Faraday to Thomas Romney Robinson   24 May 18451

Royal Institution | 24 May

My dear friend

As to the Gas lights I conclude you are thinking of that form in which (as at page 3 of the inclosed) there is no ascending tube from the top of the burner. The form at p2 is the first which we had at the Athenaeum2 & is that which the Trinity House are about to apply to all their lamps in lighthouses & its action is perfect & effects in these cases admirable. The form page 2 is no[w] in use at the Athenaeum & at Buckingham Palace3 & elsewhere & in these cases answers thoroughly but I would not advise you to set it up in your house at Armagh before you have seen it here for there are so many peculiar draughts in houses & indeed in every separate house that without my brothers4 experience & judgement I should fear sending one to any situation[.] You are I doubt not aware that after the first principles of action were arranged I turned all over to him5 & his friends & have nothing to do with it either in a pecuniary or other point of view than to wish it well: I therefore relieved my mind from thinking about it and really do not know the minute points of arrangement & efficacy. However see it in action first[.]

About the Zinc - to obtain pure zinc is difficult but if you amalgamate common zinc you make it better as an electrometer than pure zinc acting on it with dilute Sulphuric acid see Par 8636 of my Exp Researches series VII &c & for the mode of amalgamation & other circumstances[.]

With respect to your query about danger from surfaces of carbon in hydrochloric acid & chlorate of potassa I do not see any risk of explosion[.] It is perhaps just possible that condensed Euchlorine might form under some rare circumstances but I do not think it at all probably [sic] & would not let it deter me a moment from the pursuit of any thought[.]

Pray had you any share in the discovery of the monster skeleton in one of the Valleys of the Moon by Lord Rosse's telescope?

Ever My dear Sir | Most truly Yours | M. Faraday

Dr. Robinson | &c &c &c

1
Dated on the basis that Lord Rosse's 72 inch telescope had just come into use.
2
Cowell (1975), 24-5 notes that Faraday's improved gas lighting ventilation apparatus was installed in the Athenaeum in 1844.
3
See Times,27 July 1846, p.5, col.a.
4
Robert Faraday.
6
Faraday (1834b), ERE7, 863.

Bibliography

COWELL, Frank Richard (1975): The Athenaeum: Club and Social Life in London 1824-1974, London.

FARADAY, Michael (1834b): “Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Seventh Series. On Electro-chemical Decomposition,continued. On the absolute quantity of Electricity associated with the particles or atoms of Matter”, Phil. Trans., 124: 77-122.

Please cite as “Faraday1735,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1735