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Document number: 3189
Date: 1839
Dating: 1839 assumed by references to photography
Watermark: 1836
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 25th February 2010

Dear Henry

I go to Abb. <1> with Susan <2> on Monday next – & will not fail to send you specimens I suppose ferns, Acacias, & other plants of light foliage & semi transparent flowers <3> will do best. What do you think of the Munich plan of drawing on smoked glass – you might make a Solar eclipse draw itself at different stages of occultation.

Can moonlight be made use of? what pretty transparencies & Scenes & vander Neers <4> might be drawn.

I send you a mixed collection of seeds from Jacquin <5> & Tenore <6> – after helping your self – send the residue on to some of the worthies in Glamorganshire.

The Vienna Messenger was to go last night but he is detained for a day or two – & then Endlicher’s <7> packet will go.

Yr Aff
W F S

I think Phrygia Armenia & Media sufficiently near to have had the same traditions – the true Ararat <8> being in the centre the story spread both ways & stuck like the Ark to the first great Alp it met


Notes:

1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

2. His cousin Susannah, daughter of the Rev the Hon Charles Redlynch Strangways.

3. Probably for photogenic drawing.

4. Arnout van der Neer (1603–1677), Dutch painter noted for his moonlight scenes.

5. Prof Joseph Franz Frieherr von Jacquin (1766–1839), Austrian botanist.

6. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.

7. István László Endlicher (1804–1849), Viennese botanist and philologist.

8. See Doc. No: 02881, dating this letter to ca.1839.