[21] Compare Dumas, “Éloge Historique de Michel Faraday,” p. xxxiii., who gives the above statement. Arago’s own account to the Académie differs slightly.
[22] This ring Faraday is represented as holding in his hand in the beautiful marble statue by Foley which stands in the Entrance Hall of the Royal Institution. The ring itself is still preserved at the Royal Institution amongst the Faraday relics. The accompanying cut ([Fig. 4]) is facsimiled from Faraday’s own sketch in his laboratory note-book.
[23] Now in the possession of the author, to whom it was given by his kinswoman Lady Wilson, youngest daughter of Richard Phillips.
[24] The day of the Annual Meeting and election of Council of the Royal Society.
[25] This is a slip in the description; the momentary current induced in the secondary wire on making the current in the primary is inverse: it is succeeded by a momentary direct current when the primary current is stopped.
[26] This doubtless refers to Whewell, of Cambridge, whom he was in the habit of consulting on questions of nomenclature.
[27] A man of fashion who had, without any claim to distinction, wormed himself into scientific society, posed as a savant, and had delivered a high-flown oration on botany at the Royal Institution.
[28] The use of this term, as distinguished from production, to distinguish between the primary generation of a current in a voltaic cell, a thermopile, or a friction-machine, by chemical or molecular action, and its indirect production without contact or communication of any material sort, as by motion of a wire near a magnet or by secondary influence from a neighbouring primary current while that current is varying in strength or proximity, is exceedingly significant. Faraday’s own meaning in adopting it is best grasped by referring to p. 1 of the “Experimental Researches”:—
“On the Induction of Electric Currents.”... The general term induction which, as it has been received into scientific language, may also, with propriety, be used to express the power which electrical currents may possess of inducing any particular state upon matter in their immediate neighbourhood.... I propose to call this action of the current from the voltaic battery volta-electric induction ... but as a distinction in language is still necessary, I propose to call the agency thus exerted by ordinary magnets magneto-electric or magne-electric induction.
[29] “Experimental Researches,” i. 25, art. 85. This copper disc is still preserved at the Royal Institution. It was shown in action by the author of this work, at a lecture at the Royal Institution delivered April 11th, 1891. [Fig. 6] is reproduced in facsimile from Faraday’s laboratory note-book.