Rome Feb 18 1819
I have received all the letters & packets you mention in your last letter thermometers included. I returned about a fortnight ago from Naples where I made as many expts as I thought necessary on the MSS & with perfect success & I have since tried others on fragments that I brought with me here. I find that by raising to heat very slowly ie taking 5 or 6 hours to raise it to 600°ft the separation of the leaves is effected without any fracture or injury to the MSS. In the brown MSS a low atmosphere of Chlorine seems to assist the effect of heat. Of course I mention this in confidence to you & I wish for the present to have every thing relating to the nature of the process kept a secret. I have sent a report on the state on the MSS to our government with a plan for the undertaking of unrolling. One part of the plan is to employ a chemist for the purpose at Naples. Should they consent I hope I shall have to make a proposition to you on the subject but say nothing of this for the present for it must depend upon the disposition of His R H the Prince Regent to order the funds to be advanced1.
Be so good as to make my best remembrances to Mr Brande & my best compts to Sir E Home2. I have received only one short note from Mr Brande since I have been abroad & I have written to him three times. If the proteosaurus have not yet arrived, I think it would be worth while for Sir Everard to write a line to Mr Stanley3 British Consul at Trieste to whose care I consigned them who gave me the name of the Capt & the Vessel & whom I paid for the transport4.
I will thank you to ask Mr Brande if Sir Jos: Banks has received a paper on Mist which I sent for the Royal Society & whether it has been read or not5. I will trouble you likewise to ask Mr D Moore when you see him at the Institution if he received a letter from me & if he can answer it? & read him these lines “Suppose the Annuitant disposed to continue if not of course be contented with a lower rate 7 instead of 9. I always wished the money to be [word illegible] rather than the annuity redeemable”.
I will trouble you likewise to order from Mr Bowness6 for me “four dozen of [word illegible] pale [2 words illegible] & [word illegible] flies with pale bodies & two dozen of [word illegible] brown flies [word illegible] & a Trout line (fine) of 20 yards or 25 yards & send them to me in the next packet you get franked by Mr Hamilton7. I shall return to Naples in April; & I hope to be at Florence late in May & I should wish the flies sent to Florence; as I shall not want them here. I shall however be obliged to you if you will give me a few lines here, as I shall not leave Rome till the 10 of April.
Has Mr Fincher given you for me a policy of insurance? Pray remember me to him.
I have very little to say on matters of Science. M. Sementini8 has applied silver instead of platinum to the lamp without flame but it chrystalizes & soon becomes brittle9. I am making some expts on the radiation of heat which seem to promise interesting results but they can not yet mature.
As soon as I saw Thenards first paper I said to Dr Morichini10 All this [word illegible] of hyperoxygenised acids will turn out to be the simple but curious fact of the oxygenation of water11. I am glad to have been right. I will thank you to put this letter into the post & pay for it if necessary for my Brother. Any money in letters that you may lay out for me my Bankers will repay.
I am Dear Mr Faraday | your sincere friend & well wisher | H. Davy
Address: Mr Faraday | Royal Institution | Albemarle Street | London | Angleterre
DAVY, Humphry (1819a): “Some observations on the formation of Mists in particular situations”, Phil. Trans., 109: 123-31.
DAVY, Humphry (1821b): “Some Observations and Experiments on the Papyri found in the ruins of Herculaneum”, Phil. Trans., 111: 191-208.
DAVY, Humphry (1825): On the Safety Lamp for Preventing Explosions in Mines, Houses Lighted By Gas, Spirit Warehouses, or Magazines in Ships, &c. with some Researches on Flame, London.
HOME, Everard (1819): “Reasons for giving the name Proteo-Saurus to the fossil skeleton which has been described”, Phil. Trans., 109: 212-6.
Please cite as “Faraday0095,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0095