Faraday to Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert   18 October 1821¹

Royal Institution | Octr. 18th. 1821

Sir

I beg to acknowledge the honor of your letter² which I received by the hands of Mr. Kohn³ and which I consider as a flattering mark of your good opinion. Mr. Kohn having just returned from Scotland to this town I am anxious to take the opportunity which he offers me of conveying a letter and my acknowledgements to you[.]

That you should think our experiments on steel worth translation is a proof that they are not valueless which I prize as much as any one I have yet received for the merit and value of your Annals is well known here. I am sorry you should have cause to complain of any neglect towards them but I assure you I am not in fault for I have equal cause with yourself. They contain the valuable science of a large portion of the scientific world which I continually regret is shut out from me for I do not understand German and I can get no one here to give me an account of what is in them and with regard to the Quarterly Journal of Science &c I have so little to do with it that you must not put any neglect which may seem to appear in it to my charge for except the Miscellanea and those articles which have my name to them I do nothing in it and know not how it is arranged.

Mr Phillips and myself do ourselves the honor of sending for your acceptance a joint paper on the third chloride of carbon⁴. I regret I have not a copy of my paper on the two first to send with it⁵[.] I however beg leave to enclose a copy of a paper on electro-magnetism containing an experimental demonstration of some new magnetical motions⁶. The rotations form very beautiful experiments and I find that instead of the rather complicated mode of suspension I have described in the paper that simple hanging by a hook is sufficient if the wires be bright. In this way I have made the apparatus so small as to be hermetically enclosed in a small piece of glass tube about an inch and a half long and one third of an inch in diameter, and so sensible as to act by a single pair of small plates. In place too of the magnet I use a piece of soft-iron-wire and make the inner end either north or south at pleasure by the application of a north or south magnetic pole to the external end.

Trusting that science will still continue to advance with its accustomed speed in Germany and that I may become able to follow its progress and trusting also that the Annals will become more and more renowned under the guidance of their director I have the honor to sign myself - Sir

Your obliged and very humble servant | M. Faraday

Address: Dr. Gilbert | Professor | &c &c | Leipzig