CAVENDISH. 27 



possession of his mental faculties, and attained, at the time of his 

 decease in 1823, the age of eighty-one. His remains were interred 

 in the church at Battle, in Sussex. Memoir of Dr. Edmund Cart- 

 wright. London, 1843. Stuart's Anecdotes of the Steam-Engine. 

 London, 1829. 



THE HON. HENRY CAVENDISH, F.R.S. 



Born October 10, 1731. Died February 24, 1810. 



Henry Cavendish, the third in order of time among the four 

 great English pneumatic chemists of the eighteenth century,* was 

 the younger son of Lord Charles Cavendish, whose father was the 

 second Duke of Devonshire. His family trace back their descent 

 in unbroken and unquestionable links to Sir John Cavendish, Lord 

 Chief Justice during the reign of Edward III. The great majority 

 of the distinguished chemists of Great Britain have sprung from 

 the middle and lower ranks of the people, but in this respect Henry 

 Cavendish presents a remarkable exception. He was moreover 

 immensely wealthy, so much so, that it has been epigrammatically 

 remarked of him, " That he was the richest of all wise men, and 

 probably, too, the wisest of all rich men ; " yet no one could well 

 be more indifferent than he, to the external advantages which are 

 conferred by birth and fortune. Few particulars are known of his 

 early life. He was born at Nice, whither his mother, who died 

 when he was two years old, had gone for the sake of her health. 



In 1742 Cavendish became a pupil at Dr. Newcome's school at 

 Hackney, continuing his studies there until he had reached his 

 seventeenth year, when he went to Cambridge, where he matricu- 

 lated in the first rank on the 18th of December, 1749. He remained 

 at this university until 1753, but did not graduate. 



After leaving Cambridge, the personal history of Cavendish be- 

 comes a blank for the next ten years. He joined the Royal Society 

 in 1760, but did not contribute anything to its ' Transactions ' until 

 the year 1766, when he published his paper * On Factitious Airs,' 

 which contains the first distinct exposition of the properties of 

 hydrogen, and the first full account of those of carbonic acid ; and a 

 paper published by him in the following year may be considered as 

 a still further extension of his research into the properties of this 

 acid. 



For some considerable time after this, Cavendish appears to have 



* The other three being Hales, Black, and Priestly. 



c 2 



