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 OfScience 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 theFourteen Series of Experimental Researches in Electricity, which haveappeared in the Philosophical Transactions during the last seven years: thechief reason has been the desire to supply at a moderate price the whole ofthese 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 thatit was not written as a whole, but in parts; the earlier portions rarelyhaving any known relation at the time to those which might follow. If I hadrewritten the work, I perhaps might have considerably varied the form, butshould not have altered much of the real matter: it would not, however,then have been considered a faithful reprint or statement of the course andresults of the whole investigation, which only I desired to supply.
I may be allowed to express my great satisfaction at finding, that thedifferent parts, written at intervals during seven years, harmonize so wellas they do. There would have been nothing particular in this, if the partshad related only to matters well-ascertained before any of them werewritten:—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 generalaccuracy which they seem to me to present.
I have made some alterations in the text, but they have been altogether ofa typographical or grammatical character; and even where greatest, havebeen intended to explain the sense, not to alter it. I have often addedNotes 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 ofillustration: but these are all distinguished from the Original Notes ofthe Researches by the date of Dec. 1838.
The date of a scientific paper containing any pretensions to discovery isfrequently a matter of serious importance, and it is a great misfortunethat there are many most valuable communications, essential to the historyand progress of science, with respect to which this point cannot now beascertained. This arises from the circumstance of the papers having nodates attached to them individually, and of the journals in which theyappear having such as are inaccurate, i.e. dates of a period earlier thanthat of publication. I may refer to the note at the end of the FirstSeries, as an illustration of the kind of confusion thus produced. Thesecircumstances have induced me to affix a date at the top of every otherpage, and I have thought myself justified in using that placed by theSecretary of the Royal Society on each paper as it was received. An authorhas no right, perhaps, to claim an earlier one, unless it has receivedconfirmation 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 QuarterlyJournal of Science, 1822. xii. 74. 186. 283. 416, and also to my Letter onMagneto-electric Induction in the Annales de Chimie, li. p. 404. Thesemight, as to the matter, very properly have appeared in this volume, butthey would have interfered with it as a simple reprint of the "ExperimentalResearches" of the Philosophical Transactions.
Then I wish to refer, in relation to the Fourth Series on a new law ofElectric Conduction, to Franklin's experiments on the non-conduction ofice, which have been very properly separated and set forth by ProfessorBache (Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1836. xvii. 183.). These, which Idid not at all remember as to the extent of the effect, though they in noway anticipate the expression of the law I state as to the general effectof liquefaction on electrolytes, still should never be forgotten when
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