Dear Sir,
You will see when I send you the Correspondence <1> in a day or two that you have greatly misinformed [sic] about my Papers.
Mr Christie <2> has merely said that he thinks the Council <3> may print my Paper if I will add to it observations on the Polarisation of the atmosphere made with the Polarimeter. <4> But I will do no such thing for reasons which I have assigned, and which I am sure will satisfy you.
I have requested a Copy of my Paper that I may appeal to the Society <5> and to the Public. The Reporter calls the Heart of my Paper Theoretical, while it is a direct deduction from experiments, & the objections to the Paper are frivolous and contemptible.
I have determined by a very difft expt that the extreme Red Fringe which you discovered <6> in the Nitre Spectrum burnt with Sulphur is within the limits of Fraunhofer's <7> Spectrum; very far within the limits of mine & also within the limits of a Spectrum for 6 flames of Gas in a line. I have found also that a Gas Flame spectrum extends more on the Red side than the Solar one, when the lights are equal in intensity.
I had [two?]<8> assistants to inflame the Nitre on a hot coal, & having fixed my Telescope & aperture permanently, & marked the proportions of A á B, & D on the Wall, I found to my surprise and delight that the double band A, the Octuple band á & the Double band B, gave Red bands coinciding with the corresponding dark ones in the Spectrum. This result I expect to extend to other lines, and thus to generalise the simple fact of ye yellow ray observed by Fraunhofer.
My Friends here <9> have not yet tried your Positive Process. It is the Positive copies <10> they cannot fix. The principal Variation is in diluting with one half its volume of Water the mixture of the Gallo-Nitrate & Acetic Acid.
I am in great haste Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster
St Leonards
St Andrews
Novr 3d 1841
Notes:
1. Relating to Brewster’s dispute with the Royal Society of London. [See Doc. No: 04291].
2. Samuel Hunter Christie (1784–1865), mathematician & Secretary of the Royal Society.
3. That is, of the Royal Society of London.
4. See Doc. No: 04319.
5. Royal Society of London.
6. W. H. F. Talbot, ‘Some Experiments on Coloured Flames’, Edinburgh Journal of Science, v. 5, no. 1 (June 1826), pp. 77–82.
7. Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), optician, Munich.
8. Written over an illegible deletion.
9. The St Andrews circle of photographic pioneers, including Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (1786–1861), military & provost of St Andrew’s University and Dr John Adamson. [See Doc. No: 04315].
10. Positives from a paper negative.