346 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Faraday's behavior to Melloni in 1835 merits a word of 

 notice. The young man was a political exile in Paris. He 

 had newly-fashioned and applied the thermo-electric pile, 

 and had obtained with it results of the greatest importance. 

 But they were not appreciated. With the sickness of dis- 

 appointed hope, Melloni waited for the report of the Com- 

 missioners appointed by the Academy of Sciences to exam- 

 ine his labors. At length he published his researches in 

 the " Annales de Chimie." They thus fell into the hands 

 of Faraday, who, discerning at once their extraordinary 

 merit, obtained for their author the Rumford Medal of the 

 Royal Society. A sum of money always accompanies this 

 medal, and the pecuniary help was at this time even more 

 essential than the mark of honor to the young refugee. 

 Melloni's gratitude was boundless : 



" Et vous, monsieur," he writes to Faraday, " qui appar- 

 tenez a une societe a laquelle je n'avais rien offert, vous qui 

 me connaissiez a peine le nom ; vous n'avez pas demande 

 si j'avais des ennemis faibles ou puissants, ni calcule quel 

 en 6tait le nombre ; mais vous avez parle pour l'opprime 

 Stranger, pour celui qui n'avait pas le moindre droit a tant 

 de bienveillance, et vos paroles ont ete accueillies favorablc- 

 ment par des collegues consciencieux ! Je reconnais bicn 

 la des hommes dignes de leur noble mission, les veritables 

 representants de la science d'un pays libre et genereux." 



Within the prescribed limits of this article it would be 

 impossible to give even the slenderest summary of Fara- 

 day's correspondence, or to carve from it more than the 

 merest fragments of his character. His letters, written to 

 Lord Melbourne and others in 1836, regarding his pension, 

 illustrate his uncompromising independence. The Prime 

 Minister had offended him, but assuredly the apology de- 

 manded and given was complete. I think it certain that, 

 notwithstanding the very full account of this transaction 

 given by Dr. Bence Jones, motives and influences were at 



