Faraday to Edward Sabine   27 July 1858

Eastbourne | 27. July 1858

Dear Sabine

How pleasant it is to receive a letter¹ from you out of the country and to write to you from the country in reply. Generally science is found in closer atmospheres than those we enjoy at present: I hope your place is doing you and still more Mrs Sabine² much good in the way of health & strength; & that the weather has suited you. We have had much Electricity here & I was fortunate enough whilst watching a storm, to see a Church struck by lightning within a 100 feet of me; I was looking by the very pinnacle at the cloud & in the direction from which the lightning came.

Your data & results are most beautiful & I hope to have a good occasion to state them in all their force. I suppose there can be no doubt that the moon & the Earth are in magnetic relation as close & sure as is the Earth & a magnetic needle upon its surface. The elimination & determination of so minute a quantity is wonderful, & the method by which it is done must be beautiful. I had a notion that placing a series of soft iron bars in position & watching by needles their variation in force, as the lines of Magnetic force acted upon them varied from hour to hour & season to season, we might obtain results more quick & ready than those given by the effect of the same lines of force directly upon the magnets themselves; as in Gauss’s³ methods⁴ & course in yours:- but as yet the retention of a given state by the iron offers obstacles. Perhaps the use of helices might do good but I have not pursued the subject; & such results as yours seem quite sufficient for every present purpose.

I cannot help hoping that when refinements like those you speak of, are multiplied, Mathematicians will be able to draw their conclusions closer about the suppositions that are afloat than heretofore. When Clarke Maxwell examined my views of lines of Magnetic force mathematically⁵, he placed them at last upon an equality with the others; and whilst saying that views more comprehensive and competent were required to embrace the phenomena of Electricity & Magnetism jointly, he made me to hope that mine might be such. It is only by referring on the results & increasing the force of the experimental & observed facts, that we shall be able to select the most correct view & throw off the limited & superfluous ones.

Ever My dear Sabine | Very Truly Yours | M. Faraday