128 The Smithsonian Institution 



results of his observations. 1 Since discovery without announce- 

 ment cannot claim a place in history, except as a matter of 

 biographical incident, this discovery is generally accredited 

 to him. It is proper that this should be so, and Henry him- 

 self was too generous a man ever publicly to claim any honor 

 in this connection. He often, however, mentioned to his 

 friends the fact that he had anticipated Faraday by nearly a 

 year. 2 



It is even pathetic to read the words of praise which he 

 somewhere printed concerning Faraday, speaking of him as 

 "the discoverer of magneto-electricity, which had made his 

 name immortal." 



It surely cannot be unjust to the memory of Faraday that 

 Henry should stand in the records of science as an original 

 and independent discoverer of magneto-electricity, nor just 

 to Henry, not to state the fact, that, although anticipated in 

 publication, he was actually the first. 



While in Albany he constructed the electro-magnetic en- 

 gine, which will be referred to later, and also, as his daughter 

 has shown, began the construction of an instrument corre- 

 sponding to the modern dynamo. 3 



After his removal to Princeton, he carried on many re- 



1 It was by the same means that Faraday Unfortunately he failed to publish his dis- 

 subsequently investigated the phenomena covery. In continuing his remarks, he added 

 of magnetism, and the effect of magnetic that Faraday, some time after, successfully 

 action upon polarized light. See Franklin L. tried the same experiment, and at once an- 

 Pope, Journal of the American Electrical nounced it, before Professor Henry's success 

 Society, 1879, Volume II, page 126. was publicly known." 



2 George W. Carpenter, his associate and The Reverend Doctor Cuyler, one of his 

 assistant in Albany, in 1826-32, writes : "In earliest pupils in Princeton, said he often 

 a well remembered conversation with me he spoke to him of his disappointment about 

 alluded to an incident in his own experience. that discovery. " I ought to have published 

 After retiring one night, he worked out men- earlier," he used to say. " I ought to have 

 tally how he could probably draw a spark published, but I had so little time. I desired 

 from the magnet. Upon rising in the morning to get out my results in good form, and how 

 he hurried to his working room, arranged could I know that another on the other side of 

 the apparatus, tried the experiment, when the Atlantic was busy with the same thing ? " 

 success crowned his labor. He had accom- 3 The Electrical Engineer, Volume xni, 

 plished what had never been done before. pages 54, 251. 



