William Daniel Conybeare to Faraday   1 December 1845¹

Axminster Dec 1

My dear Mr. Farraday

You must allow me to offer my most sincere congratulations on the late discovery by which you have brought light into connection with the true polar forces of Electro magnetism; I am persuaded that this is as yet only the first opening of a new series of discoveries by which you will throw fresh light on these mysterious & etherial parts of nature, & their relations - when I read of such discoveries I am always reminded of a passage which used to delight me as a boy in Robertsons² America³ where he quotes a letter from one scholar to another writing on the subject of Columbus⁴ & his new found World, in which he says, "These are the news which indeed interest minds like ours"⁵ - & although I can pretend to little else, yet in the gratification I derive from the progress of science, I believe I yield to few. I only as yet know your late discovery from a slight notice in the newspapers⁶ but even this is sufficient to shew me its importance, & how much it is likely to add of fresh distinction to a name already so much the first in these branches of science[.] In reflecting on what I read, the idea occurred to me, whether there may not be a connection between this new fact & the polarizing powers exercised by crystalline minerals on light - because your introduction of the electro magnetic current appears simply to produce a partial rotation in these powers - may not therefore the original polarizing powers of crystals likewise in some manner themselves be the result of electromagnetic currents. Crystalline aggregation itself appears clearly a form of attraction following polar laws - & I have always believed it to be closely allied to the only polar force of which we know any thing definitely, namely Electro magnetism. In the tourmaline when warmed we all know that the opposite mineral poles assume an opposite polar electricity. I do wish in your interrogation of nature, you would ask a few questions of all sorts of crystals.

Querie also, might we not hope in Light to detect some manifestation of elect[r]ical powers if we were to bring into contact two rays of oppositely polarized light, & to find those powers manifested at the point & at the moment when they were brought into union. Of course the idea suggests itself to me from the analogy of the development of Electricity at the moment of the completion of the magnetic circle - has any question to this effect ever been asked of nature[.] I know you are very impertinent in pressing her with home interrogations - believe me my dear sir

With much esteem & respect yours | W.D. Conybeare