1798

Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 14 April 1798

Dear Giddy

Since the receipt of your last I have written to Reynolds, & he thinks (what I seemed to myself to recollect) that the hospital-papers came with potatoes – As far as I can trust my memory the fossils were packed in a barrel I never saw it but you wrote me word – I sh^d be glad to recover it – as the chemical lectures go on well – & I think to add the geological – not so much on acc^t of the direct utlity of either as because both being attended to by persons of opposite parties, they will acquire in common a number of agreeable ideas – & the effect may be to spare some acts of barbarity in the times that are approaching.

The subscription for the Pn^c Institution may be remitted to Coutts & Co Bankers Strand –

C^t Rumford has sent a new paper on heat – he shews that percussion & friction produce heat without change of capacity or oxydation – hence he concludes heat to be motion – but does not determine the species – but it is clear that if motion it must be oxydation of small parts – I have some time given up caloric & I have thought that the phenomena are <well> reducible to vibration – I know not whether you will think the inclosed paper worth its postage – otherwise I sh^d like to know whether you can improve the classification – perhaps the classes do not follow each other in the most philosophical order – yet there are objections to making my fifth the first – probably the 4th to follow the first – as you pass naturally from expansion to change of state – But the way in which liquidity & fluidity being <are> produced being less easily comprehended by beginners, I bring them in after more obvious things – the loan of Herculaneum glass by Boulton & of a good model of the Barberini vase by Wedgwood have much enlivened the lectures & as I have good assistance & plenty of it, & also a comfortable & convenient elaby I make many exp^s of which no one has yet failed – Those of C^t Rumford on the conducting powers of liquids & gasses are particularly beautiful & striking –

I see by the Journal Encyclopedique that Legrange has been doing a good deal respect^g methods – e.g. throwing out infinites – he has published Euler’s Algebra with great additions –

I am yr^s in haste

14 April

I have seen very little of Capt. Baines – Poor Miss B is unwilling to go west & Ly K – – – y wishes she sh^d –

Address: Davies Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall
Endorsement: Doctor Beddoes / 1798 / April the 14th
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 42/2