29 Devonshire St | Queen Sq | Oct 27 / 45
My dear Faraday
Some time since Old Mordan2 told me that you had analysed some fine sample of Cumberland lead for him will you do me the great kindness to let me know the result if you kept a mem of your analysis[.] The production of very pure plumbago is now so perfectly under command that I can furnish Mordan & the world with the black shanks with the requisite hardness for any and all varieties of pencils & thus have superceded the use of asphaltum employed to harden the finest native lead3. I am now making a quantity for him[.] You shall have some samples this season.
Yours faithfully | W. Brockedon
Dr Faraday | &c &c &c
PETROSKI, Henry (1989): The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, New York.
Please cite as “Faraday1777,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1777