Faraday to John Barlow   10 October 1848

R Institution | 10 Octr. 1848

My dear Barlow

I am ashamed that I did not write to you yesterday but experiment wiled away all the time1 that I was surprized out of the post hour[.]

I am ready for a Friday evening or at least shall be2[.] As to Airy3 & Whewell4 I have not attacked them yet. As respects Whewell I have waited a little for reasons which I will tell you when I see you, and which are not against but in favour of our desires. The Juveniles5 also I intend for but have had my thoughts taken off from them of late by another subject which I will also talk to you about.

fleurs d'a[i]rain must mean either the oxide or carbonate of copper (brass).

I send you two or three letters which in Mr. Vincents absence I have opened. I have not answered them thinking they might wait. I send them only for your amusement concluding you will send them back to Mr. Vincent.

Ever Dear Barlow | Yours | M. Faraday

Remember me kindly to the Misses Herries & Mrs Barlow

1
See Faraday, Diary, 9 October 1848, 5: 9833-9.
2
See Lit.Gaz., 10 February 1849, pp.96-7 for an account of Faraday's Friday Evening Discourse of 26 January 1849 "On the Crystalline Polarity of Bismuth and other bodies and its relation to the magnetic force".
3
Airy did not give a Friday Evening Discourse during 1849.
4
See Athenaeum, 3 February 1849, pp.119-20 for an account of Whewell's Friday Evening Discourse of 19 January 1849"On the Idea of Polarity". For a discussion of this lecture see Schaffer (1991), 229-30.
5
Faraday gave the 1848-9 Christmas lectures on the "Chemical History of the Candle". For the prospectus see RI MS GB 2: 50.

Bibliography

SCHAFFER, Simon (1991): “The History and Geography of the Intellectual World: Whewell's Politics of Language” in Fisch and Schaffer (1991), 201-31.

Please cite as “Faraday2113,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 11 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2113