NOTE EY PROFESSOR JOHNSTON. 
A copy of Mr. Thorp's printed paper having been transmitted to me 
before this concluding sheet of the above Report was sent to press, I am per- 
mitted to express my disappointment on finding that he has not altered that 
part of it (pp. 230 and 231) in which, as I stated verbally at the meeting, 
he had attributed to me views exactly the reverse of those contained in my 
published Lectures. (See Lecture IV., pp. 79 to 89.) The source of his 
error is to be found, as his reference to the Durham Advertiser shows, in 
his quoting my opinions from a newspaper report of my Lectures, when deli- 
vered, instead of turning to the copy prepared for the press by myself, and 
which was published on the 1st of July last. To this Lecture (IV.) I beg also 
to refer the reader for a correct statement of my views on another part of this 
subject, which Mr. Thorp professes to give in p. 235, quoting again from the 
same newspaper report. I think papers of the kind read by Mr. Thorp are 
likely to do far more good if confined to the statement and collation of facts, to 
the exclusion of all controversy. — Durham, Sth November, 1841. 
NOTE BY THE REV. W. THORP. 
Upon correcting for the press the last sheets, I find, without any previous 
knowledge, the above note by Professor Johnston appended, to which I beg leave 
to reply. 
The Durham Advertisers alluded to were sent me by Professor Johnston 
himself, and therefore I presumed that they contained a true report of the learned 
Professor's opinions. The Lectures in that newspaper bear internal evidence of 
being corrected for the press by himself, or by some one well versed in the 
orthography of chemical nomenclature. By now " collating the facts" published 
in the Professor's Lectures (which I only received a short time ago), with those 
contained in the newspapers sent me by himself, it appears that subsequently to 
the delivery of the Lectures he has materially altered or modified his opinions ; 
and yet without ever informing me at Hull that the Lectures published in the 
Durham Advertiser are erroneous, and those published by himself contain his 
corrected views, (both of which being indeed his published Lectures) he complains 
of misrepresentation, when I quote from a source afforded me by himself ! — The 
origin of carbon in plants, according to the Professor's own words, " has an im- 
portant practical bearing," and I beg leave to add, that controversy, as conducted 
in the meetings of this Society, often elicits truth, however unpalatable ; and that 
I have yet to learn why we are to receive every dictum by the Professor without 
investigation. 
