William Edward Hickson to Faraday   19 May 1853

Fairseat, Wrotham | Kent | May 19/53

My dear Sir,

Your note¹ is just the kind of answer I should have written myself a week ago when I shd certainly not have stirr’d an inch out of my way to verify the phenomena describ’d.

The facts of the Biologists as far as they are facts are explicable by metaphysical laws, & the rest is fraud; but here we have a class of phenomena belonging to the mechanics of chemistry; too easily tested for the scientific world to ignore, and apparently affording a clue to laws worth finding out.

Let four persons in the prime of life & robust health stand round a hat, with their fingers lightly resting on the brim & so that the little fingers of each join, and, if the door be clos’d & the room warm, in 20 minutes the hat will turn, first from left to right, then from right to left.

The hat will even continue to turn for a time when the chain is broken & left with one person having his fingers on the brim, but will presently stop.

This experiment I have seen repeatedly, since I wrote, & without a single failure.

The table experiment requires more patience & more power; but there is no mistake about it. You feel at once that it moves as independently of any pressure from your fingers as the fly wheel of a steam engine, & sometimes with a rapidity that makes the head giddy in keeping up with it.

Now, if Newton was wise in asking himself why does the apple fall², may we not, with due modesty, ask his successors, why does the hat or table turn?

Will you, while this fine weather lasts, take a day or twos holiday with us, & talk the matter over while inhaling the fresh air of our chalk hills?

We have half a dozen beds at your service, and a beautiful country to shew you, worth visiting. A country too that affords to a botanist & geologist numerous points of interest.

My pony chaise shall meet you at the Gravesend station any day you may appoint.

Say you will come & you will confer a great favour on myself and Mrs Hickson³[.]

Yours truly | W.E. Hickson

M. Faraday Esq