Humphry Davy to Faraday   16 November 1819

Dear Mr Faraday,

I have neither received the letter addressed to me at Gorizia nor the packet sent to Florence. I hope to find both at Naples where we are going in a few days. Could you have left the Royal Institution for a few months or a year & have been secure of returning to your situation I should have strongly recommended to you the employment at Naples. This indeed is still open for the person I have engaged as an operator is merely hired by the month. When I have seen my way a little as to the time the MSS operations will demand I will write to you; but I hope to return early in the spring; for what can be done by chemical means will soon be accomplished.

I will beg you to be so good as to send the letters inclosed with this by the twopenny or general post according to their directions.

Lord Spencer¹ is here & is just going on to Naples. I believe we have Managers of the RI here sufficient to form a committee.

Be so good as to say to Mr Brande that I have received his letter & that I do not consider myself as adopting the opinion of Berzelius in regarding silica as acting the part of an acid. I think Mr Smithson² is the first person who made this statement & long before Berzelius I pointed out the analogies between the silica & Boracic bases. Whatever perfectly neutralizes an alkali may be regarded as possessing the opposite chemical powers; but the term acid applies to physical properties such as sour &c & I certainly never meant to attribute any acid qualities to silica but merely to express that it acted the part of an acid in producing solution of an oxide &c. As I have nothing scientific to write I will not trouble Mr Brande with a letter; but I beg you will present my best regards.

Pray be so good as to enquire if my copies of the Phil: Trans. have been sent to Mr Gay Lussac - if they have not & the cause is that my annual contributions have not been paid, I will in my next letter give an order for this.

Pray address to me Post restante Naples.

Be so good as not to take any letters or papers touching any unknown worlds or any idle speculations. You did perfectly right with respect to the American.

I am Dear Mr Faraday | your sincere wellwisher | & friend H. Davy

Rome Novr 16 | 1819

Address: For | Mr. Faraday

Endorsed: Received Jany 13th / 20