Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   5 March 1846

R. Institution | 5 March 1846

My dear Schoenbein

Excuse my sending you a very short letter but I am just now burdened with business & thought & my head often aches. I received your letter¹ the day before yesterday and sent it at once with the specimens to Mr. Dickenson one of our largest paper makers (whom I slightly know) and desired him if the result interested him to communicate at once with you. Of course I have not as yet had time to hear any thing if he should think of writing to me.

I did not examine your paper but sent it off at once. It reminded me of some that I had seen some years ago in which the paper had been passed through a clean infusion of tannin & so had its gelatine size converted into leather. That process at one time looked very promising & I do not know why it was not pursued except it was because soon after gelatine was to a great extent dismissed as the sizing material & resin & oil in the form of soap decomposed by alum substituted for it.

I should be glad to send you a copy of my last papers² but our Royal Society is very slow & I see many descriptions of results obtained in France Italy & elsewhere all of which are in my papers of last year, but which have been reobtained by those who have worked on the notices³[.]

I am also puzzled about the best way of sending them to you with certainty.

Our best thanks & remembrances to Mrs. Schoenbein & her flock[.]

Ever Yours | M. Faraday

Address: Dr. Schoenbein | &c &c &c | University | Basle | on the Rhine