A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 97 



fair, recently from Germany, made his appearance, 

 and was introduced to me. It was rumoured in the 

 meeting that this youth had in his pocket a 

 translation into English of Liebig's celebrated work 

 on agricultural chemistry, which proved to be true, 

 and the translation was soon afterwards published. 

 Another evening, a young and extremely unas- 

 suming man appeared, who was introduced to me as 

 a Mr. Joule. The first of these visitors is now 

 Baron Playfair, the second, the man whose death 

 all philosophers have recently deplored, and whose 

 statue now stands in the Town Hall of Manchester. 

 Another remarkable individual living in Manchester 

 for many years was William Sturgeon, the electrician, 

 he was born under circumstances as unfavourable 

 as can well be imagined for scientific culture, 

 and spent many years as a private soldier in 

 the Artillery; yet, self-taught, he acquired such 

 a knowledge of French, German, and Italian as 

 enabled him to read scientific works in all these 

 languages. In Dr. Angus Smith's " Centenary 

 "of Science in Manchester" is given a list of 

 fifty more or less important memoirs written by 

 him, most of them on magnetic and electrical subjects. 

 Dr. Joule has shown that Sturgeon was unquestion- 

 ably the originator of the electro-magnet as well as 

 the constructor of the first rotary magnetic engine. 

 Dr. Joule says of him : " It may be doubted whether, 

 "with the single exception of Dalton, the Scientific 

 "Society of Manchester has ever experienced a severer 



