Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   27 January 1854

Royal Institution | 27 January 1854

My dear friend

Your letter of Octr. last¹ was well timed for it found me somewhat tired & out of health and by its happy affectionate feeling was quite a cheerer. I do not find that as my philosophical part wears out I at all diminish in my desire for the kindly sympathizing & brotherly feelings which have grown up with it. Your holiday trip must have been a delightful one but such things are for quasi young men. I have become a mere looker on[.] Still I and my wife do get a few short trips for instance to Wales or Norfolk or Brighton but as to crossing the Channel again I doubt it. I enjoy greatly the account of your meeting with Liebig and the Ozone affair: - it was very excellent & came off well for you[.] I like such an end to a controversy and I think you must feel that you have had a very refined revenge upon your too hasty and too positive opponents[.] Furthermore I think the Chronology of Ozone as you speak of it would be a very desirable thing[.]

Your family account is very pleasant and I try to imagine Miss Schoenbein upon the model of what I remember of Madame Schoenbein when we were in Basle²:- but I have no doubt my idea is a great mistake. No matter it is very pleasant, and you must give our kindest remembrances to Madame Schoenbein. I do not suppose there is any body else at home who remembers me. It would be a delightful thing to accept your invitation & pop in:- but unless I can go by the telegraph line I am afraid that will not happen[.]

By the bye I have lately been examining some very curious facts obtained with telegraph lines of which you will see a report in our proceedings in due time for I gave an account of them last Friday to our Members³. They cover copper wire with Gutta Percha here (for insulation in submarine & other cases) so perfectly that it remains beautifully insulated. I worked with 100 miles in coils immersed in the water of a canal yet with 360 pairs of plates the conduction through the gutta percha was able to deflect a delicate galvanometer only 5˚. The copper wire is 1/16 of an inch in thickness and the thickness of the Gutta Percha on it is about 1/10 of an inch - so that 100 miles gives a Leyden jar of which the inner coating (the copper wire) has a surface of 8272 square feet and the outer coating (the water at the G.P.) four times that amount or 33000 square feet. This wire took a charge from a Voltaic battery and could give back the electricity in a discharge having all the characters of a Voltaic current[.]

Furthermore such a wire when under ground or under water is so affected by the transition of dynamic into static electricity as to require a hundredfold the amount of tension for the transmission of an electric pulse as the same wire suspended in the air:- an effect of this kind is the interpretation of the extraordinary diversity in the expression of electric velocity given by different experimenters. But you will hear of all this in the report, when it comes out which will be soon.

Our librarian Mr. Vincent tells me that the Berichte der Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft Basle, Band 1 to 8 are not in our Library and he cannot get them here. He thinks your University distributes them to different bodies. If so is it possible for us to have that privilege? I ask you in all ignorance. But do not by any means let me be ignorantly intrusive.

Ever My dear Schoenbein | Yours | M. Faraday

Address: Dr. Schoenbein | &c &c &c | University | Basle | on the Rhine