Ml 



GROVE, WILLIAM ROBERT. 



HALDANE, ROBERT. 



1000 



he publiahe.1, in eight parta, between 1835 and 1838 ' Rudimenta liu- 

 guaj unibricse ex inscriptiouibua antiquisenodata ; ' in 1839 ' Rudi- 

 ineiita liuumo oacao ; ' ' Die Miinzen der gricchischeu, parthischen und 

 indosky thiscutu Konige von Bactrien und den Landern ain Indus,' 1839, 

 (The Coins of the Greek, Parthian, and indoscythian kinu'S of Bactria 

 and of the Countries on the Indus) ; and in 184042, in five parts, his 

 investigation ' Zuv Geographic und Geschichte von Altitalien,' a work 

 remarkable for the copiousness of its materials and the bold felicity of 

 many of its theories. The part he took in the controversy respecting 

 the genuineness of SanchuniathonV History of the Pho3nicians' has been 

 already mentioned. [SANCHUNIATHCN] Grotefcnd has also published 

 a history of the Lyceum at Hanover. He died December 15, 1853. 



* GROVE, WILLIAM ROBERT, Q.C., M.A., F.R.S., ia a native of 

 Swansea in South Wales, where his family have been settled for above 

 a century. He graduated in the University of Oxford. Being destined 

 for the legal profession, he was called to the bar, as a student of Lin- 

 coln's Inn, on the 23rd of November 1835 ; but his practice being very 

 soon seriously interfered with by ill health, under medical advice ho 

 quitted it for three years, and travelled on the Continent, returning 

 in 1838, and shortly afterwards re-entered on the practice of his pro- 

 fession. But he had in the interval given considerable attention to 

 scientific subjects, especially electricity ; and he succeeded in, pro- 

 ducing, by regular deduction from theory, the most powerful voltaic 

 combination yet produced, well known as 'Grove's battery,' and some- 

 times termed the ' nitric-acid battery.' Not long afterwards, in 1840, 

 he accepted the office of professor of experimental philosophy in the 

 London Institution. In the laboratory of that institution he invented 

 or discovered the 'gas battery,' in which oxygen and hydrogen gases 

 play the part of zinc and copper in an ordinary battery, the action of 

 the gas battery being obviously a mere play of chemical affinities 

 converted into electricity. This instrument therefore is as instructive 

 in a theoretical point of view as the nitric-acid battery is practically 

 valuable, and a competent authority has pronounced that nothing 

 more important has been produced in electro-chemistry since the 

 time of Sir H. Davy. The particular relation of mutual converti- 

 bility between chemical affinity and electricity in this and all other 

 voltaic or galvanic batteries, Mr. Grove denominates 'Correlation,' 

 illustrating it by the logical idt>a of the inseparability of ' height and 

 depth,' ' parent and offspring.' In some lectures delivered in the 

 course of his official duty at the London Institution, in 1842 and 1843, 

 he explicitly and fully enunciated his views on the mutual relations 

 of all natural forces. The substance of these lectures, with various 

 additions, afterwards formed an essay by Professor Grove, printed for 

 the proprietors (or members) of the London Institution, and also 

 published in 1846, under the title of ' The Correlation of Physical 

 Forces, 1 of which the author has since published two enlarged editions, 

 the second of which appeared in 1850, and tho third in 1855. This work 

 has been translated into French by the Abbd Moigno. That a relation 

 cf equivalence and mutual convertibility existed among the various 

 forces of nature had often been suspected or affirmed, and indeed the 

 existence of a connection of this kind between several pairs of them 

 established ; for example, the mutual and equivalent convertibility of 

 heat and mechanical force bad been proved by Carnot. But it was 

 reserved for Mr. Grove to announce in the mo^t general and explicit 

 manner the proposition, that all physical forces are so related to each 

 other that all might be and in nature are resolved into any one, and 

 any one into all. Thus, that heat might be converted into chemical 

 action, and chemical action into heat, both into electricity, electricity 

 into magnetism, magnetism into mechanical force or electricity, and so 

 ou in a perpetual cycle : in the actual state of science however some 

 pairs of these forces are not directly capable of mutual conversion, 

 Out require the intervention of another, which the first is capable of 

 becoming, and which is itself capable of becoming the second. The 

 influence of Mr. Grove's views on this subject upon the views and the 

 researches of his contemporaries has been marked, though almost 

 tacit. It may be traced in the subsequent researches of Professor 

 Faraday, aud is obvious in those of Mr. Joule. We conceive that Mr. 

 Grove is the true discoverer of the cause of the heat of friction, which 

 he refers to the subdivision of the mechanical motion of the masses of 

 the rubbing bodies into the vibrations of their molecules, constituting 

 heat. In connection with this he urges the theoretical importance of 

 the facts, that while the friction of similar bodies produces heat, that 

 of dissimilar bodies produces electricity, the recognition of which also 

 was first made by him. 



Though Mr. Grove has not failed to receive the rewards due to his 

 brilliant experimental productions in the position he has acquired in 

 the world of science, yet we think tho originality of his principle of 

 the correlation of physical forces, as a whole, has not been adequately 

 appreciated. Thus, in the address of the President of the British 

 Association, the Rev. Dr. Lloyd, at the last meeting, at Dublin (1857), 

 we find Mr. Grove regarded as " one of the able expounders " of 

 modern views of the mutual convertibility of different kinds of force, 

 not, as he truly is, as the original euunciator, in all its generality, ot the 

 doctrine of that entire, exhaustive, and cyclical convertibility which is 

 denoted by the tertn ' Correlation ' as understood by Mr. Grove. This 

 may have arisen however, as we must in fairness state, from tho 

 almost purely dogmatic form in which the author has proposed his 

 views, ami also from two other causes. The first of these is the fact, 



that in some cases he has sought to establish his point by argumen- 

 tation somewhat sophistical, by forensic rather than philosophical 

 reasoning, passing by some relevant but hostile truths, and thus 

 proving, or seeming to prove, rather a verbal than a real correlation. 

 The second is, that, while the entire system of known physical truths 

 conspires to prove the existence of di-tinct orders of matter, having, 

 logically speaking, a discrete difference from each oth>-r what has 

 been termed gross or ordinary matter and the ether, for example 

 Mr. Grove, with some impatience, ignores the separate existence of the 

 latter, tayiug that there' is no specific ether because everything is 

 matter, and even referring the phenomena of light itself, not to the 

 undulations of the ether, but to the vibrations of the ordinary matter 

 through which it passes, or by which it is effected alone. We leave 

 those philosophers who know that the demonstration of the undu- 

 latory theory of light is also that of the existence of the ether, to reply 

 to this, simply remarking that to deny the existence of more than 

 one order of matter, because all must be matter, is not more reasonable 

 than it would be for a theorist in zoology to deny the separate exist- 

 ence of birds or reptiles because each group is an element of the 

 higher group of vertebrate animals, affirming that the category of the 

 latter is the only existing one, or, in other word^, that all vertebrate 

 animals are alike. 



But these blemishes scarcely impair the substantial value of the 

 philosophical doctrine of the correlation of physical forces, though 

 they have probably retarded its full appreciation. It is i>o doubt 

 destined for a long period to come to influence beneficially the views 

 and researches of philosophers ; though it will lead, we think, to some 

 generalisations not contemplated by the author, and altogether sub- 

 versive of his collateral views ; establishing, on the- one hund, the 

 reality of the correlation of physical forces, but proving, on the other, 

 the existence of discrete orders of matter, of which these forces aro 

 affections ' modes of motion ' some of one, some of another order. 

 Many, and perhaps all of the phenomena of nature however must 

 have, as it will also appear, a two-fold origin, being derived in part 

 from one or more of those modes of motion, and in part from the 

 substantial properties of the moving medium, an explanation which 

 the phenomena of heat, for example, absolutely require, and which is 

 already admitted with respect to those of light. 



Mr. Grove's professional engagements occasioned his retirement 

 from the London Institution in 1646; but he has by no means aban- 

 doned research, and still less the administrative business of science ; 

 taking a more or UBS active part in that of the Royal Society (of 

 which he was elected a Fellow on the 26th of November 1S40), the 

 Royal Institution, and the British Association. The new rules of 

 the Royal Society for the election of fellows, enacted in 1847, he was 

 the principal means of introducing, having virtually carried the 

 measures of previous unsuccessful reformers, with modifications of his^ 

 own and of his supporters. 



The numerous papers in which he has made public the results of 

 his experimental researches, principally on electricity, will be found 

 chiefly in the 'Philosophical Magazine' (from 1638 almost tj the 

 present time), the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and the recently-pub- 

 lished ' Proceedings ' of the Royal Institution. The powerful voltaic 

 combination of four elements, which has been named after its di-s- 

 coverer, consisting of plates of zinc and platinum, arranged in porous 

 vessels, charged with the sulphuric and nitric acids, is described in the 

 ' Phil. Mag.,' S. 3, vol. xv. (for October 1839), p. 2b7. The gas battery 

 was first described in the same work, for December 1842, S. '6, vol. xxi., 

 p. 417, and afterwards in a more extended paper communicated to tho 

 Royal Society in 1843. In a subsequent communication to the Royal 

 Society, he described an experiment in which, by the intense heat of 

 the voltaic discharge he effected the decomposition of water; a re.-ult 

 however which some have thought may be due to the deoxidating 

 properties of the voltaic light. However this may be, the experiment 

 is of great importance, not merely in chemistry, but in geology, because 

 it shows, as Mr. Brayley has pointed out, that water, as such, cannot 

 exist at temperatures which, we have every reason to believe, occur at 

 certain depths within the tarth, but must be resolved into hydrogen 

 aud oxygen gases in a state of rigid expansion, though under enormous 

 pressure. 



Mr. Grove received the Royal medal from the Royal Society, in 

 1847, for his Bakerian Lecture, delivered before the Society, November 

 26, 1846, 'On certain phenomena of Voltaic Ignition, aud on the 

 Decomposition of Water into its constituent gases by Heat." The 

 professional honour of being appointed Queen's Counsel he received 

 in 1853. 



HALDANE, ROBERT, son of Captain James Haldaue of Glen- 

 eagles, Perthshire, was born in London, February the 28th, 1764. He 

 was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, aud subsequently 

 matriculated at Edinburgh University ; but in 1780 he abruptly 

 quitted the University to enter the naval service on board the thip 

 Monarch, of which his uncle, Captain, afterwards Lord Duncan, was 

 commander. At the peace in 1783 he left the service and resumed his 

 studies at the university. During the summer vacations he travelled 

 ou the Continent, in 1785 he married Katherine Cochraue Oswald of 

 Scotstown, sister of H A. Oswald, afterwards M.P. for Ayrshire. 



