Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   15 May 1854

Royal Institution | 15 May 1854.

My dear Schoenbein

Your letters¹ stimulate me by their energy and kindness to write but they also make me aware of my inability for I never read yours even for that purpose without feeling barren of matter and possessed of nothing enabling me to answer you in kind:- and then on the other hand I cannot take yours and think it over and so generate a fund of philosophy as you do for I am now far too slow a man for that[.] What is obtained tardily by a mind not so apt as it may have been is soon dropped again by a failing power of retention and so you must just accept the manifestation of old affection & feeling in any shape that it may take however imperfect. I received your paper and though a sealed book to me at present I have put it into the hands of Mr. Stokes whose researches on light I think I mentioned to you²[.]

I made the experiments on the Dahlia colour which you sent me and they are very beautiful. Since then I have also made the experiment with ink and Carbonic acid (liquid) and succeeded there also to the extent you described. I had no reason to expect from what you said that dry ink would lose its colour but I tried the experiment & could not find that the carbonic acid bath had the power to do that. Many years ago I was engaged on the wonderful power that water had when it became ice of excluding other matters³. I could even break up compounds by cold thus if you prepare a thin glass test tube about the size of the thumb and a feather so much larger that when in the tube and twirled about it shall rapidly brush the sides: if you prepare some dilute sulphuric acid so weak that it will easily freeze at 0˚ Faht. & putting that into the tube with the feather you put all into a good freezing mixture of salt & snow:- if finally whilst the freezing goes on you rotate the feather continually & quickly so as to continually brush the interior surface of the ice formed clearing off all bubbles & washing that surface with the central liquid you may go on until a half or two thirds or more of the liquid is frozen & then pouring out the central liquid you will find it a concentrated solution of the acid. After that if you wash out the interior of the frozen mass with two or three distilled waters so as to remove all adhering acid & then warm the tube by the hand so as to bring out the piece of ice it upon melting, will give you pure water not a trace of sulphuric acid remaining in it. The same was the case with common salt solution, Sul. Soda, Alcohol, &c &c and if I remember rightly even with some solid compounds of water. I think I recollect the breaking up of crystals of Sulphate of Soda by cold and I should like very much now to try the effect of a carbonic acid bath on crystals of Sulphate of copper. So it strikes me that in the effect of the cold on the colourless dahlia solution the reappearance of the colour may depend upon the separation of the Sulphurous acid from the solidifying water.

Your nine conclusions in the letter you last sent⁴ me are very strong and will startle a good many but if the truth is with them I should not mind the amazement they will produce nor need you mind it either but the chemist, of which body I do not count myself one now a days, will want strong proof & be slow to convince. As to the electrical matters I referred to I expect you have received by post a printed account of what I there referred to⁵.

I think some of my letters must have missed, you scold me so hard⁶. As I cannot remember what I have sent or said I am obliged to enter in a remembrancer the letters written or received and looking to it find the account thus: 1852 Decr. 8. S. to F⁷ - Dec. 9. F. to S⁸ - Dec 29. S to F⁹. 1853 July 24 S to F¹⁰. - July 25 F to S¹¹. - Octr S to F¹² - 1854. Jany 27. F to S¹³ - Feby 17. S to F¹⁴. - May 15. F. to S¹⁵. and considering that I have little or nothing to say & you are a young man in full vigour that is not so very bad an account so be gentle with your failing friend.

You say that in April you are to fetch a daughter from the “Welch land” &c. I had the foolish thought (perhaps), that you were coming to England & have been hoping to see you but I suppose mine was all [a] mistake for here is May. As for us we do not expect to move far from home now the imagination ramble and the desire also but the body is too heavy and earthly. Our kindest remembrance to Madame Schoenbein & to all who remember us. Young folks cannot be expected to retain much idea of old ones after so long a while[.]

Ever My dear friend | Affectionately Yours | M. Faraday

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