58 MR. J. P. JOULE ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 



not aware that my progress was due to any particular genius 

 that I possessed, although I never had even a moment's 

 instruction from any person; and I record these particulars 

 with no other view than that of encouraging others to per- 

 severe, who may have similar disadvantages to encounter." 



" Having become acquainted with Mr. Thomas Rose, a 

 gentleman of considerable scientific attainments, and at that 

 time (1823) residing in Woolwich, I had the good fortune to 

 become possessed of an electrical machine, much earlier than 

 I had expected. Mr. Rose being about to construct a machine 

 of this kind for his own use, presented me with the materials 

 he had prepared for it as soon as he became aware that I was 

 in want of one. By the liberality of this gentleman, I had 

 thus placed in my hands a glass cylinder ten inches in diameter, 

 and an excellent mahogany frame for its support. Both parts 

 were quite new, but the cylinder was not mounted, nor was it 

 furnished with caps at its necks. Although the fitting up of 

 this machine and its appendages cost a considerable portion of 

 time, I was amply rewarded by its happening to be an 

 excellent working apparatus, which I used in my lectures and 

 investigations for several years afterwards." 



As above intimated, Mr. Sturgeon procured his discharge 

 from military duty in 1820, his conduct while a soldier having 

 been, according to the testimony of his commanding officer, 

 Major Jones, "altogether unimpeachable," and was thus 

 enabled to devote himself with greater assiduity to the pur- 

 suit of his favorite studies. At that period scientific research 

 had just received a great impulse from the discovery by 

 Oersted, that a current of voltaic electricity passing through 

 a conducting wire, is capable of deflecting a poized magnetic 

 needle from its position in the magnetic meridian of the earth. 

 This most remarkable discovery, by which the sciences of 

 electricity and magnetism were permanently allied, created an 

 intense interest, and accordingly we find that the most eminent 

 natural philosophers of the day immediately entered upon the 



