Faraday to Percy Drummond   21 January 1830

Royal Institution | January 21st. 1830

Dr Sir

I have drawn up and now send you a list of apparatus which I think it is advisable to have for the Woolwich Lectures[.] I have put nothing in which I have thought not really necessary except two or three things which I have marked by a note of interrogation and amongst these the air pump. I do not recollect whether there is one in the Academy and I could do without it. Indeed I have one of my own which I could use at Woolwich for my purposes.

I have put prices in pencil that I might know what the whole expence was likely to be the prices being those which we pay at this Institution to Newman our instmt maker.

I have kept down the expence as much as possible and think it so moderate that if I were about to establish a clear and useful course of Chemical lectures, I should go to this first expence convinced that it would be far more economical than allowing the larger current expences which would occur if all things had to be purchased when they were wanted.

You will observe that this list does not contain any estimate for Chemical substances; I must make them a separate consideration. In fact there are a good number already at Woolwich which we are still engaged in examining and arranging. Many of them however are in bottles so small that it seems a mockery almost to pretend to shew them at the distance at which the pupils are placed from the table and the great expence as to chemical preparations will be in the purchase of stopperd bottles fit to contain them. I believe that £ 50 or £ 60 would put the [blank in MS] of preparations in a very respectable state¹.

I do not know who is your tradesman for Chemical preparations and instruments and it is of no consequence to me except that if the apparatus &c is ordered, I should be glad to have a supervision of them before they are sent home that they may be in their nature as well as their name what are required, i.e effectual and durable apparatus at a moderate price. The general tendency to manufacture things cheap instead of good has as much influence in chemical apparatus as in cloathing [sic] and is ultimately found to be uneconomical.

I wished to have been at the Academy on Friday next i.e tomorrow but cannot anymore leave the Royal Institution at the end of the week. I enclose a note therefore to Mr. Marsh appointing Tuesday next at 1 o’clock for another examination of the bottles.

I am Dr Sir | Very Faithfully Yours | Signed M. Faraday

Col Drummond | &c &c &c