Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with PortraitGladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Science
Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with Portrait
Gladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867
Here is one instance in the words of Mr. Robert Mallet. "... I was,
in the years that followed, never in London without paying him a
visit, and on one of those times I ventured to ask him (if not too
much engaged) to let me see where he and Davy had worked together.
With the most simple graciousness he brought me through the whole of
the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. Brande's furnaces, Davy's
battery, the place in the laboratory where he told me he had first
observed the liquefaction of chlorine, are all vividly before me--but
nothing so clear or vivid as our conversation over a specimen of green
(crown) glass, partially devitrified in floating opaque white spheres
of radiating crystals: he touched luminously on the obscure relation
of the vitreous and crystalloid states, and on the probable nature
of the nuclei of the white spheres. My next visit to Faraday that I
recollect was not long after my paper 'On the Dynamics of Earthquakes'
had appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He almost
at once referred to it in terms of praise that seemed to me so far
beyond my due, that even now I recall the very humble way I felt, as
the thought of Faraday's own transcendent merits rushed across my mind.
I ventured to ask him, had the paper engaged his attention sufficiently
that I might ask him--did he consider my explanation of the before
supposed _vorticose_ shock sufficient? To my amazement he at once
recited _nearly word for word_ the paragraph in which I took some pains
to put my views into a demonstrative shape, and ended with, 'It is as
plain and certain as a proposition of Euclid!' And yet the subject was
one pretty wide away from his own objects of study."
Often, too, if some interesting fact was exhibited to him, he would
send to his brother _savants_ some such note as this:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _4th May, 1852_.
"MY DEAR WHEATSTONE,
"Dr. Dubois-Raymond will be making his experiments _here_ next
Thursday, the 6th, from and after 11 o'clock. I wish to let you know,
that you may if you like join the select few.
"Ever truly yours,
"M. FARADAY."
It was indeed his wont to share with others the delight of a new
discovery. Thus Sir Henry Holland tells me that he used frequently to
run to his house in Brook Street with some piece of scientific news.
One of these visits was after reading Bunsen and Kirchhoff's paper on
Spectrum Analysis; and he did not stop short with merely telling the
tale of the special rays of light shot forth by each metallic vapour,
as the following letter will show. It is addressed to the present
Baroness Burdett Coutts.
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Friday, 17th May_.
"DEAR MISS COUTTS,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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