Gerard Moll to Faraday   11 March 1831

Utrecht 11 March 1831

My dear Sir!

With your very kind and obliging letter of the 1 instant, I received a copy of the No 2 of the Journal of the Royal Institution, although I had already received this number from the bookseller, this copy was not less acceptable as it will afford me an opportunity of making a present of it to a friend. The kind letter of the Managers of the Institution lays me under great obligations to them, and if this Mr Singer¹ who subscribed the letter, is that Mr Singer² who wrote a book on electricity and galvanism³, I ought to be grateful to him also for the very useful information which I derived from his writings.

I find in the same number some electro-magnetic experiments of mine, which I would very much like to have repeated by skilful hands⁴[.] Perhaps they might do well enough for an evening lecture in the Royal Institution, and I should be very happy to hear that they succeeded well. I mention the circumstance because I found many philosophers rather sceptical on the subject, and my old and excellent friend Van Marum⁵ was with great difficulty worked into persuasion when he had the evidence of his own senses. Many indeed did not succeed because the surface of their apparatus was either to[o] small, or the iron which they employed no sufficiently soft.

Allow me to point out some errors of the press in my paper on the invention of telescopes printed in the Journal of the R.I.⁶ They may be easily corrected in an erratum added to the following number. First, then Pierre Borel is not a native of Chartes as I, and not the printer, erroneously stated but of Castres in Languedoc. Thus p 230 line 4 from the underpart, stands Chartes read Castres.

⁷.

It is certainly not [to] be wondered that outlandish handwriting and hard names led the printer to some mistakes.

I [have] just finished a paper, which goes with the present, which, if it suits the purpose of the managers of the Institution is very much at their service. It goes on the comparison of the french Kilogramme and the British Troy, and some other weights⁸. It is very strange and vexing that after all what is done [sic] and has been written on the subject of weights and measures, we are still in the dark as to the real value of so important a weight as the french unit of the kilogramme. I, for one, do not know what it is.

I really do not recollect what I wrote you about the present state of Science in England, but certainly I do not think it all worth printing. Still I am not ashamed to own my opinions. The English have quite enough of their natural and foreign political and scientific enemies, without waging a civil-scientific war amongst themselves. I have not the slightest doubts but that the Counts, Marquesses and Barons of the french Institute will be highly amused in seeing some of the English Philosophers so overanxious to level to the ground the venerable fabric of the Royal Society in order to have it reconstructed in the more modern form of the french Institute. Still I am one of those who are of opinion that the experiment of such a radical reform as appears to be contemplated for the Royal Society will prove an utter failure. No foreigner and no person not belonging to the Society can judge, and perhaps ought to abstain from judging, of its internal management, but a neutral foreigner (if however such there be) who inquires impartially into the state of science in England and in other countries cannot help seeing with regret, Englishmen scoff and rail at things which ought to have been looked upon as the pride of their country. Mr Babbage, for example, is lost in admiration of the meeting of German Philosophers and Physicians, which he attended in Berlin, now two years ago⁹. No doubt many excellent persons are assembled on these occasions, and the pleasure of enjoying the company of so many eminent men must be exceedingly gratifying to any rational being. But if we come to consider the really scientific business which is transacted in those assemblies, if we are to separate the genuine corn from the chaff, we will find very little of the first and great abundance of the latter. I was present at the last meeting in Hamburg, and I must say that very often I was astonished at what I saw and heard. But I must not take up any more of your valuable time.