Letter from W M [William Mundell] Thornton, 37 Thorndale Road, Waterloo, nr Liverpool, to Sir Oliver [Lodge] He came across Lodge's points early in his work, explaining how he could test the accuracy of his method, and the values he might obtain. Lodge's second question may answer his first, Boltzmann's values obtained by measuring the attraction of dielectric spheres in a field of force have been generally confirmed. He thinks the chief reason his method has not been tried before is the extreme difficulty of working the dielectrics into shape, as only a professional optician could work the glass and quartz well enough. He could not afford to have many ellipsoids made, and developed the use of cylinders alone. He hopes he has answered Lodge's queries but would welcome others. 2 January 1909