I70 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



material, which became accessible through Volta's dis- 

 covery of 'metallic electricity,' has generally been associated 

 with the name of Galvani, though of course these discoveries 

 would not have been made so quickly without his previous 

 work; we still use to-day the term 'galvanic battery, galvanic 

 current, galvanometer, galvanisation, galvanic cautery, 

 galvanism.'^ 



But it was not only in the domain of electricity that in this 

 period an enormous harvest of research was reaped from the 

 seed sown by the devoted work of rare minds such as Cou- 

 lomb, Galvani, and Volta, work which was handed on to 

 their successors; in other fields as well this was the case, thus 

 as-r-egards Black, Scheele, Priestley and Cavendish in the do- 

 main of chemical processes, gases, and heat. Further, as 

 regards light, Huygens' and Newton's results were still open 

 to further investigation. Hence from this point onwards, 

 there is a particularly rapid succession o: important achieve- 

 ments, not however depending so much upon work from 

 the ground upwards, and this is distributed among a com- 

 paratively large number of investigators. In the next thirty 

 years alone, up to Faraday's time, we must name not less than 

 sixteen scientists whose work was remarkable; in the pre- 

 vious thirty years there were only eight, and among these 

 the men already discussed. 



COUNT RUMFORD 



1733-1814 



We now come to a mind especially lightly weighted with the 

 ballast of learning, and thus left free to soar to great 

 heights, but nevertheless capable of getting at the bottom of 



^ Compare in this connection the later note on Galvanometer (under 

 Ampere, p. 227). 



