CHAP. VII., 4.] ELECTRICITY. WOLLASTON OERSTED AMPERE. 



175 



of his apprehension. Among other legitimate re- 

 sults of discovery, Wollaston was not unwilling to 

 claim for his own the material profits which such 

 researches sometimes, though rarely, yield ; whilst 

 Davy, as we have seen, spurned every possible attri- 

 bution of an interested motive. Davy never made 

 a shilling in his life, save as an author or a lecturer 

 (except as paid assistant to Dr Beddoes) ; Wollaston 

 realized a fortune by his art of working platinum. 

 Davy was admired by thousands both at home and 

 abroad ; Wollaston was little known except to a small 



circle who could appreciate the resources of a mind 

 rarely opened in confidence to any one, and of which 

 the world was only partially informed. 



Woll aston was born in 1 7 6 6, and died in December (785.) 

 1828. The composure of his end rivalled that f Hisdeath - 

 Black and Cavendish. His disorder was one of the 

 brain. When he had lost the power of speech, his 

 attendants remarked aloud that he appeared uncon- 

 scious. Making a sign for a pencil and paper, he 

 wrote down a column of figures, added them up cor- 

 rectly, and expired. 



4. OERSTED. AMPERE. Discovery of Electro-Magnetism Electro-Dynamic Theory 

 Discovery of Tkermo-Electricity ; SEEBECK. The Galvanometer of Schweigger and Nobili. 



(786.) HANS CHRISTIAN OERSTED was born in Langeland, 

 jrsted one of the Danish isles, on the 14th August 1777. 

 3re ^ Of him it might almost be said that " on awaking 

 single one morning he found himself famous." The single 

 scovery. discovery of the mutual action of magnets and elec- 

 tric conductors gave him a celebrity which a life-long 

 devotion to science has oftener than the contrary 

 failed to secure. 



(787.) Yet in this, and perhaps every similar case, it will 

 be found that brilliant, and, as the world, or jealous 

 rivals esteem it, fortunate success, was not the result 

 of an isolated effort, but was connected with a long 

 career of patient though comparatively obscure la- 

 bour. 



(788 ) -^ *^ e a e ^ ^> O ers ted, whilst yet a student at 

 is early the University of Copenhagen, became an author, 

 udies. nig first publication was a prize essay on an sesthe- 

 tical subject. Being intended for the medical pro- 

 fession, he soon after wrote some chemical papers, 

 and, in 1801, his first " On Galvanic Electricity." 

 But his turn of mind at this time, as well as later, 

 was of a strongly metaphysical cast, and of course 

 tinctured with the peculiarities of the German 

 school as regards the study of physics, of which 

 the title of his thesis on graduation may be given 

 as an instance : It was On the Architectonicks of 

 Natural Metaphysics. His studies in voltaic elec- 

 tricity were made chiefly under Ritter, an obscure 

 and mystical writer, though the author of some cu- 

 rious experiments on what were called Secondary 

 Piles ; and he at length obtained, in 1806, a pro- 

 fessorship in his own university ; but his associates 

 appear to have been rather literary than scientific 

 persons, such as Steffens, Oehlenschlager, Niebuhr, 

 and Fichte ; he also engaged in controversies of a 

 theological tendency, which, to the end of his life, 

 appear to have had a great attraction for him. 

 (789.) In 1812 Oersted visited Berlin, and published 

 is first there a work on Chemical and Electrical forces, tend- 

 ritin g 8 n ing to prove their identity, which was translated into 

 Clty ' French by Marcel de Serres. The author afterwards 

 looked back to the period of the publication of this 

 treatise as the dawn of his electro-magnetic discovery. 



So far as I know of its contents (for I have never 

 seen a copy), it does not contain anything beyond 

 indefinite anticipations of the real identity of electri- 

 city and magnetism. In this, indeed, there was no- 

 thing new. Compass-needles had been seen to be 

 reversed by lightning ; electric shocks had been 

 passed through steel without any certain eifect ; and 

 Van Swinden had published a work in three volumes 

 expressly on the subject, containing the results of a 

 mass of ingenious failures. Nor, perhaps, can we 

 give Oersted credit, at that early period, for a more 

 distinct apprehension of the relation so anxiously 

 sought for, than was possessed by several of his con- 

 temporaries. His belief is said to have been grounded 

 on the notion, that "if galvanism be only a hidden 

 form of electricity, then magnetism can only be elec- 

 tricity in a still more hidden form" a syllogism 

 which, if it satisfied Oersted's metaphysical friends, 

 would hardly be accepted as demonstrative in the 

 laboratory ; and, after all, it suggests no one form of 

 relation rather than another. 



Professor Forchhammer, the friend and pupil (790.) 

 of Oersted, states that, in 1818 and 1819, it was^ &*- 

 well known in Copenhagen that he was engaged efe^tro- 

 in a special study of the connection of magnetism magnetism. 

 and electricity. Yet we must ascribe it to a happy 

 impulse the result, no doubt, of much anxious 

 thought that, at a private lecture to a few advanced 

 students in the winter of 1819-20, he made the ob- 

 servation, that a wire uniting the ends of a voltaic 

 battery in a state of activity, affected a magnet in 

 its vicinity. It was in the fact of the circuit being 

 closed, that the main difference consisted between this 

 and previous attempts, in which galvanic pairs or bat- 

 teries not connected by conductors were expected to 

 show magnetical relations, though, in such a case, 

 the electricity was evidently stagnant. 



Some mystery hangs over Oersted's apprehension (791.) 

 of his own experiment. It seems difficult to believe Details re- 

 that he clearly saw its significance. Unlike Davy, 8 P ectin g lt - 

 when he first saw the fiery drops of potassium flow 

 under the action of his battery, and recorded his 

 triumph in a few glowing words in his laboratory jour- 



