Faraday to John S. Acton   6 January 18321

Royal Institution, Jan. 6, 1832

Sir,

I beg to thank you for your kind note & offer of assistance but I hope I shall give you little or no trouble2. I merely want to lay wires along the edge of the water immersing a metallic plate at each end in the water and do not think I shall want any help beyond my own man nor any apparatus but what he will carry from hence3. At the same time if there is a punt or boat already on the water it might be useful but if not no trouble need be taken in carrying one there.

I purpose making the experiments next Tuesday Morning4 but as my time is limited (I shall be lecturing to a chemical class until 10 o clk) I propose being at the water at 1/2 past 11 o clk. But I will previously send my man to your house on that morning to ascertain that it will not be inconvenient to you or any other person, and beg you will take no further trouble on my account than to tell him "all is right."

I am Sir | Your Obedient Servant | M. Faraday.

1
An official in Kensington Gardens. Mentioned in Faraday, Diary,10 January 1832, 1: 302.
2
Faraday had obtained the permission of the King, through the Duke of Sussex, to undertake experiments in the pond in Kensington Gardens. Faraday (1832b), ERE2, 184.
3
On 28 December 1831, Faraday had sought to find an electrical effect by laying two lengths (each of 120 feet) of copper and iron wire parallel along the Earth's magnetic meridian. Faraday, Diary, 1: 288-90. This failed and he tried a different version of this experiment at Kensington Pond on 10 January 1832. Faraday, Diary, 1: 293-302. Here he used water and about 600 feet of copper wire, but again produced no effect. Finally, on 12 and 13 January 1832, Faraday, Diary, 1: 311-7, he conducted the same experiment with 960 feet of copper wire, hung from Waterloo Bridge, but could obtain no satisfactory results. Both these public experiments were reported briefly in Lit.Gaz., 14 January 1832, p.26. Faraday reported these experiments in Faraday (1832b), ERE2, 183-90.
4
10 January 1832.

Bibliography

FARADAY, Michael (1832b): “The Bakerian Lecture. Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Second Series. Terrestrial Magneto-electric Induction. Force and Direction of Magneto-electric Induction generally”, Phil. Trans., 122: 163-94.

Please cite as “Faraday0526,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0526