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Document number: 09212
Date: 04 Apr 1867
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FORBES James David
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 26th January 2013

United College St Andrews <1>
4 April 1867

My dear Sir

Allow me to refer you to Mr Clerk Maxwell’s <2> two very remarkable (and I think little noticed) papers on the Composition of Colours, whether Pigments or of the Solar Rays

I. Edin. R. Soc. Trans. Vol XXI p 275 [1855] <3>

II Philos. Trans 1860 p 57. <4>

I am yours very truly
James D. Forbes

H. F. Talbot Esq
&c &c


Notes:

1. Forbes became Principal of the United College in 1859, in succession to Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Scottish scientist & journalist.

2. James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), professor of experimental physics, University of Cambridge.

3. James Clerk Maxwell, ‘Experiments on Colour as Perceived by the Eye’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Royal Society of Edinburgh v. 21, pt 2 [1855].

4. James Clerk Maxwell, ‘On the Theory of Compound Colours’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1860.