Faraday to Richard Owen   13 December 1838

R Institution | 13 Dec 1838

My dear Sir

Many thanks for your kind note1 & for the corrections in Dr Davy's paper2. I had been puzzled by the use of zinc & copper but as in certain views of the pile they mean the reverse state to what they do in certain other views I was not quite sure whether they were right or no. The use of Positive & Negative makes all definite & clear[.]

I hope you are now quite well again3 - and I wish we had some good active enduring torpedoes to work with. I do think that you & I might make something out of them but I am afraid Gymnoti are not so good for us4[.]

Ever Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | M. Faraday

R Owen Esq | &c &c &c

2
Davy, J. (1832).
3
Following the death of Owen's mother on 24 November 1838. See Owen (1894), 1: 140-2.
4
Owen had worked with Faraday on Torpedoes at the Adelaide Gallery. Faraday (1839a), ERE15, 1754. See also Athenaeum, 27 October 1838, p.779 for an account of work done on 22 October 1838, and Faraday, Diary, 22 October 1838, 3: 5028-55.

Bibliography

DAVY, John (1832): “An Account of some Experiments and Observations on the Torpedo (Raia Torpedo, Linn.)”, Phil. Trans., 122: 259-78.

FARADAY, Michael (1839a): “Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Fifteenth Series. Notice of the character and direction of the electric force of the Gymnotus”, Phil. Trans., 129: 1-12.

OWEN, Richard (1894): The Life of Richard Owen, 2 volumes, London.

Please cite as “Faraday1124,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1124