Thomas Beddoes to Joseph Black, 21 April 1789
Dear Sir
Happening to be furnished by Dr Thomson with a Frank, I write a few lines to renew your recollection of me – Since I had the pleasure of seeing you in Shropshire, I have had an opportunity of making some observations on the agency of heat which have impressed upon my mind a very strong conviction of the truth of Dr Hutton’s Theory of the earth. Dr Hutton will have received an hint of it from Dr Arnemann & I shall soon myself send a paper upon the subject of it to the Royal Society. I have seen not merely basaltic pillars, but petrosilex dendrites & as I think asbestos formed by artificial heat. Dr Thomson who you know is very intelligent on these subjects & by no means hasty in giving his assent to miraculous transmutations admits the facts which I shall communicate to the public & thinks that my specimens justify the inferences. Unhappily this kind of conviction is not very capable of being diffused universally, both on account of the difference between inspection & description, & of another person’s report & one’s own perception. As far as you & Dr Hutton are concerned, I hope to have it in my power to send you specimens of the principal changes produced if I shall understand that you desire it. The public at large must depend on my narration & a plate or two which will tend to illustrate it.
I have ready for publication a very small pamphlet on calculous diseases in which I shall propose a very simple method of relieving those very painful symptoms &, I believe also, though I dare not affirm it positively either in private or public, of removing the cause of them. Much good has been done by alkali supersaturated with fixed air. I hope to extend the benefit.
I have lately procured from Parker a lens 16 inches in diameter & which if it were perfect I find on calculation wd condense the sun’s ray about 4000 times. I have not yet done any thing material with it: but I am afraid it will fall infinitely short of the calculation in power – By passing spirit of wine through an heated Wedgwood’s tube I obtain always a qty of oil. Is this oil an ingredient of [Beddoes used a symbol for spirit of wine] or formed by the heat? – I suspect the former because it seems to belong to the class of aromatic oils. According to Mr Berthollet’s theory æther must consist of this oil united with a large proportion of inflammable air –
Dr Priestley seems totally to have overthrown the antiphlogistic theory – I am anxious to hear what the French chemists have to say on the other side – I have seen some of their private objections to Dr Priestly’s inferences, but they are totally insignificant – Still however we owe much to Mr Lavoisier for having taught us the combinations of pure air – I now suspect that both you and he must have overlooked some acid in burning spirit of wine. It certainly cannot be pure water that is formed –I am
Dear Sir
Your obliged Friend
& hble Servt
Thos Beddoes
MS: Edinburgh University Library Gen 873.111.129-30
Published: CJB, II, pp. 1011–13
Endorsement: 21 Apr 1789