Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1

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EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES IN ELECTRICITY

by

MICHAEL FARADAY, D.C.L. F.R.S.

Fullerian Profesor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution.
Corresponding Member, etc. of the Royal and Imperial Academies of
Science of Paris, Petersburgh, Florence, Copenhagen, Berlin,
Gottingen, Modena, Stockholm, Palermo, etc. etc.

In Two Volumes

VOL. I.

Second Edition

Reprinted from the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of 1831-1838.

London:
Richard and John Edward Taylor,
Printers and Publishers to the University of London,
Red Lion Court, Fleet Street

1849







PREFACE


I have been induced by various circumstances to collect in One Volume the
Fourteen Series of Experimental Researches in Electricity, which have
appeared in the Philosophical Transactions during the last seven years: the
chief reason has been the desire to supply at a moderate price the whole of
these papers, with an Index, to those who may desire to have them.

The readers of the volume will, I hope, do me the justice to remember that
it was not written as a _whole_, but in parts; the earlier portions rarely
having any known relation at the time to those which might follow. If I had
rewritten the work, I perhaps might have considerably varied the form, but
should not have altered much of the real matter: it would not, however,
then have been considered a faithful reprint or statement of the course and
results of the whole investigation, which only I desired to supply.

I may be allowed to express my great satisfaction at finding, that the
different parts, written at intervals during seven years, harmonize so well
as they do. There would have been nothing particular in this, if the parts
had related only to matters well-ascertained before any of them were
written:--but as each professes to contain something of original discovery,
or of correction of received views, it does surprise even my partiality,
that they should have the degree of consistency and apparent general
accuracy which they seem to me to present.

I have made some alterations in the text, but they have been altogether of
a typographical or grammatical character; and even where greatest, have
been intended to explain the sense, not to alter it. I have often added
Notes at the bottom of the page, as to paragraphs 59, 360, 439, 521, 552,
555, 598, 657, 883, for the correction of errors, and also the purpose of
illustration: but these are all distinguished from the Original Notes of
the Researches by the date of _Dec. 1838_.

The date of a scientific paper containing any pretensions to discovery is
frequently a matter of serious importance, and it is a great misfortune
that there are many most valuable communications, essential to the history
and progress of science, with respect to which this point cannot now be
ascertained. This arises from the circumstance of the papers having no
dates attached to them individually, and of the journals in which they
appear having such as are inaccurate, i.e. dates of a period earlier than
that of publication. I may refer to the note at the end of the First
Series, as an illustration of the kind of confusion thus produced. These
circumstances have induced me to affix a date at the top of every other
page, and I have thought myself justified in using that placed by the
Secretary of the Royal Society on each paper as it was received. An author
has no right, perhaps, to claim an earlier one, unless it has received
confirmation by some public act or officer.

Before concluding these lines I would beg leave to make a reference or two;
first, to my own Papers on Electro-magnetic Rotations in the Quarterly
Journal of Science, 1822. xii. 74. 186. 283. 416, and also to my Letter on
Magneto-electric Induction in the Annales de Chimie, li. p. 404. These
might, as to the matter, very properly have appeared in this volume, but
they would have interfered with it as a simple reprint of the "Experimental
Researches" of the Philosophical Transactions.

Then I wish to refer, in relation to the Fourth Series on a new law of
Electric Conduction, to Franklin's experiments on the non-conduction of
ice, which have been very properly separated and set forth by Professor
Bache (Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1836. xvii. 183.). These, which I
did not at all remember as to the extent of the effect, though they in no
way anticipate the expression of the law I state as to the general effect
of liquefaction on electrolytes, still should never be forgotten when
speaking of that law as applicable to the case of water.

There are two papers which I am anxious to refer to, as corrections or
criticisms of parts of the Experimental Researches. The first of these is
one by Jacobi (Philosophical Magazine, 1838.