Faraday to Royal Society   4 April 1843

The paper¹ generally does not carry conviction to my mind as to the point with which it sets out & terminates: that metals when reduced by electrolysis from aqueous metallic solutions are always reduced by the hydrogen previously evolved. I held that opinion formerly of some metallic solutions & hold it still of them under certain circumstances: and my present impression is that facts do not bear us out in asserting that the metals are always set free in one particular way but that on the contrary the variation of the substances present; their quantity, & other considerations must always be taken jointly into consideration, the final effect being a resultant of the whole.

I say thus much for the purpose of adding that I do not perceive any thing in the present paper which at all alters that opinion. The gas experiments from <(9)> onwards (as we know by Grove's beautiful Gas battery²) may be quoted both ways one <(22)> is against the direct reduction by hydrogen & for that by a Voltaic circle.

The tone of the paper is too absolute: for after all what can any man say but that he has a certain opinion; - admitting at the same time that he may be wrong - for who is not liable to be wrong in a debatable matter[.]

I can only say in conclusion that if I were the writer of the paper the experiments would not be satisfactory to me. M.F.

4 April | 1843

Private for Committee only

Endorsed: Private. Report on Smee's paper. M.F. on Mr Smee's³ paper <(367)> "On the cause of the reduction of Metals from Solutions of their Salts by the Voltaic Circuit["]. 4th April 1843.