FOOTNOTES:
[1] Erasmus Darwin, author of The Botanic Garden, Loves of the Plants, etc., and grandfather of the more famous Charles Darwin.
[2] It may be noted here that there are several spurious stories told of Faraday's first visit to the Institution and his introduction to Davy. The story as told here is as Faraday himself told it to Davy's biographer.
[3] It is interesting to note that Sir Humphry Davy was only thirteen years the senior of Michael Faraday.
[4] Some of the books which Faraday bound for the Royal Institution are there now; kept carefully with other relics of the great chemist. See the chapter entitled "About the Royal Institution."
[5] Chevreul, many readers will remember, lived to celebrate his hundredth birthday in 1886, and all his life continued experiments in his fascinating science. He died on the 10th of April, 1889.
[6] So was Faraday described in the passport issued to him at Paris.
[7] The works of art which Faraday refers to are the Laocoön, the Venus de Medici, the Dying Gladiator, and other sculpture brought from Rome to Paris by Napoleon after one of his Italian campaigns. Faraday must have been gratified at their return to Rome the year after his words were written.
[8] Founded in 1831, for the purpose of stimulating scientific inquiry.
[9] Author of Conversations on Chemistry, a work which had had a considerable influence on Faraday in his early youth.
[10] It is interesting here to see what Tyndall says, referring to Faraday as a lecturer: "I doubt his unconcern, but his fearlessness was often manifested. It used to rise within him as a wave, which carried both him and his audience along with it. On rare occasions also, when he felt himself and his subject hopelessly unintelligible, he suddenly evoked a certain recklessness of thought; and without halting to extricate his bewildered followers, he would dash alone through the jungle into which he had unwittingly led them; thus saving them from ennui by the exhibition of a vigour which, for the time being, they could neither share nor comprehend."
[11] A non-metallic element first discovered in 1774 by Scheele, and the subject of much research to succeeding chemists.
[12] Engineering for June 19th, 1891.