Faraday to Julius Plücker   23 July 1851

23 July 1851

My dear Plucker

I received your kind letter of last month¹: but I know nothing about the papers which you refer to as having been sent to me “sous bande”. I do not think they were refused at the Royal Institution for although miscellaneous papers do not come as newspapers do through the post on moderate terms yet I never refuse them. I am always glad to see your papers for though I cannot make out the German language they are ever very pleasant remembrances of you and of the happy hours we have had together. I am in hopes that before this you will have received a copy of my papers from the Philosophical Transactions². It was a great pleasure to me so to confirm & enlarge the results of the magnetic character of oxygen which I had obtained in 1847³. Your results with this body agree entirely with my own[.] I shall be curious to know what are your results with the hyponitric acid to which you refer, that is, when you have obtained them. My memory is so bad that I cannot be quite sure but I think I tried the condensed nitrous acid & did not find it sensibly magnetic and that I stated the result in the letter on the Magnetic characters of flame & gases⁴ - but as I am not at home but write from Tynemouth where my wife & I have gone out of the turmoil of London for rest & fresh air I cannot refer to either papers or notes[.]

The papers on Donarium⁵ and also the specimens of the oxide & mineral came quite safe and I took them to the meeting of the Association at Ipswich where they were received with great interest by the Chemical section & philosophers in general⁶. I was about to ask you to thank Professor Bergeman⁷ for me but I think I will write a few words on the next page for though my head aches and is giddy I am anxious to express to the Professor my great sense of his kindness[.]

Ever My dear Plucker | Yours Most Truly | M. Faraday

Address: Dr Plücker | &c &c &c | University | Bonn | Germany