[D0331AAJ], Letter from William Joseph Hammer to Thomas Alva Edison, December 14th, 1903
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D0331AAJ
Transcription
New York, December 14, 1903 Thomas A. Edison, Esq., Orange, N.J. My Dear Mr. Edison: I have succeeded in securing a couple of tubes of Radium Carbonate which I am sending you today. I can get you some more a little later. It is comparatively inexpensive. I also secured an ultra-violet lamp, a condenser for you from Messrs Waite & Bartlett, and asked them on Saturday to send it direct to you. You will doubtless remember that the condenser and lamp or tube should be placed in the parallel across the secondary of the induction coil. Dr. Waite informs me that some of his most distinguished customers tried to operate the lamp across the secondary circuit without bridging the condenser across at the same time, and sent word that they could not make it work and that they had damaged the lamp. You will find this lamp or tube wonderfully convenient in studying phosphorescent and fluorescent substances, as it stimulates these very powerfully. The lens is of rock crystal. By shielding some of your specimens with a sheet of glass you will note the difference between the glass and the rock crystal, and I think I showed you at the laboratory how the glass cut off almost absolutely the ultra-violet rays. I trust you received the other samples of radium which I sent you, and that the radium carbonate which I am sending you today, and the ultra-violet lamp and condenser will arrive in good time. I am leaving for Baltimore where I am to give a lecture before the Johns-Hopkins University, but expect to get back here on Wednesday or at the very latest on Thursday. I believe I sent you a bill for the Radium. The cost of which I am now sending you will be Eighteen Dollars ($18) altogether. I will be much obliged if you will send me a check for this amount, plus the radium, which I have already billed. The bill for radium amounted to Forty Seven Dollars and fifty cents ($47.50), making a total of Sixty Five Dollars and fifty cents ($65.50). Hoping to see you in the near future, I remain, Yours very truly, Wm J. Hammer