Royal Institution | 19 April 1851
My dear Quetelet
Directly that I received your letter1 I translated it and sent it to the Philosophical Magazine where I have no doubt you have seen its insertion2 and I trust it will induce some to join with you in the observation of atmospheric electricity. Your observations regarding the first part of the year 1849 are most interesting and I have full confidence in them so that though it may in some degree (& a large one) be unfortunate that there are not other observations made elsewhere to compare with yours still it is of the utmost consequence that yours have been made & I hope they will awaken the sleepy observers.
Your flatter me by the manner in which you receive my portrait:- I do not think much of my own face but I have very great pleasure in looking upon yours3 & it brings by association all your kind feelings towards me back to my mind and very pleasant they are[.]
I sent you a long paper or rather several papers4 a little while ago - containing some on atmospheric magnetism[.] I have no fear as to the experimental part & I entertain hopes that the hypothetical part may find favour before your philosophic mine. My hopes in it are not as yet any less than at any former time - but I shall leave the paper to tell its own story[.]
I am not quite right in health & though I have from habit dated from the Royal Institution am really at Hastings on the Seashore waiting on rest & fresh air[.]
Ever My dear M. Quetelet | Your faithful Servant | M. Faraday
Address: A Monsieur | Monsieur Quetelet | &c &c &c | Observatory | Bruxelles
QUETELET, Lambert-Adolphe-Jacques (1851a): “On Atmospheric Electricity, especially in 1849”, Phil. Mag., 1: 329-32.
Please cite as “Faraday2412,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on