Arthur Aikin to Faraday   9 March 18491

7 Bloomsbury Square | 9 March

Dear Faraday

I have this morning looked over all the reports of the Committee of Chemistry during the time that I was Secretary to the Socy of Arts, but without finding any communication on the Lime-light. I am perfectly certain that Mr Gurney2 exhibited this light one evening in the Society’s great room shewing among other things the brilliancy & precision of the prismatic colours produced by means of it: but as no record exists of this I presume it was a mere exhibition unaccompanied by any written communication.

In April 1823 an improvement to the apparatus for the safe use of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, by Mr Gurney3, was favourably reported on by the Committee of Chemistry4 & probably his exhibition of the lime-light took place about the same time.

Yours very truly | A. Aikin

M. Faraday Esq

1
Dated on the basis that this is the reply to letter 2159.
2
Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875, DNB). Inventor.
3
Gurney (1823). His blowpipe won the Gold Isis Medal of the Society of Arts.
4
RSA MS Minutes of Committees, 1822-1823, Chemistry Committee 11 April 1823, pp.30-2 and 26 April 1823, pp.40-1 discussed only this blowpipe. Faraday was not present at either of these meetings.

Bibliography

GURNEY, Goldsworthy (1823): “Oxy-hydrogen Blow-pipe”, Trans. Soc. Arts, 41: 70-7.

Please cite as “Faraday2160,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2160