Robert Brown to Faraday   1 May 1846

British Museum | May 1st, 46

My Dear Sir

I hope this note, on Sir Stratford Canning's1 Manna2 though of small importance may reach you in time for this evening's lecture3.

It is certainly from structure, as you inferr'd from chemical evidence a Lichen, but that Linnean Genus is now considered as a Family subdivided into numerous Genera & to which of these it belongs I am unable to determine all the specimens that I have seen being without fruitification.

In general appearance & ramification it approaches to a South African species of Stereocaulon though certainly not identical & it may be not even a congener.

Yours My Dear Sir | most truly | Robt Brown

Mich Faraday Esq | &c &c

1
Stratford Canning (1786-1880, DNB). British ambassador at Constantinople, 1842-1846.
2
See Exodus 16: 15. Also mounted in RI MS F1 I10 is a note, dated 9 March 1846, on manna, possibly in Canning's hand, which describes its origins and use.
3
At the end of the Friday Evening Discourse given by Robert Willis on 1 May 1846 "On the gradual development of the plan of a medieval church, considered historically", Faraday described the substance mentioned in this letter. It had come from a famine strickened area of Anatolia where it was used as food. See Lit.Gaz., 9 May 1846, p.428.

Please cite as “Faraday1869,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1869