraday | At the Royal Institution | 21 Albemarle Street | London