Faraday to Richard Phillips   30 May 1820

May 30th Tuesday. In White cross Street.

Operated with Boiler No. 1. The same used as before[.] Took out a bottle full of the oil and removed the short thermometer which was found safe and unbroken.- The man-hole and all other parts were close except the vent pipe of 2 feet in length.

Began to raise the heat in the boiler at.

diagram

Oil now boiling Tub filled with vapour in less that 15” and the flame when fired immense[.] After some trials in the tube the wood itself took fire and burnt - At the time when the small barrel was placed over the pipe and the vapour in it fired it inflamed a piece of paper just in the inside and even the wood itself[.]

The jet of flame from the end of the tube at last reached up to & played against the beam above1.

M. Faraday


Address: R. Phillips Esq | 9 Fenchurch Buildings | Fenchurch Street

Postmark: 26 June 1820

1
After losing in Severn and King v Imperial Insurance Company (see note 1, letter 110), Faraday and Phillips were gathering evidence for the defence in the case of Severn and King v Phoenix Insurance Company which lasted from 13 to 19 December 1820. Again the defendants lost. See Fullmer (1980).

Bibliography

FULLMER, June Z. (1980): “Technology, Chemistry, and the Law in Early 19th-Century England”, Tech. Cult., 21: 1-28.

Please cite as “Faraday0113,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 24 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0113