
          Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT. March 20, 1839

Dear Sir, Your favor in reply to 
[added: a scrawl of] mine some time since came safely to hand

As you remark, I cannot conceive how the two
excellent editors of the American Journal of Science
could make such a mistake concerning solid combine 
acid I cannot conceive!

Please accept my thanks for your suggestions
concerning the best method of securing liquid
car. acid in glass tubes. I have had no time &
command to experiment further since I wrote.

I have not been able to proceed any further
in the construction of this improved stop-cock (as
you are pleased to call it) for gases under high
pressure, and it is yet guite problematical whether
it will prove to be really an "improvement" or
the reverse; nor am I able to say as their is even
anything new about it though I never saw or heard
of anything of this kind, except Dr. Mitchell's double
conical stop-cock, of this construction of which I must
confess I cannot form a very definite idea!
        