The smallest battery that Wollaston formed of the above-described construction consisted of a thimble without its top, flattened until its opposite sides were about two-tenths of an inch asunder. The bottom part was then nearly one inch wide and the top about three-tenths, and as its length did not exceed nine-tenths of an inch, the plate of zinc to be inserted was less than three-fourths of an inch square (Annals of Philosophy, Vol. VI. p. 210).
We are also indebted to Dr. Wollaston for the first idea of the possibility of producing electro-magnetic rotations. Prof. Schweigger opposed the action of revolving magnetism upon the ground that if it were true, a magnet might be made to revolve around the uniting wire, but Faraday found experimentally not only that a magnet could be made to revolve round the uniting wire, but that a movable uniting wire might be made to revolve around a magnet. (See Faraday’s “Experimental Researches,” Vol, II. pp. 159–162 for “Historical Statement Respecting Electro-magnetic Rotation.”)
Wollaston was made secretary of the Royal Society in 1806, became its president in 1820 after the death of Sir Joseph Banks, and contributed in all thirty-eight memoirs to the Philosophical Transactions of that Institution.
His death occurred Dec. 22, 1828, and during the following February Dr. Fitton, President of the Geological Society, concluded his annual address with the following encomium:
“It would be difficult to name a man who so well combined the qualities of an English gentleman and a philosopher, or whose life better deserves the eulogium given by the first of our orators to one of our most distinguished public characters; for it was marked by a constant wish and endeavour to be useful to mankind.”
References.—Phil. Mag. or Annals, Vol. V. p. 444. See also “The Roll Call of the Royal College of Physicians of London,” by William Munk, M.D., Vol. II; Edin. Phil. Jour., Vol. X. p. 183; Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” Vol. I. p. 424; De la Rive, “Treatise on Electricity,” pp. 444, 445; Phil. Mag., Vol. XXXIII. p. 488; LXIII. p. 15; James Napier, “Manual of Electro-Metallurgy,” 4th Am. ed., pp. 492, 518; Desbordeaux, in Comptes Rendus, Vol. XIX. p. 273; Le Moniteur, No. 40 for 1806; Sue, aîné, “Galvanisme,” Vol. II. pp. 193–195, 199, 202; Joseph Izarn, “Manuel du Galvanisme,” p. 137; Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 1362; “Encycl. Metrop.,” Vol. IV (Galvanism), pp. 180, 181, 216, 222; Nicholson’s Journal, Vol. V. p. 333; Thos. Young, “Lectures,” London, 1807, Vol. II. p. 679; W. Sturgeon, “Scientific Researches,” Bury, 1850, p. 29; Quarterly Journal of Science for January 1821; British Quarterly Review for August 1846; “Biog. Générale,” Tome XLVI. p. 822; Highton’s “Electric Telegraph,” p. 14; Larousse, “Dict. Universel,” Tome XV. p. 1370; “Cat. Sc. Papers ... Roy. Soc.,” Vol. I. p. 61; Vol. II. pp. 136, 199; “Bibl. Britan.,” 1801, Vol. XVIII. p. 274; 1810, Vol. XLIII. p. 347 (Phil. Mag., June 1809); Vol. I., N.S., 1816, p. 119.
A.D. 1802.—Walker (Adam), English writer and inventor of several very ingenious mathematical instruments, publishes in London his enlarged edition of “A System of Familiar Philosophy,” two volumes, 8vo, in which he devotes ss. 5–9 of Lecture II. vol. i. to magnetism, and all of Lectures VII and VIII of the second volume to electricity.
We are informed, through his preface, that “the identity of fire, light, heat, caloric, phlogiston and electricity, or rather their being but modifications of one and the same principle, as well as their being the grand agents in the order of nature ... are the leading problems of the work.” In another part he tells us:
“If electricity, light and fire be but modifications of one and the same principle ... and they have their origin or foundation in the sun, it is natural to suppose, in issuing from that luminary, they proceed from him first in their purest state, or in the character of electricity; that joining the particles of our atmosphere, electricity becomes light, and uniting with the grosser earth, fire ... that this fire shall be culinary when called forth from the earth by ordinary combustion, and electric when called forth by friction. Thus have I exhibited this wonderful agent in most of the lights in which it has yet been seen; and flatter myself the reader’s deductions from these appearances will be similar to my own, viz. that electricity emanates in a perfect state from the sun and fixed stars; that its particles repel each other and fill all space; that they have an affinity to the earth and planets, but an affinity that cannot easily be gratified, because the surrounding atmospheres are in part non-conductors, being already saturated, and, of course, repellent of the electric fluid” (Lecture VIII. p. 72).
In the section devoted to “Miscellaneous Observations,” he remarks that the magnetic power may almost be said to be created by friction, rather than communicated by it; for a magnet acquires strength by giving magnetism to iron; so that, if all the magnets in the world were lost, magnetism might be revived by rubbing the end of one steel bar against the side of another.