Joseph Henry's Letter to Alexander Dallas Bache (December 17, 1834)

Summary

Letter from Joseph Henry, then a professor at Princeton University and later first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to Alexander Dallas Bache, a physicist and later Smithsonian Institution Regent, December 17, 1834. In the letter, Henry sends a paper that describes his experiment in which he used a galvanic battery to produce sparks from an electrical circuit. Henry compares his work to that of Michael Faraday, an English physicist.

Subject

• Bache, A. D (Alexander Dallas) 1806-1867
• Faraday, Michael 1791-1867
• Princeton University
• Regents Smithsonian Institution

Category

Historic Images of the Smithsonian

Notes

The accompanying PDF contains SIA2012-0922, SIA2012-0923, SIA2012-0924, SIA2012-0925, SIA2012-0926, SIA2012-0927, SIA2012-0928, and SIA2012-0929, which are pages scanned from the edited transcript of the original version and notes in the Joseph Henry Papers Volume 2, pages 297-304.

Contained within

• Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7053, Box 3, Folder: 3 - Incoming Correspondence 1821-1866 (1833-1834)
• Reingold, Nathan, et al, eds., The Papers of Joseph Henry, Volume 2, The Princeton Years: November 1832-December 1835 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1975), 297-304

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

December 17, 1834

Restrictions & Rights

No restrictions

Topic

• Electric apparatus and appliances
• Electricity
• Secretaries
• Letters
• Physicists
• Experiments

Form/Genre

• Document
• Paper

ID Number

SIA2012-2512 and SIA2012-2513 and SIA2012-2514

Physical description

Number of Images: 3; Color: Color; Size: 8w x 10h; Type of Image: Document; Medium: Paper

Full Record

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