I received a few days ago your letter requesting a list of such apparatus as I might conceive necessary to a course of Chemical Lectures in your new College, I have already applied myself to the undertaking thus requested, but find it attended by some perplexity. The articles used by Chemists are very various, & the cost varies with the size & the finish. I use many articles made in my own laboratory of the cost of which I have no account. I will however do the best I can to inform you, & although very much occupied in the examination of candidates, for degrees, & some important law business, I hope to finish the list & forward it in time to answer your purpose— I take the liberty of saying that it would, in my opinion, be better to elect the Profr who is to use the apparatus, before it is purchased; as articles which might be very useful in the hands of one professor, might be unimployed by another—

I will avail myself of this opportunity, to recommend Dr B F Bache as a person well qualified for your chemical Chair. He is a son of the gentleman whose name he bears, & a grandson of our illustrious countryman Franklin—

I know him to be one of the most learned chemists of our country, he has a very solid understanding, is very discreet, & has no small share of dignity in his deportment. I have great confidence in his integrity, & believe his dispositions uncommonly amiable.—