The Correspondences of Stephen van Rensselaer

Ada Lovelace

My Dear Stephen,

Take heart and cease your worry. This cold materialism does not become you. The cosmos being mere calculation need not detract from its greater glory. What other medium would you expect the divine to manifest, if not within the perfection of numbers? Your old dogma fails you in these radical times. Every day, it seems, a new natural law is read into the books. It will not be long before we have exhausted the ledger and given a full account of God’s creation. This is a cause for celebration, not melancholy. I have heard whispers in the parlors of London that Faraday has finally cracked the secret of electricity, and they say across the channel Gauss has sent information over a simple copper wire!

I look to hearing the progress of your endeavor in the future. I can hardly wait to discuss it in person when next you return to London.

Yours Truly,

Lady Ada Lovelace

P.S. You must give Euphemia my regards. I miss her terribly.

—December 1833

Amos Eaton

Dear Stephen, My Greatest Benefactor,

I apologize for my silence these past few months. Rest assured, I have not been ignoring your missives. The team here at the Institute has been faithfully carrying out your orders day and night, with barely a moment to stop and breathe. I thought it prudent to focus on our investigations rather than worry you with half-finished reports, conjectures and excuses. Having only just left the laboratory, I can now write you confidently with extraordinary news. If I stumble over the usual pleasantries, please forgive this old felon as you done many times before. My hands tremble as these words leave my pen.

Firstly, the Institute cannot thank you enough for your patronage. Ferris’s gyroscopic stabilizer has accelerated our progress considerably. We would not have been able to complete it on schedule without your considerable investment. The device has finally allowed us to unravel the mystery you gave me all those years ago.

Now onto the news your eyes have surely scanned before reading the preceding introductions: we have successfully induced citrinitas in the material. As you predicted, pure sunlight is processed within its crystalline mechanisms, resulting in a discharge of electricity.

Pardon the jargon that follows, though perhaps one who has taken the York Rite will appreciate the similarities in our vernacular. The Work requires Tools, after all. The breakthrough came when Marie realized we could measure the torsion moment generated by the Ferris device with a modified Prony brake, while simultaneously mounting the device onto a simple balance to track its weight.

There is no doubt about it. The data are conclusive. The faster the material spins, the more it weighs. When the weight reaches a threshold, whose value is confounded by variables we have not yet isolated, it undergoes citrinitas. Stephen, it glows with the radiance of Sophia.

Franklin is currently setting up the volta-electrometers from London. By the time I return, he and the students will have begun mapping out the quantity of electricity that passes through it. We expect to have a full report within the week. It goes without saying that you will be informed of all results. Nevertheless, I could not stop myself from drafting this hasty letter.

We have done it, old friend. Our reward will be the future itself.

Your ever loyal servant,

Amos Eaton

—June 1834