416 Mr. Hunt on the Spectral Images q/M. Moser, 



expected to be charged with repeating the experiments of others 

 and giving them out as my own discovery. The mind of that 

 man, who thinks to elevate himself by any paltry piracy of 

 this kind, is of a low order, and the attempt to defraud the 

 public by any such means is certain, sooner or later, to have 

 its full amount of punishment in the contempt of the many and 

 the pity of the few. But I feel myself put upon my defence. 

 The note you have placed at the foot of page 356 partly re- 

 lieves me from the charge *, but not entirely ; I must therefore 

 presume upon your kindness, and as briefly as possible ex- 

 plain the matter as it stands. 



Immediately after the meeting of the British Association at 

 Manchester, I heard, for I was not present at that meeting, 

 of the announcement of M. Moser's discovery, that " when 

 two bodies are sufficiently near, they impress their images 

 upon each other." I immediately tried some experiments, 

 and was much interested in the results. Now, it will be re- 

 membered, this announcement at Manchester was unaccom- 

 panied by any statement of experiments. I had already made 

 a great number of experiments when I received the Comptes 

 Rendus for the 18th of July and the 29th of August, 1842, 

 containing communications, " Sur la formation des images 

 Daguerriennes," which I have distinctly referred to in the 

 very first sentences of my paper on Thermography. These 

 communications gave me M. Moser's views, but not the ex- 

 perimental evidence by which he arrived at these views; and 

 it was not until the publication of the Eleventh Part of the 

 Scientific Memoirs, in February 1 843, that I gained any fur- 

 ther information on this subject. M. Moser's memoirs appear 

 to have been published in Poggendorff's Annalen about June 

 or July 1842, but it is unfortunate for me, that the thoughts 

 and labours of the thinking German nation are sealed books 

 until they appear in my own language, owing to x my entire 

 ignorance of theirs. The valuable Annalen I have never yet 

 by any chance seen. On the 8th of November I read my 

 paper before the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, the 

 President, Sir Charles Lemon, in the Chair; and this commu- 

 nication, which was immediately printed, and which appeared 

 in many of the leading scientific journals for December, was, 

 I believe, the first series of experiments on this subject pub- 

 lished in England. 



* Our conviction, upon a comparison of dates, that the charge was 

 groundless, did not deter us from publishing a translation of the paper 

 containing it. On the contrary, we thought it more just towards those 

 included in M. Moser's attack, that they should not remain unaware of 

 misrepresentations which were in circulation abroad, and thus be enabled 

 to meet them. — Edit. 



