Thomas Phillipps to Faraday   2 June 1855

[Athenaeum letterhead] | 2 June | 55

My dear Dr Faraday

Many thanks for yr translation1, wch enables me to see that the actual production of the metal is not so costly & intricate as I supposed; for it appears by the Comptes Rendus2 that one of the experimenters produced it by a Blow-pipe, in globules. To produce it in Ingots like Mr Deville3, wd be both costly & intricate, & it must be produced in that form to make it pay. But perhaps a more simple method may be discovered by yourself before long.

Mr Wohler told me the process which he used, but it seems he does not obtain it in Ingots, altho’ the specimen which he sent to me might be called a thin Ingot4.

I am translating all the Passages in the Comptes Rendus relating to aluminium. Repeating my thanks for your kindness | believe me | Very truly your’s | Thos Phillipps

PS. I find a family of Fereday in Worcestershire; are you from my county?

2
Deville (1854a, b).
3
Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville (1818-1881, DSB). Professor of Chemistry at Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1851-1880.
4
Wöhler to Phillipps, 10 April 1855, Bod MS Phillipps-Robinson d.50, f.73-5. On Wöhler’s work see Weeks and Leicester (1968), 567-8.

Please cite as “Faraday2992,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2992