Thomas Beddoes to Joseph Black, 23 February 1788
Oxford 23rd Feby. 1788
Dear Sir
I shall always consider you are the person to whom I not only owe any just views I may entertain of chemistry, but of every other subject, & there are many more important, for I have always considered your lectures as the most perfect system of <practical> logic that is to be found anywhere. It is for these reasons that I wish your name to adorn any sketch of a system of chemistry which I may offer to the public. For as I am in no haste to be rich, I choose rather to pay the debts of gratitude than to carry offerings to the vanity of the great.
I must have set down fossil when I meant veg. alkali. My objection to Potasse or Potash is that having been appropriated to veg. alk. in an impure state, it ought not in order to avoid ambiguity to be applied to it when purified; I think it wd certainly be better to adopt a difft term. We shall soon see how the new nomenclature figures in English. I expect that you will not be satisfied with it; What for heaven’s sake has M. Fourcroy to do with our language? I think his name can be no recommendation to the translation at any rate & more especially where the success of the undertaking essentially depends upon an accurate acquaintance with the genius of a foreign tongue.
I have begun my lectures & although my numbers cannot be put in competition with one at Edinr yet the desire of knowing something of Chemistry seems to be spreading, some people have perceived that it is neither a petty branch of medicine nor one of the black arts, as they are termed, but simply an inviting & important part of Nat. Phil. I think my numbers will be greater this than the last course, though I had the largest class that has ever been seen at Oxford, at least within the memory of man, in any Department of knowledge.
What I find most difficult is to repeat some of those apparently simple exps. which in your hands are so striking and so instructive. I have not yet learned how to show the gradual approach towards saturation by throwing slowly a powdered salt into water. What salt do you use? & how do you perform the expt? How do you contrive to make that capital expt which shews the burning of iron in dephd air? I mean to attempt it, but am told that the vessel has been frequently in other hands burst with great violence? do you put sand at the bottom? I know the form of the vessel &c. What salt do you use to shew the effects of agitation upon mixture?
By these questions I do not wish to abuse your politeness; if you can spare time to answer them in 4 or 5 weeks it will be quite sufficient for my purpose.
May I request you to inform Dr Hutton that I am sensible of his politeness & attention & wish that I may <be able to> make an adequate return. I wish for a copy of his theory of rain, but suppose it will make its appearance in your transactions soon? I shall take an opportunity of bringing his admirable papers upon the theory of the earth before the class: and I am very desirous of being able to illustrate it as much as possible. Now cd he without injuring his own collection give me a specimen of the granite which he has figured? If he cd spare me a morsel of any thing else I shd be infinitely obliged to him; & I hope he will consider that in making these requests, I do not speak as an individual, but in the name of a great body of well-educated men, to whom he wd doubtless wish that his ideas shd be communicated properly, if at all. Of you I wish to beg a specimen of petrified wood from Lough Neagh. If you & Dr Hutton cd have any thing with which you may favour me directed to Mr Murray, 32, Fleet Street, I shd receive it safe & soon.
Of the Chemical news wch I have lately heard, the most important is, that Dr Priestley is repeating Mr Cavendish’s exps on water with airs as dry as possible & instead of water, he gets an acid from the combination of the solid basis of dephlogd. with that of inflammable air. Dr Withering has the acid to examine, but has not found out what it is. It is not the nitrous, or seems not to be it. Mr Morveau informs me that ‘he has discovered a new principle wch may have great effects in modifying affinities. It is that salts with excess of acid basis are formed in excess of their acid; i.e. which the Mother-liquor has a superabundance of it’.
I do not mean to be ungrateful. I shall have an opportunity to repay you both amply. I beg to know what English specimens you want. Have you Cornish Wolfram in plenty? I am placed very advantageously for procuring anything almost in England.
I am Dear Sir
Yours very sincerely
Thos Beddoes
MS: Edinburgh University Library, Gen 873/111/71–72
Published: CJB, II, 949–51