Gilbert’s account of his own experiments is for the would-be scientific discoverer worth a hundredfold the Novum Organon of the overpraised Francis Bacon. Nay, let him go back to Peter Peregrinus, the soldier-pioneer, and see how he experimented with floating lodestones before he penned his account of the pivoted magnet--the earliest known instrument that can rightly be called a mariner’s compass. Not until he has thus become a bit of an antiquary will he have fully understood how the discoveries of old were made. And, in precisely the same spirit of quest, though with the wealth of modern appliances at his command, must he go to work, if new discoveries are to be made by him. But, for all this, he needs a guide to tell him what are the records of the original pioneers, by what names their works are called, and where they can be found. Such a guide doubtless exists to some extent in the mere catalogues of electrical literature, such as the catalogue of the Ronalds’ Library at the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in London; or, more fully, even, in the new Catalogue of the Latimer Clark Library, now known as the Wheeler Collection, at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, in New York. The Chronological History of Electricity which Mr. P. F. Mottelay contributed, week by week, to the columns of the “Electrical World” and of “Engineering” in the years 1891–1892, was the beginning of an attempt to provide an even more complete analysis of the earlier literature of the subject. But these are only the beginnings. In the “Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism,” which Mr. Mottelay is now giving to the world, a far more exhaustive and detailed account is rendered of the earlier workers and writers in our dual science. He has particularly worked up all important electrical channels, and in the more extended articles, some of which it has been the writer’s privilege to peruse in advance, there are presented valuable monographs dealing with particular workers who each in his own day made notable contributions to the advance of the science. To all who would tread in their paths, and add something to the ever-widening domain of electrical discovery, this Bibliographical History may be commended, not only for what it contains, but for the appreciative spirit in which it brings before the reader the work of those men who made the science what it is. Pioneers; O Pioneers! SILVANUS P. THOMPSON. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD BY SIR R. T. GLAZEBROOK, K.C.B., D.SC., F.R.S. PREFACE vii INTRODUCTION, BY PROF. SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, D.SC., F.R.S. xiii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix CHRONOLOGICAL SECTION, B.C. 2637 TO A.D. 1821 1