Faraday to George Biddell Airy   31 January 1850

Royal Institution | 31 Jany 1850

My dear Sir

I received your letter1 two or three days ago but waited until I obtained your papers which have just arrived[.] I beg to thank you for them and rejoice to find that Electricity may probably be honored by being admitted into the service of Astronomers2. I had heard of its successful illumination of the Oxford Heliometer3 before and if it does as well in the observation of transits then I hope before very long to pay a visit to Greenwich & see it performing duty[.]

As to the apparatus I have no doubt we have such spirals & thermo-electric apparatus as you speak of & I trust all else you will need[.] When you let me know I will do every thing I can to make the Evening as agreeable to you as I am sure it will be to every body else4[.]

With kindest respects to Mrs. Airy

I am | My dear Sir | Most faithfully Yours | M. Faraday

The Astronomer Royal | &c &c &c

2
See notes 1 and 2, letter 2257.
3
See Month.Not.Roy.Ast.Soc.,1849-50, 10: 21-2 which noted that the scale of the heliometer was illuminated by a wire heated by powerful magnets. However, p.25 noted that this statement was incorrect and that a Grove cell was used to supply the light.
4
See Athenaeum,23 March 1850, pp.315-7 for an account of Airy’s Friday Evening Discourse of 15 March 1850, “On the present State and Prospects of the Science of Terrestrial Magnetism”.

Please cite as “Faraday2259,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 23 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2259