[1]1
British Museum (Natural History)
Cromwell Road
London: S.W.2
10 August 1910
Dear Sir,
I am sorry that we can be of little help to you in stating the numbers you ask for.
The number of inorganic chemical compounds known to occur in Nature may be taken roughly as 1000.
From Moissan's3 Traité de Chimie Minérale - 3 Tom. 8 Paris 1904-07 it may be inferred from this "Table alphabetique de tous les corps simples composes cites dans le traite de Chimie Minérale that he recognises the total number known as being about 8000 (natural & artificial). I myself [2] should not be inclined to lay any other on this number except as an indelible minimum.
As for Organic Compounds we have not the book you mention here and very little literature on the subject: I think you had better write to some organic chemist - say Prof. Harry Armstrong4 or Sir Henry Roscoe5.
I am | Yours faithfully | L. Fletcher6[signature]
Dr A. R. Wallace F.R.S
[3] Fletcher7
Page blank other than Fletcher written by hand.
Moissan, Ferdinand Frédéric Henri (1852-1907). French chemist and pharmacist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Moissan> [accessed 26 August 2020]
WCP2992_L2882;
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2992.2882)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP2992,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2992