I'm in the archive of the Royal Society
in London where all the precious objects
are kept and there's a really
interesting thing that I never looked at
before in this envelope if you look here
it's a rather beautiful envelope and it
says on the front London and then it
says Monsieur Lee professor mr. the
professor Thorpe F for fellow of Royal
Society and it's got a stamp on the back
it's got a postal mark saying 29th of
December 1901 and it's written in
Russian and it has a mark here from the
Russian Red Cross so let's look what's
inside and inside there are two cards
and the first card says to professor
Thorpe to introduce dr. Duncan with best
compliments d Mendeleev
and so here is the handwriting mender
life the discoverer of the periodic
table or the inventor and he is writing
to professor Thorpe saying this is my
friend Duncan I'd like you to meet him
and inside for some reason there is a
second business card which says D
Mendeleev and it's got the old-fashioned
right spelling with two FS at the end
like my surname and then it says
professor and Mary T that means emeritus
professor it means he's already retired
at the University of st. Petersburg and
he's got his address there and it says
12th of the first 1902 this is Mendeleev
business card so if you came up to
professor Mendeleev and said hello I'm
professor Polyakov he would say I am
professor Mendeleev and give you the
card I think it's terrific
I think it's pretty much as close as we
can get to Mendeleev of course we hope
soon we will go to some Petersburg and
sit at his desk but this if you like is
receiving something that Mendeleev has
actually given to somebody else so we
really know that this has been held by
Mendeleev might even be his fingerprints
on it and yours now too
that's all that there is in here and
it's quite surprising that somebody
would post a letter which does has three
lines but presumably dr. Duncan who
sounds as if he is Scottish or English
wanted so much to speak to professor
Thorpe who may have been a very
important figure that he got Mendeleev
to write him an introduction because he
was too shy to go by himself and what is
very interesting is that it shows that
before emails before the in
internet that scientists in different
countries were already communicating
collaborating together and this is one
of the wonderful things about the Royal
Society's archives that they have 350
years of correspondence between
scientists in different countries and so
how much science has been an
international activity for so many years
you