SKETCH OF WILLIAM R. GROVE. 363 



this end (tlie improvement of navigation as a science) or to secure 

 continued time-measurements, magnetic data, and other information 

 for the guidance of seamen. Contemporary Meview. 







SKETCH OF WILLIAM ROBERT GROYE. 



THE subject of this sketch is a tj'pical exam^ple of that remarkable 

 class of men who achieve great eminence, both in business and 

 in science ; he is a very distinguished scientific investigator, havino- 

 not only made his name a household word in all chemical laboratories 

 where galvanic batteries are used, but he was one of the early pio- 

 neers in establishing the grand doctrine of the correlation of forces 

 and is known and esteemed throughout the scientific world for his 

 share in this great movement. He has also been a hard-working pro- 

 fessional lawyer, forcing his way to legal distinction among his coun- 

 trymen, becoming queen's counsel, until at length, passing from the 

 bar to the bench, and taking a distinguished rank among the judges 

 of England. 



William Robert Gkove was born in Swansea, Wales, July 14, 

 1811, and received his early education at the Swansea Grammar- 

 School. His father, who was a magistrate, intended him for the 

 Church, and he was sent to Oxford in 1830, completing his university 

 term with honor in 1833. He had conscientious scruples that were 

 opposed to his father's desires, and he adopted the profession of the 

 law. He also married about this time, and quitted England for a 

 while to travel on the Continent for his health. In this leisure he took 

 to the reading and study of electricity, soon follow^ed by original ex- 

 periments and important discoveries in this branch of science. In 

 1835 he became Professor of Natural Philosophy in the London Insti- 

 tution, a place which he held for five years. His scientific researches 

 have been mostly in the field of electricity, and his contributions on 

 this subject have been numerous in the "Philosophical Transactions," 

 the Philosophical Magazine^ and other journals of science. In 1839 

 we find him communicating to the Academic des Sciences de Paris 

 the fact that if a positive electrode be immersed, half in water, and 

 the other half in a tube of hydrogen, and a negative electrode in 

 water and oxygen, the water ascends in the tubes, the galvanometer 

 is deflected, and the water is decomposed and recomposed by voltaic 

 action. This same year he communicated to the French Academy his 

 invention of the galvanic battery, now beai'ing his name, in which 

 platinum is substituted for copper, and nitric acid for sulphuric. He 

 also published in this connection a paper on the " Inaction of Amalga- 

 mated Zinc in Acidulated Water," in w^hich this phenomenon was first 

 satisfactorily explained. About the same time he discovered that if 



