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Faraday to Thomas Andrews   20 April 1852

Royal Institution | 20 April 1852

My dear Andrews

Receive my sincere thanks for your kind letter1 and for the paper2 & for all your good will & favours to me: tell Mrs. Andrews I hope to thank her personally & trust when the time comes she will put up with me & not be disappointed.

As to your proposed experiments, it will be of extreme interest to me to know how electrified bodies behave in a perfect vacuum. Perhaps you know that Masson3 not long since concluded that Electric currents or discharges cannot exist in an absolute vacuum[.] As an introduction to his memoires of which there are four or five I may refer you to the Annales de Chimie 1851, Vol xxxi, p125. At pp.149, 150 you will see some of his conclusions4[.]

I have sent my papers to Williams & Norgate5.

Ever Truly Yours | M. Faraday

1
Not found.
2
Probably Andrews (1852).
3
Antione-Philibert Masson (1806-1860, DSB). Professor of Physics at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.
4
This would seem to refer to a separately paginated offprint of Masson (1845, 1850, 1851). For his conclusions see Masson (1851), 326. On Masson’s work see James (1983b), 146-8.
5
Williams and Norgate. Booksellers of 14 Henrietta Street. POD.

Bibliography

ANDREWS, Thomas (1852): “On a Method of Obtaining a Perfect Vacuum in the Receiver of an Air-pump”, Phil. Mag., 3: 104-8.

JAMES, Frank A.J.L. (1983b): “The Study of Spark Spectra 1835-1859”, Ambix, 30: 137-62.

MASSON, Antione-Philibert (1851): “Etudes de photométrie électrique. 4e et 5e Mémoires”, Ann. Chim., 31: 295-326.

Please cite as “Faraday2515,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2515