'340 



NATURE 



[February 8,: 1900 



appear to have been eagerly followed by his correspond- 

 ent. ' Of particular interest at the present time is 

 Faraday's statement, in 1845, that he had failed to liquefy 

 oxygen at - 140' F. under a pressure of 60 atmospheres ; 

 and in 1852 he asks Schonbein :— " Have you condensed 

 oxygen?--! wish you could tell me what liquid or solid 

 o<ygen is like. I have often tried to coerce it, and long 

 to know." 



In November 1845 he mentions one of his fundamental 

 discoveries to Schonbein in these words :— 



" I happen to have discovered a direct relation between 

 magnetism and light, and also electricity and light, and 

 the field it opens is so large and I think rich, that 1 

 na'urally wish to look at it first" (p. 148)- 



Another little list of scientific gossip concerning 

 Crosse's supposed production of insects by an electric 

 current (p. 33) will be found of interest, as also the 

 reference to table-turning (p. 214), concerning which he 

 says : — 



" I have not been at work except in turning the tables 

 upon table turners — nor should 1 have done that, but that 

 so many inquiries poured in upon methat Ithoughtitbetter 

 to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know at once 

 what my views and thoughts were. What a weak, 

 credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, 

 frightened, what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as 

 concerns the mind of man. How full of inconsistencies, 

 contradictions and absurdities it is" (p. 215). 



The above and other passages in this letter come as 

 near to misanthropy as anything to be found in Faraday's 

 correspondence. It is obvious from the context that the 

 letter (July 1853) was written during one of his periods 

 of prostration, for he s^ys : "Consider my age and 

 weariness, and the rapid manner in which I am becoming 

 more and more inert." 



The extraordinary pertinacity displayed by Schonbein 

 in following up his ideas concerning the "polarisation" 

 of oxygen, and in searching for the hypothetical " anto- 

 zone," is well brought out in the course of the corre- 

 spondence. In i860 he thought he had obtained 

 " antozone " from fluor-spar, and he described his ex- 

 periments to Faraday, who in his reply raises a question 

 concerning nitrogen in a very remarkable passage : — 



" But surely these wonderful conditions of existence 

 cannot be confined to oxygen alone. I am waiting to 

 hear that you have discovered like parallel states with 

 iodine or bromine, or hydrogen and nitrogen. What of 

 nitrogen ? Is not its apparent quiet simplicity of action 

 a sham ? — not a show, indeed, but still not the only state 

 in which It can exist. If the compounds which a body 

 can form show something of the state and powers it may 

 have when isolated (as in your©O0), then what should 

 nitrogen be in its separate state ? " 



The extracts which have been given are sufficient to 

 show that the editors of this volume have made a most 

 valuable contribution to the literature of science. It is 

 out of such materials as Dr. Kahlbaum and his colleague 

 have now provided that the history of the science of the 

 nineteenth century must be built up ; and we are glad to 

 have received from this same author other volumes giving 

 the correspondence of Liebig and Schonbein, and a 

 monograph on Schonbein's work, which we hope to 

 NO. 1580, VOL. 6lj 



notice in due course. Certainly this period of six-and- 

 twenty years during which the intimacy between Fara- 

 day and Schonbein began and ripened into the warm 

 friendship which was terminated only by the death of 

 one of the correspondents was one of extraordinary 

 activity and productiveness. The names of the con- 

 temporary workers referred to comprise, not only those 

 already mentioned, but also Arago, Berzelius, Becquerel, 

 St. Clair Ueville, Fremy, Houzeau, Marignac, De la 

 Rive, Hofmann, Magnus, Nobili, Pasteur, Pelouze, 

 Pettenkofer, Plucker, Poggendprff, Rose, Wiedemann 

 and Wohler on the Continent ; Draper in America ; and 

 in this country Airy, Andrews, Brodie, Daniell, Grove, 

 Herschel, Noad, Stokes and Whewell. It is interesting 

 to read that in 1856 Faraday sent a volume of his re- 

 searches to Schonbein through "Mr. Roscoe, a student 

 under Professor Bunsen at Heidelberg" ; while in 1843 

 he refers to " a magnificent steam electric apparatus " 

 made by Mr. (now Lord) Armstrong. 



With respect to the manner in which the editors have 

 performed their task, there are some points to which 

 attention may be called. Dr. Kahlbaum lays down the 

 principle in the preface that in publishing historical docu- 

 ments these 



" should be set forth in exact agreement with the original, 

 and in the next place provided with as many suitable 

 comments as possible to explain their meaning." 



Regarding the latter statement, we have already pointed 

 out how admirably the editors have done their work. In 

 accordance with the first statement, the letters have been 

 printed, on the whole, exactly as written, and thus any 

 " editing " which was done for the Philosophical 

 Ma^asitie, or for the Royal Society, can now be com- 

 pared by the curious with the original documents. In no 

 case, as far as we have ascertained, has Schonbein's 

 meaning been altered by the editorial process. It must 

 be remembered that Schonbein thought in German and 

 wrote in English, and the letters generally show that his 

 English was excellent. Only in matters of spelling and 

 the use of capitals is there any laxity to be found, and it 

 is perhaps to be regretted that the editors did not leave 

 every word of Schonbein's intact or else have adopted a 

 uniform system of correction throughout. Thus, where 

 they alter the spelling it is generally by interpolating 

 some trivial correction, such as "favorite" to 

 " favo[u]rite," "Alps" to ".\lp[e]s," "color" to 

 "colo[u]r," and so forth, while " oxigen," "sulfate," 

 "british," "french," " german," "You," &c., are allowed 

 to pass. The whole result leaves an impression of 

 straining at gnats and swallowing camels ; particularly 

 when such spelling as "oxigen" and "german" appears 

 also occasionally in Faraday's letters, possibly through 

 misprints. The volume, we may add, has been printed at 

 Bale. Faraday's writing also was in some cases so 

 illegible that the editors have been obliged to leave gaps 

 or to suggest interpolations. The portrait of Faraday is 

 the well-known one prefacing Bence Jones's " Life," and 

 that of Schonbein is drawn from a statuette of 1855 and 

 contemporary photographs. The original letters are 

 now, though the generosity of Faraday's niece. Miss 

 Barnard, and Schonbein's daughters, deposited in the 

 University Library at Bale. R. Meldola. 



