William Reid to Faraday   11 April 1835¹

Upper Terrace Hampstead 11 April 1835.

Dear Sir

I went to Woolwich and got specimens of the West India woods from the Carriage Department to see if I could find the brilliant particles which I mentioned in a paper which I handed to you in the lecture room², but I have failed to find them.

I have no hesitation about my accuracy excepting the single fact of their being collected by a magnet, which I only find stated once in the notes made in 1830.

If you look attentively at any piece of very stinking foreign woods which fall in your way you may meet with them: and I shall continue to look in the hope of some day meeting with them and being able to send them to you. I have sometimes owing to their very brilliant appearance picked them out of the wood with the point of a fine needle yet they were so small I could not easily see them but by their reflecting power. Looking at them with a magnifying power they seemed to be like infinitely thin little plates and from their resisting all my attempts at reduction I could not but draw comparison between them and Carbon in the state of Diamond; a suggestion made by Mr. Pouett³ to whom I mentioned the subject at the time.

I have been at several morning lectures and shall have been glad to have heard many more; but I am ordered on duty to Weedon in Northamptonshire where I shall be stationed and I go there on Monday. I may occasionally visit London for a day or two at distance and if you are lecturing at the time I shall beg the indulgence of coming<<.>>

Believe me Dear Sir | yours very truly | Wm: Reid

The officer who gave the wood in which I found the particles said that he could not tell whether they were pieces from Berbice⁴ (as I had asked him to procure), or whether they were from Africa.

Address: Dr. Faraday | Royal Institution | Albemarle Street