The Life and Letters of Faraday/Volume 1

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The Life and Letters of Faraday
by Henry Bence Jones

Volume 1

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4704377The Life and Letters of Faraday — Volume 1Henry Bence Jones

FARADAY'S LIFE AND LETTERS.

VOL. I.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

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The

Life and Letters

of

FARADAY.

by

Dr. Bence Jones,

Secretary of the Royal Institution

In Two Volumes

Vol. I.

Second edition, revised.

London:
Longmans, Green, and Co.
1870.

The right of translation is reserved.

PREFACE

TO

THE SECOND EDITION.

In consequence of suggestions in letters and in reviews, some changes have been made in this edition.

Very little new matter has been added; but some letters have been left out; and other letters, and some of the lectures and journals have been shortened.

Two or three errors, which came from misapprehensions in conversation, have been corrected.

The most important mistake relates to the loaf of bread which Faraday had weekly when nine years old. I wrongly understood that it came from the temporary help which was given to the working class in London during the famine of 1801. I was too easily led into this error by my wish to show the height of the rise of Faraday by contrasting it with the lowliness of his starting point. I ought to have been content with the few words which he wrote. "My education was of the most ordinary description, consisting of little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, at a common day school. My hours out of school were passed at home" (in the mews) "and in the streets."

This leaves no doubt that Faraday rose from that large class which lives by the hardest muscular labour, and can give but little for mental food; and yet by his own brain-work he became in his day the foremost of that small class which, by the mind alone, makes the glory of humanity.

H. B. J.

March 18th, 1870.

PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

To write a life of Faraday seemed to me at first a hopeless work. Although I had listened to him as a lecturer for thirty years and had been with him frequently for upwards of twenty years, and although for more than fifteen years he had known me as one of his most intimate friends, yet my knowledge of him made me feel that he was too good a man for me to estimate rightly, and that he was too great a philosopher for me to understand thoroughly. I thought that his biographer should if possible be one who was his own mental counterpart.

I afterwards hoped that the Journals, which he wrote at different periods whilst abroad, might have been published separately. If this had been done, then some portions of his biography would have been in his own writing: but it was thought undesirable to divide the records of the different parts of his life.

As time went on, and those who were most interested in the work found no one with sufficient leisure to whom they were inclined to give his manuscripts, I at last made the attempt to join together his own words, and to form them into a picture of his life which may almost be looked upon as an autobiography.

My first work was to read his manuscripts; and then to collect from his friends all the letters and notes that were likely to be of interest. And here, in duty bound, I must first thank Mrs. Faraday and her nieces Miss Barnard and Miss Reid for their help; then his earliest friend Mr. Abbott, whose collection of letters was priceless; then his friends M. Auguste de la Rive and the late Professor Schönbein. I am also indebted to Madame Matteucci, Miss Moore, Miss Magrath, Miss Phillips, Dr. Tyndall, Dr. Percy, Col. Yorke, the late Rev. John Barlow, and to many others.

From his letters, his laboratory note-books, his lecture-books, his Trinity House and other manuscripts, I have arranged the materials for a memorial of Faraday in the simplest order, with the least connecting matter.

I have, however, with permission, used some of the admirable summaries published by Dr. Tyndall, in his account of 'Faraday as a Discoverer.'

H. B. J.

October 18th, 1869.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER I. 1791-1812. To Æt. 21.
PAGE
Early Life—Errand Boy and Bookbinder's Apprentice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		1
CHAPTER II. 1812-1813. To Æt. 22.
Journeyman Bookbinder and Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		39
CHAPTER III. 1813-1815. To Æt. 24.
Extracts from his Journal and Letters Whilst Abroad with Sir Humphry Davy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		73
CHAPTER IV. 1815-1819. To Æt. 28.
Earlier Scientific Education at the Royal Institution—First Lectures at the City Philosophical Society—First Paper in the 'Quarterly Journal de Science' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		189
CHAPTER V. 1820-1830. To Æt. 39.
Higher Scientific Education at the Institution—Marriage—First Paper in the 'Philosophical Transactions' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		276

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FARADAY (JULY 27, 1857) WITH HIS HEAVY GLASS THAT SHOWED 'THE ACTION OF MAGNETISM ON LIGHT' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		Frontispiece
CLAPHAM WOOD HALL, YORKSHIRE, AS IT WAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		page 2
CLAPHAM WOOD HALL AS IT NOW IS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		3
JACOB'S WELL MEWS, THE EARLY HOME OF FARADAY, AS IT NOW IS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		7
THE BOOKBINDER'S SHOP IN BLANDFORD STREET AS IT WAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		9

This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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