Edward Sabine to Faraday   4 January 1853

11 Old Burleigh S. | January 4, 1853.

Dear Faraday

I have just read Mr. Wolf’s little pamphlet¹ on the period of the sun’s spots.

Having some time since noticed to you that I felt some degree of disappointment in contrasting the interest with which the announcement which I made last March to the R.S. of the connexion between the period of the sun’s spots & that of the magnetic variations² had been received on the Continents of Europe & America as compared with this country³ - a remark which perhaps you thought might stand in need of some justification, - Mr. Wolf’s pamphlet furnishes me I think with a very fine illustration of it, which I notice at once to yourself because you are concerned, & to mark more particularly that what I regret is rather the general indifference of Englishmen to the scientific discoverys of their own countrymen, than individual indifference; for from no Englishman should I look for more consideration & regard than from you. But now to my point. In page 16 Mr Wolf quotes in two notes, long extracts from letters from Humboldt & yourself, Humboldt’s dated Sept. 10, yours Augt. 27⁴; both acknowledging letters from him announcing the coincidence of the 2 periods, the magnetic variations & the solar spots. Humboldt does me the justice to inform Mr. Wolf of my previous announcement of the same first & refers to date & place of publication. You writing from England take no notice whatsoever of the previous publication of the very same coincidence which had been communicated to you some months before by a friend & countryman of your own!-

The fact is a remarkable one; and will no doubt be adverted to by Mr Wolf in the reply which he will probably make to the remarks which I must make on the injustice which overlooking Mr. de Humboldts letter he has done to me in placing the date of my publication in September, instead of March or May (at which latter date the printed copies were in general circulation), and thus countermanding his own claim to a nearly simultaneous publication in the Comptes Rendus for September 13⁵.

Sincerely yours | Edward Sabine