Samuel Morison Brown to Faraday   23 December 1842¹

Dr Faraday

Dear Sir,

I take the liberty of addressing you by letter, though myself in London, on account of having found you to[o] inaccessible on the occasion of my former visit to the Metropolis.

You perhaps remember that in a memoir, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society², I asserted the isomersism of Carbon and silicon. My experiments have been almost universally rejected; although no man, who has approved Himself competent to criticise a Discoverer by Himself discovering anything, has yet repeated my process. Meantime I have scrutinised my old work, and once more assert my proposition. I have made out a crucial experiment. I came to London the other day, backed by an urgent letter from my honoured friend Professor Christison³ of Edinburgh, to lay the request for permission to perform the process in his presence before Professor Daniell. He has just refused us on the plea of one 'needing all one's spare time for private researches' as well as 'requiring Christmas relaxation'. In these circumstances I with much diffidence solicit you to give me at least an opportunity of vindicating the Royal Society of Edinburgh and my own name. Are you willing to witness an attempt on my part to transmute carbon into silicon before you on the simple condition of giving me a written testimonial, to be used as the Edinburgh Royal Society thinks fit, if you be satisfied? If this were a mere personal favour, I should deem myself too forward I confess.. But it is surely either a matter of the very highest moment to the science You have cultivated with so much devotion, or nothing. My belief that it is the former is my best and only apology. The possibility of the alternative will have some weight with you. Expecting an answer to this anxious application at your earliest convenience,

I am, Sir, | Yours most respectfully; | Samuel Morison Brown.

23rd Decr. 1842 | 3 Dartmouth Row - Blackheath.