Faraday to John Millington   15 July and 14 August 1833

15 July 1833 | 14 Dundas Street | Edinburgh

My dear Sir

It is with great pleasure I write in reply to yours of the 29th May 18331, which I received by Dr Harland [sic] at the Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science at Cambridge the week preceding that in which I set off for this part of Great Britain2. It gave me & many at the association amongst them Mr. Guillemard3 great pleasure to hear from you & to know that you were well & prosperous. As to Dr Harland [sic] I saw him only at the moment when he gave me this letter and in consequence of the crowd & hustle in Cambridge did not meet him again. Indeed every place was full & it was with some little difficulty I could keep along with those friends who with myself had made a point of continuing together4. The meeting itself went off exceedingly well & the different Colleges behaved with the utmost liberality & hospitality to us[.]

You must remember us kindly to Mrs Millington5 & to those of your family who are with you. I would mention them by name but am sorry to say my memory of names & many other things is failing me fast[.]

I hear a little of you from Mr. Christie occasionally and when I have occasion to send will according to your letter apply to him[.] But with regard to the Rhodium of which you want a thin slip 4 or 5 inches long & 1/8 of an inch in width it is not to be had[.] In the first place Rhodium is a scarce metal and in the next it is not malleable & cannot be brought into the form you mention. I at one time suspected you might have mistaken palladium for Rhodium for the former is malleable but then it is soft whilst Rhodium is very hard it is easily attacked by acids whilst Rhodium is almost unaffected by it. Palladium I think can be obtained now from Johnson6 of Hatton Garden if that be the metal you require for he separates much of it from the South American Gold & is anxious to find a good market for it but I do not see any very important use for which it will serve that will obtain for it a market price of 20/- per ounce as he imagines[.]

I expect to be in London in 5 or 6 weeks and will then get the Palladium if that be the substance you wish for.

I am Dear Sir | Most Truly Yours | M. Faraday

John Millington Esq


Aug 14th 1833, London

My dear Sir

This letter has been returned to me because my messenger forgot to pay postage. I therefore seal it up again & with every good wish to you dispatch it once more[.]

Very Truly Yours | M. Faraday


Endorsement: recd 24th Oct 1833

Address: John Millington Esq | 187 South Third Street | Philadelphia | U.S.

Not found.
The British Association met from Monday 24 June to Friday 28 June 1833. Rep.Brit.Ass., 1833, ix, xxvii.
John Lewis Guillemard (1764-1844, Lyons (1940)). Secretary of the Royal Institution, 1811-1813 and 1824-1826.
"The British Association", Lit.Gaz., 6 July 1833, p.417 which implied that these friends were John Martin (1789- 1854, DNB, historical and landscape painter), William Wyon, Charles Wheatstone and William Hallowes Miller (1801-1880, DSB, Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge, 1832-1870) who acted as host at St John's College. They were referred to as "The Miller and his Men".
Emily Millington, née Hamilton (d. c1833, see DAB under John Millington and letter 708).
Percival Norton Johnson (1793-1866, B2). Assayer and metallurgist.

Bibliography

LYONS, H.G. (1940): “John Lewis Guillemard (1764-1844)”, Notes Rec. Roy. Soc. Lond., 3: 95-6.

Please cite as “Faraday0671,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0671