Faraday to John William Lubbock   11 February 1835

Royal Institution | 11 Feby 1835

My dear Sir

I owe you many thanks for the trouble you have taken. I will set the matter right at your Bank within a few days[.]

You remember Mr. Bate said he knew of some errors in Gilpins1 tables2. Again in taking the differences of the series of numbers they come out very irregularly. These circumstances make me anxious that we should verify the tables in a very sufficient manner before we use them. For though I hope we may be able to find them sufficient for our purpose yet as intrusted with so important a matter as their application by Government to such general purposes we cannot relieve ourselves from a strict examination3[.]

There are also some investigations which must be made on the effect of time which will require the use of the same apparatus as that Mr Bate must employ in the examination. Finally I expect that the expence of verification can not be very great. It can only be a small part of that required to make a new set of experiments altogether[.]

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

1
George Gilpin (d.1810, Hall (1984), 224). Clerk to the Royal Society, 1785-1810. Anon (1940), 344.
2
Gilpin (1794).
3
This was related to the work of the Royal Society Excise Committee which existed from 1832 to 1836. The Committee was charged with helping to develop a method to ascertain the strength of spirits. In particular the Board of Excise desired that a hydrometer and appropriate tables for this purpose be made. Since the successful manufacturer of a suitable hydrometer would receive a lucrative contract from the Excise to make them, there were a number of instruments from different makers on offer. The Committee had to judge which was the most reliable and accurate. Faraday was a member of this Committee. He had already written one report for the Committee in February 1833 (RS MS MM 13.96). For the minutes of the Committee see RS MS CMB 67.

Bibliography

ANON (1940): The Record of the Royal Society of London, 4th edition, London.

GILPIN, George (1794): “Tables for reducing the Quantities by Weight, in any Mixture of pure Spirit and Water, to those by Measure; and for determining the Proportion, by Measure, of each of the two Substances in such Mixtures”, Phil. Trans., 84: 275-382.

HALL, Marie Boas (1984): All Scientists Now: The Royal Society in the nineteenth century, Cambridge.

Please cite as “Faraday0761,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0761