
          Washington D.C.
 Patent Office
 October 23. 1858.


 My Dear Doctor


 Yours of the 21st [?]
 this morning & as it contains a query
 indirectly I sit down to answer it today.
 With regard to Tuckers patent for [?]
 in manufacturing sugar I may speak freely
 to you about it as by some accident of
 [?] in the Office it has not been placed 
 in the secret archives as Mr [?] wished
 He is I believe new in [?] of the parchment
 his improvement claimed is in
 the use of freshly precipitated alumina
 prepared by [?] the Sulphate by
 Carbonate of Soda. It is a very narrow
 claim as you may perceive. His original
 application claimed several other matters
 which in the course of correspondence with
 him he removed. He first claimed of Aluminum
 broadly. we referred to its common use in [?]
 & to Oxlands' patent (([?]
 & to the description in [?]
 Dict [Dictionary] We also referred him to Rochloden
 Expts[experiments] in [?] matters precipitable by
 alumina given in a late [?] of the

        