Dear Sir,
I beg to thank you for the beautiful Photograph <1> you have been so kind as to send me. I would have returned sooner the other specimens, but Profr Forbes <2> wrote me to beg that I would allow him to have a sight of them; and requested, if I could not use that freedom without your permission, that I would keep the specimens till he applied for your permission. – I did not hesitate to comply with his request, and after receiving them back I kept them for a few days to shew to our Literary & Philosophical Society <3> here who were much gratified with the sight of them.
I have been repeating your beautiful expts on analytic crystals; and on circular crystallisations <4>. – I find great difficulty, however, in getting the Spheres of Boracic acid by Crystallising it in Phosphoric acid. I will thank you to mention the way in which one might succeed.– I should have continued to make the attempt, had not a friend who saw Mr Nicol, <5> (Inventor of the Nicol’s Prism) learned from him that he had experienced the same difficulty, but had found a way of surmounting it.
Can you tell me the name of the opaque yellowish white crystals which crystallise circularly. I got a good specimen of them from Mr Children <6> when I was last in London, but I have left the label in Roxburghshire, <7> and cannot recollect the name.
I will thank you to let me know of any other discoveries in France respecting the Electric light.
Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster
St Leonards
St Andrews
March 14th 1839
Notes:
1. In this case, a photogenic drawing.
2. Prof James David Forbes (1809–1868), Scottish scientist.
3. Brewster was unwell and did not attend the meeting on 4 March 1839, but the Secretary, at Brewster’s request, ‘exhibited some specimens of drawings &c executed by Mr Fox Talbot, on the photogenic paper by the Solar Rays’. [Manuscript Minutes of the St Andrews Literary & Philosophical Society, v. 1, 1838–1861 - Special Collections, Library, University of St Andrews].
4. See Doc. No: 03261.
5. William Nicol (1768–1851), invented the Nicol prism in 1828, by slicing the Calcite, or Iceland Spar, diagonally and fastening the two halves together with canada balsam or a similar adhesive.
6. John George Children (1777–1852), librarian & scientist.
7. At Allerly, near Melrose, Brewster’s home from 1827 until his death.