Forgive me, my illustrious doctor, if I did not send you this note any sooner; it is regarding the type of stove in which the fire is placed above it, and the flame descends and then rises up by a pipe, so that one sees with surprise the smoke rush to the bottom and then go into the pipe which carries it out. I was so busy since Thursday that despite my intentions I could not keep my promise.

The inventor of this type of stove is the late M. Dalesme, who was elected to the Academy in 1699 and who died in 1727. He surely must have presented it to the Academy before 1686, yet I cannot find any description of it in what we call our old memoirs; there is not even a mention of it, other than what M. de la Hire says about it on page 692 of the tenth volume of these old memoirs. But you will find the description of it in the Academic Collection, Vol. 1, page 309, I think under the title "Machine for consuming smoke." As for the rest, my illustrious doctor, you know that the ovens of our earthenware makers are heated this way; the logs and the fire are put in a kind of cradle, made with iron bars, and the smoke and flame rush below and pass through the oven, etc.

I am sorry, my illustrious doctor, to be unable to have the honor to dine with you Thursday with Mme. Le Roy, but we have an engagement which deprives us of this pleasure. We very much hope that you will let us make up for this.

Please allow me to ask if M. Barclay, your general consul for the Kingdom, has finally received orders to name particular consuls for our cities of commerce and for the different parts of Europe. If so, I would ask you to recommend to him a M. Delaporte who has been strongly recommended to me, and who has a very good place of business on Teneriffe Island. He would very much like to have the honor of being the consul there for Messieurs the Americans.

You have promised me, my illustrious doctor, a certain English Gazette which talks about the Jewish barber that was paid to go up in a balloon. Adieu, my illustrious doctor, you know how much I am passionately attached to you for life