link to Talbot Project home page link to De Montfort University home page link to Glasgow University home page
Project Director: Professor Larry J Schaaf
 

Back to the letter search >

Result number 3 of 12:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >  

Document number: 2311
Date: Thu Mar 1832
Dating: month from Frank James
Watermark: 1831
Recipient: FARADAY Michael
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: Univ McGill Libraries Rare Book & Special Coll Montreal
Collection number: MS173
Last updated: 29th March 2012

31 Sackville St <1>
Thursday
1832 <2>

Dear Sir

I think the contrast between the Nickel & Copper solution would be still more remarkably shewn, by viewing through them what is called “Red Fire” <3> – Some day I shall have the opportunity I hope of trying the experiment. These researches deserve to be multiplied, as there is evidently a connexion between optics and chemistry which cannot fail to throw light on the latter. Dr Brewster <4> imagines that all simple substances have a different action on light. <5> I think that something of the sort will be found to be true, tho’ not perhaps exactly that.

Dr B. informs me of a late very curious discovery of his, of a liquid <6> (which he does not name, but says it is a compound of only 2 elements) which has the property of absorbing partially the light of a candle so as to make the spectrum formed by candlelight to resemble the Solar Spectrum, viz. to make it appear covered with small lines or bands. I hope he means to publish this, as being very likely to explain the nature of the Sun’s light & atmosphere.

Yours truly
H.F. Talbot

M. Faraday Esq.
Royal Institution
Albemarle St


Notes:

1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.

2. Written in Faraday’s hand.

3. This is a continuation of the conversation of Doc. No: 02313. “Fires”, flammable mixtures that burn with coloured flames. They contain fuels, oxidizers and salts of various metals to produce the desired colour. “Red fire” refers to a mixture containing a strontium salt, which would produce the red color by the molecular band emission of gaseous strontium monohydroxide (SrOH), and, if potassium chlorate were present in the mixture, of gaseous strontium monochloride (SrCl). WHFT mentions his examination of the spectra emitted by the red fires used in theatres in ‘Some Experiments on Coloured Flames’, Edinburgh Journal of Science, v. 5 no. 1, June 1826, pp. 77–82.

4. Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Scottish scientist & journalist.

5. Brewster’s views took printed form in 1834 as, “Observations on the Lines of the Solar Spectrum, and on those produced by the Earth’s Atmosphere, and by the action of Nitrous Acid Gas”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v. 12, 1834, pp. 519–530.

6. This was nitrous acid gas. Brewster did not announce the name of this publicly until April 1833. [See Doc. No: 02616, and Frank James, The Correspondence of Michael Faraday v. 2, letter 559, p. 28].

Result number 3 of 12:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >