Faraday to John Frederick William Herschel   18 January 1840

Royal Institution | Jany 18 1840

My dear Sir John

It is fifty to one that you have tried so many varnishes1that any one I might speak of upon first thoughts, you by experience would condemn. The way in which I have seen some specimens of brass keep their polish & character when covered with good shell lac varnish makes me ask you whether you have tried that substance I mean a solution of shell lac in alcohol[.]

I should be afraid to say that the orange yellow deposit is an infallible test of cadmium2. I was once troubled with an appearance of that kind which turned out to be iron. I should think you could easily add on the corroborative tests of the character of the deposit in acid & of its relation to Sul Hydrogen[.]

Many thanks for your kind invitation which I should most gladly accept but that I never dine out on any occasion. I believe the last time I did do so was to dine with you at the Freemasons Hall & that was a solitary occasion3[.]

Ever My dear Sir John | Your obliged Servant | M. Faraday

1
For photographic purposes. See Schaaf (1992).
2
See Herschel's Chemical Notebook, SM MS 478/3, 13 January 1840, paragraph 1120 where he obtained an unidentified substance.
3
This was the dinner on 15 June 1838 given in honour of Herschel's return from South Africa. See Athenaeum, 16 June 1838, pp.423-7. Faraday's presence is noted on p.423. See also "The Herschel Dinner", Phil.Mag., 1838, 11: 75-7.

Bibliography

SCHAAF, Larry J. (1992): Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot, & the Invention of Photography, New Haven.

Please cite as “Faraday1234,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1234