My dear Faraday
These lines will be delivered to you by Mr Merian1 of Bâle a former pupil and the son of a most intimate friend of mine the well known swiss geologist Peter Merian2. My young friend being an Engineer and going to England with the particular view of seeing your railways and establishments for manufacturing locomotives &c you would render him a great service by getting him introduced to some superintending railway engineers and manufacturers of locomotives. Mr. Merian is a very excellent man, distinguished mathematician, well versed in engineering, and in every respect highly respectable. You may therefore strongly and confidently recommend him to any of your friends and I need not say that by doing so you will lay me under very great obligations.
You have no doubt received my last letter3 as well as a memoir of mine which I sent you through Mr. Gould4 the Ornithologist and I have gratefully to acknowledge the receipt of your last paper on Electricity5.
Its contents proved highly interesting to me and most particularly to that part of it which refers to the variations of the velocity of the current.
Having repeatedly been called upon by Mr. Liebig to draw up for his annals a paper embodying all the leading facts relative to Ozone I have at last complied with the wishes of my new friend and send you a copy of it6. From a note of Liebig’s joined to my paper7 you will perceive that the celebrated Chymist of Munich has taken a lively interest in the matter and in a letter, he wrote me a couple of days ago he expresses his conviction that the discovery of the ozonic Condition of Oxigen and the facts connected with that subject, will exert a great influence upon the future development of Chemical Science8. I have been of a similar opinion these many years.
My paper on the chemical effects produced by Electricity, Heat and Light9, of which I talked to you in my last letter is going to be printed and as soon as finished, you shall have it, but I am sorry for you to say that it is written in my native tongue, being however not very voluminous you may easily get it translated for you. I should like very much indeed that you would take notice of its contents.
Mrs. Schoenbein and the girls are doing well and charge me with their best compliments to their friend at the Royal Institution. I join my kindest regards to Mrs. Faraday and am for ever
Your’s | most truly | C.F. Schoenbein
Bâle April 9, 1854.
Dr. M. Faraday | &c &c &c
FARADAY, Michael (1854a): “On Electric Induction - Associated cases of current and static effects”, Proc. Roy. Inst., 1: 345-55.
SCHOENBEIN, Christian Friedrich (1854a): “Ueber verschiedene Zustände des Sauerstoffes” Ann. Chem. Pharm., 89: 257-300.
SCHOENBEIN, Christian Friedrich (1854b): "Ueber die chemischen Wirkungen der Electricität, der Wärme und des Lichtes", Verhandl. Naturforsch. Gesell. Basel, 1: 18-67.
Please cite as “Faraday2818,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2818