“Your subject interested me deeply every way; for Mrs. Marcet was a good friend to me, as she must have been to many of the human race. I entered the shop of a bookseller and bookbinder at the age of thirteen, in the year 1804, remaining there eight years, and during the chief part of the time bound books. Now it was in those books, in the hours after work, that I found the beginning of my philosophy. There were two that especially helped me, the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ from which I gained my first notions of electricity, and Mrs. Marcet’s ‘Conversations on Chemistry,’ which gave me my foundation in that science. Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked as a precocious person ... but facts were important to me and saved me. I could trust a fact and always cross-examined an assertion. So when I questioned Mrs. Marcet’s book by such little experiments as I could find means to perform, and found it true to the facts as I could understand them, I felt that I had got hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it....” (“Faraday as a Discoverer,” by John Tyndall, 1868, pp. 6–7).
Think of the startling, not to say marvellous, achievements growing out of Faraday’s subsequent first experiments with an electrical machine made out of an old bottle and by the aid of a Leyden jar constructed with a medicine phial!
In 1812, he was taken by Mr. Dance to the lectures of Sir Humphry Davy, whose chemical assistant he became the following year and in whose company, as we have already seen (A.D. 1801), he travelled on the Continent until 1815. Mr. Davies Gilbert, to whom is due Davy’s introduction to the Royal Institution, has said of the last-named illustrious philosopher that the greatest of all his discoveries was the discovery of Faraday. In 1816, Michael Faraday was placed by Mr. Brande in charge of the “Quarterly Journal of Science,” and, during 1823, he was elected corresponding Member of the French Academy, becoming F.R.S. the ensuing year through the influence of his friend Richard Phillips. It was during 1825–1826 he published in the Phil. Trans. the chemical papers wherein he announces the discovery of benzole (called by him bicarburet of hydrogen) to which, says Hoffmann, “we virtually owe our supply of aniline, with all its magnificent progeny of colours.” In 1827, Faraday succeeded Davy as lecturer at the Royal Institution, and, from 1829 to 1842, he occupied the post of chemical lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. The “Experimental Researches,” to which we have so often alluded, first appeared in the 1831 Phil. Trans., and were afterwards collected in three volumes, which were published respectively during 1839, 1844, 1855. Faraday was made D.C.L. in 1832 by Oxford University, and, one year later, he received the Fullerian professorship of chemistry in the Royal Institution, which he held till his death. A pension was given him by the English Government in 1835, and he also received the Royal Medal, which latter was again conferred upon him, together with the Rumford Medal, during 1846. Ten years before (1836) he had become a member of the Senate of the London University, and during the year 1858 the Queen allotted him the residence in Hampton Court where he died in 1867. “Taking him for all in all,” says Tyndall, “it will, I think, be conceded that Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher that the world has ever seen; and I would hazard the opinion that the progress of future research will tend not to diminish but to enhance the labours of this mighty explorer.”
References.—“Life of Faraday,” by Dr. H. Bence Jones (Sec. R.I.); “Michael Faraday,” by Dr. J. H. Gladstone, 1872; “Faraday as a Discoverer,” by John Tyndall; the biographical sketch by Prof. Joseph Lovering; “Michael Faraday, his Life and Work,” by Silv. P. Thompson, New York, 1898; “The Chemical News” (Am. Rep.), Vol. I. pp. 246, 250, 276, and Vol. II. pp. 98, 202; Report of the Faraday Centenary celebration at the London Roy. Inst., June 17, 1891; Poggendorff, Vol. I. pp. 719–722; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” 1872, Vol. VIII. p. 99; “Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XVII. pp. 90–93; “Men of the Time,” London, 1856; Reports on Faraday’s Lectures delivered before the Roy. Inst. (taken from the “London Mining Journal,” Nos. 714, 717–722), at pp. 319–324, 387–393; Vol. XVIII for 1849 of “Jour. of Frankl. Inst.”; Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” Vol. I. pp. 424, etc., 435–436, 514–519; Poggendorff, Annalen, Vols. LXXXVIII. p. 557; Ergänz, Vol. I. pp. 1, 28, 64, 73, 108, 187, 481–545; Gustav Wiedemann, “Die Lehre von Galv.,” 1863 and “Die Lehre von der Elektricität,” 1883; W. H. Uhland, “Die Elektrische Licht,” 1884, p. 62; An. Sc. Dis. for 1850, pp. 129, 131, 132; for 1851, p. 133, and for 1852, p. 110 on “Atmospheric Magnetism,” taken from “Jameson’s Journal,” July 1851; for 1853, p. 132; for 1856, p. 161; for 1858, p. 177, Faraday, “On the Conservatism of Force”; for 1860, p. 125, Faraday on “Static Induction”; for 1863, p. 108, “Elec. Lamp in Lighthouses”; for 1868, p. 169; for 1870, p. 10; for 1874, p. 174, on “Dielectric Absorption”; Robison, “Mechan. Phil.”; Leslie, “Geomet. Anal.”; “Jour. Roy. Inst.” for February 1831, Vol. I. p. 311 (Electrif. of ray of light); eighth “Britannica,” Vols. I, sixth dissertation; VIII. pp. 532–533, 539, 542, 544, 552, 601, 607, 617; XIV. pp. 68, 663; XXI. pp. 612, 622, 628, 630; ninth “Britannica,” Vol. IX. pp. 29–31; Brockhaus, “Conversations-Lexikon,” Vol. VI. pp. 565–566; “Lond. and Edin. Ph. Mag.,” Vol. I. p. 161 for letter of Faraday of July 27, 1832, enclosing one signed P. M., “in which chemical decomposition is for the first time obtained by the induced magnetic current”; Faraday and Schönbein (“London and Edin. Mag.,” July-August 1836; “Roy. Instit. Proc.,” III. 70–71); Faraday and Riess, “On the action of non-conducting bodies in electric induction,” 1856; Sturgeon, “Sc. Res.,” 1850, pp. 20, 475; “Practical Mechanic,” Vols. II. pp. 318, 408; III. p. 197; “Libr. of Useful Knowledge” (Elec. Mag.), pp. 18, 99; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” Vol. I. pp. 182, 188; Harris, “Rud. Magn.,” 1852, I and II, pp. 61–69, etc., 199; III. 122–128 and “Rud. Elec.,” 1st ed., pp. 33–34; “Edin. Jour. Sc.,” 1826, Vol. III. p. 373; “Edin. new Ph. Jour.,” Vol. LI. p. 61; Golding Bird’s “Nat. Phil.,” p. 227; James Johnstone, “The Ether Theory of 1839,” pp. 26, 37; Noad, “Manual,” pp. 59, 236, 692, 805, 866; “Am. Jour. Sc.” for April 1871, relative to lines of magnetic force; “Ann. of Phil.” for 1832; “Bibl. Univ. Archives,” Vol. XVI. p. 129; “Roy. Instit. Proc.,” Vol. I, 1851–1854, pp. 56, 105, 216, 229; Phil. Trans., 1832, p. 163; 1851, pp. 29, 85; 1852, pp. 25, 137; Phil. Mag., Vol. III, 1852, p. 401; Dredge, “Elect. Illum.,” Vol. I. pp. 46, 91, 95; “New Eng. Mag.” for March 1891; Silliman’s Journal, Vol. XII. p. 69; “Sc. Am. Suppl.,” Nos. 198, p. 3148; 206, p. 3284; 526, p. 8404; 547, p. 8733; 652, p. 10416; La Lum. Electrique for October 31, 1891, pp. 202–203; Marcel Joubert, “Leçons,” 1882, Vol. I. pp. 495, 559; 576; Th. du Moncel, “Exposé des App. de l’Elec.,” 1872, Vols. I and II; G. B. Prescott, “Electricity,” 1885, Vol. I. pp. 105–112; “Reports of the Smithsonian Institution” for 1857, pp. 372–380; for 1862, p. 204; for 1889, p. 444; Richard Mansill, “New Syst. of Univ. Nat. Science,” 1887, pp. 180–185; “Faraday’s Researches on Electrostatical Induction,” also “Faraday’s Law of Attractions and Repulsions,” at pp. 26–30, and 647–664 of “Reprint of Papers on Electro-statics and Magnetism,” by Sir Wm. Thomson, London, 1884; “Essays in Historical Chemistry,” T. E. Thorpe, London, 1894, p. 142; “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley,” by Leonard Huxley, New York, 1901, as per Index at pp. 513–514; “Fragments of Science,” by John Tyndall, New York, 1901, Vol. I. pp. 420–443; “Jnl. of Psychological Medicine,” by Dr. William A. Hammond, New York, 1870, pp. 555–569; “Cat. Sc. Papers ... Roy. Soc.,” Vol. II. pp. 555–561; Vol. VI. p. 653; Vol. VII. p. 638; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XVIII, N.S. for 1821, p. 269; “Phil. Mag. and Jour. of Science,” 1833, Vol. III. pp. 18, 37, 38, 161, 253, 353, 460, 469, and Vol. XI, 1838, pp. 206, 358, 426, 430, 538.
APPENDIX I
ACCOUNTS OF EARLY WRITERS, NAVIGATORS AND OTHERS
ALLUDED TO BY GILBERT AND NOT ALREADY DISPOSED
OF THROUGHOUT THIS “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY”
Abano, Pietro di—Petrus Aponus, Apponensis or Apianus—called “the Reconciler” (1250–1316), was Professor of Medicine at Padua and wrote several works of importance on different subjects. The best known is “Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum ac Medicorum,” which is devoted to the reconciliation of the various medical and philosophical schools, and in which reference is made to the loadstone, as is also the case in his “Tractatus de Venenis,” published during 1490.
References.—Larousse (Pierre), “Dict. Universel,” Vol. I. p. 11; “Biographie Générale,” Vol. I. pp. 29–31; G. A. Pritzel, “Thesaurus Literaturæ Botanicæ,” Lipsiæ, 1851, p. 226; N. F. J. Eloy, “Dict. hist. de la médecine,” Mons, 1778, Art. Apono; Ludovico Hain, “Repertorium Bibliographicorum,” Art. Abano; Mazzuchelli (Frederigo), “Raccolta d’Opuscoli ...” Venetia, 1741; Pellechet (Marie), “Catalogue général des incunables,” 1897, pp. 1–4; Gilbert, De Magnete, Book I. chap. i.
Agricola, Georgius—Bauer—Landmann—(1494–1555), is called by Dr. Thomas Thomson one of the most extraordinary men as well as one of the greatest promoters of chemistry that have ever existed, and he pronounces Agricola’s “De Re Metallica,” which was published in 1546, 1556, 1558, 1561, as, beyond comparison, the most valuable chemical work produced in the sixteenth century. Agricola is also the author of “De Natura eorum,” of “De Natura fossilium” and of “De veteribus et novis metallis,” all published at Basle in 1657.
Gilbert mentions Agricola in his De Magnete (Book I. chaps, i. ii. vii. viii.; Book II. chap. xxxviii.) and, in connection with him, alludes more particularly to Gilgil, the Mauretanian, and also to Christoph—Entzelt—Encelius, author of a book bearing the same name as Agricola’s chief work, “De Re Metallica,” published at Frankfort, 1551. Attention may as well be called here to additional authors, whose works, in the same line, are of great variety and but little known: (1) Cæsalpinus (Andreas) (1519–1603), “De Metallicis,” Romæ, 1596; (2) Morieni (Romani), who, in his “De Re Metallica,” Parisiis, 1559, treats (as does also John Joachim Beccher, 1635–1682: “Hutton’s Abridgments” Vol. I. p. 620) of the transmutation of metals and of the occult, much in same manner as Robertus Vallensis in his “De veritate et antiquitate artis chemicæ ...” 1593, 1612; (3) Bernardo Pèrez de Vargas, who, in his “De Re Metallica, en el qual se tratan de muchos diversos secretos ...” Madrid, 1569, tells how to find different kinds of minerals and metals and how to treat them to the best advantage in various industries; (4) J. Charles Faniani, “De Arte Metallicæ” 1576.