I have not yet received either your packet [or your letter?] of the eighth. I beg you to inform me [torn] do me the honor of writing to me by means of the [torn] you had used for the two travelling [torn]; I could, with only a little [torn] discover here in the furnished hotels or [torn] and if they are French people residing in Paris, that would be even simpler, although scarcely more secure.

If you do not see any drawback in communicating to the public the explanation proposed by Miss S——n [Stevenson], on the warmth that the water of Bristol acquires through the action of the pump, I think that it could only delight the public. I venture to assure you even more confidently that people would be very pleased to know how you explain the fact that the [torn] colds, and that linen [torn] which are damp do not cause colds. If you do not [torn] to publish the explanation yet, I [torn] you to communicate it to me for my own instruction.

[Torn] the blackening of fruit walls [torn] has had carried out, or has seen being carried out some [torn], there could be both pros and cons. Whitewashed walls reflect more heat onto the fruit during the day, and can consequently help to make the fruit grow faster, and to ensure its perfect ripeness in slightly cold climates. Are you quite certain (even before conducting the experiment) that the warmth which blackened walls will be able to give to the fruit during the night, from their reserve of daytime warmth, will more than compensate for the warmth which the blackened walls will have taken away from the fruit during the day, and which ordinary white walls would not have absorbed?

In your last letter, of the 26th to the 30th of December, you are so kind as to explain the word “chain” to me in these terms: a surveyor’s chain meant here, is four pole, or [66 feet.] [Torn] of surveyors is four perches [torn] is therefore sixteen and a half feet [torn] convenient for use, I suspect [torn] inadvertently one number for the other [torn] the perch varies a little from one province to [another, and in a?] royal province is 22 feet, thus 66 feet [torn] therefore I wonder whether you would not have [torn] four perches for three, or 66 feet for [torn]. When I examine the electrical apparatus used by Monsieur Dalibard for his experiment in Marly-la-Ville (the description of it as well as the drawing), it seems to me that he did not take adequate precautions for the safety of his friend Coiffier, and that if the thunder had been very great, Coiffier could well have suffered the same fate as Monsieur Richman, because the iron rod was set up in such a way that it had no contact with the earth, but on the contrary bore on a plank, separated from the earth by bottles. What do you think of this?

Permit me to enclose the little memoir of my colleague Monsieur Missa, who would be extremely obliged to you if you could, without [torn] provide a few explanations [torn.] You do not think that [anything] which concerns humanity is foreign to you.

[torn] Mademoiselle Biheron, for quite some [time, has been feeling?] a great deal of anxiety about her health. If [torn] is not favorable to her, do the [torn] health is not at all bad, [torn] [information], which afflicts all of us, and [torn] Mademoiselle Basseport ill.

Your engraver [has?] your portrait very much at heart, and flatters himself that if he had had the good fortune to see you on one of your previous trips, he would have produced something better than what I have given him to copy and reduce in size. And he intends to profit by the opportunity of your visit next summer, which you make us hope for, to redo the portrait afresh. I have the honor to be, with an unshakeable devotion, Monsieur and dear friend, your very humble and very obedient servant