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ral to the successful inventor, he carefully scanned the capabilities 

 of this new dynamic agent. Considering the source of the 

 power, he arrived at the conclusion that the deoxidation of metal 

 necessary for the battery, would require the expenditure of at 

 least as much power as its combustion in the battery could re- 

 fund ; and that the coal consumed in such deoxidation could be 

 much more economically employed directly in the work to be 

 done.* As the battery consumption moreover was found to in- 

 crease more rapidly than the magnetic power produced, he M-as 

 at once convinced that it could never supersede or compete with 

 steam. t He believed however that the engine had a useful 

 future ill many minor applications where economy was not the 

 most important consideration. 



When sometime afterward, a friend urged him to secure 

 patents on his inventions, — the " intensity" electro-magnet with 

 its combinations, and the magnetic engine with its automatic 

 pole-changer, earnestly assuring him that either one with proper 

 management would secure an ample fortune to its owner, he 

 firmly resisted every importunity ; declaring that he would feel 

 humiliated by any attempt at monopolizing the fruits of science, 

 which he thought belonged to the world. And this aversion to 

 self-aggrandizement by researches undertaken for truth, was 

 carried with him through life. J 



While such disinterestedness cannot fail to excite our admira- 

 tion, it may perhaps be questioned whether in these cases it did 

 not from a practical point of view, amount to an over-fastidious- 

 ness : — whether such legal establishment of ownership, shielding 

 the possessor from the occasional depreciations of the envious, 



* These consirleratioTis liavelieen mors than justified by later compara- 

 tive iiivestigat ons. Raukiiie estimates that the coiii-umptioii of cue pound 

 of zinc will not produce more tiian one-tenth the energy that one pound 

 of coal will ; and that though in the efficient utilization of this energy it 

 is four times superior, its useful work is therefore less than lialf that of 

 ooal ; while its cost is from forty to fifty times greater. ( The Steam Engine 

 and other Prime Movers. By W. J. M. Eankine, London and Glasgow, 

 1&59, part iv. art. 395, p. 541.) 



t James P. .Joule i himself an inventor of an electro-magnetic engine) 

 in a letter dated May 28, 1839, said : '^ I can scarcely doubt that electro.- 

 magnetism will eventually be sub<tituted for steam in piopelling ma- 

 chinery." (Sturgeon's Annnis of Electricity, vol. iv. p. ]35.) This was 

 some years before he commenced his investigations on the mechanical 

 equivalent of heat and other motors. He subsequently estimated that 

 the consumption of a graiu of zinc though forty times more costly than 

 a grain of coal, produces only about one-eighth of the same mechanical 

 effect. 



t This trait calls to mind Faraday's avowal made nearly thirty years 

 later, when in a letter to Messrs. Smith and Bentley dated January 3, 

 1859, (declining the publication of his " Juvenile Lectures") he said : " In 

 fact I have always loved science more than money ; and because mv occu- 

 pation is almost entirely personal, I cannot alford to get rich." (iieuce 

 Jones' Life of Faraday, vol. ii. p. 423.) 



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