James Prescott Joule to Faraday   28 May 1845¹

New Bailey St. Salford | May 28 1845

Dear Sir

I have enclosed a small Pamphlet containing the Paper which you perhaps recollect, was published in the Phil Mag about a year and a half ago². It appeared there in three separate parts. Will you favour me by accepting of it in an entire state? Since it was printed I have confirmed the results respecting the mechanical equivalent of heat in several ways; so that I now feel quite certain that the heat which can increase the temperature of a lb of water by a degree is equal to about 800 lbs raised a foot high.

Perhaps you may recollect that Mr Sturgeon³ came to Manchester a few years ago in order to superintend the "Victoria Gallery of Practical Science"[.] Owing to the pressure of the times that institution failed soon after its establishment. Mr Sturgeon from this event, and the expences he incurred in the publication of the "Annals of Electricity" which he was at length compelled to discontinue, has, you will be sorry to hear, been reduced to great poverty and has no means of supporting his family beyond the precarious proceeds of his lectures. You will be glad to hear that some of his friends in this town are trying to devise something for his support. It would indeed be a great pity if a man who like Sturgeon has under singular disadvantages done very much for the promotion of electrical and magnetical science should in old age be allowed to endure the privations of poverty. Perhaps when our designs are matured with respect to him you would feel disposed to give us a little assistance?

I remain dear Sir | Most Respectfully & Truly Yours | James P. Joule

M. Faraday Esq DCL &c