Cuar. VIL., § 4.] 
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 
ELECTRICITY.— WOLLASTON—-OERSTED—AMPERE. 
973 
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, 
Wollaston was born in 1766, and died in December 
1828, The composure of his end rivalled that of His death. 
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. OrrsTED. — AMPERE.— Discovery of Electro-Magnetism — Electro-Dynamic Theory — 
Discovery of Thermo-Electricity ; SEEBECK. 
The Galvanometer of Schweigger and Nobili. 
(786.) Hans Curistran Orrstep was born in Langeland, So far as I know of its contents (for I have never 
Oersted one of the Danish isles, on the 14th August 1777. seen a copy), it does not contain anything beyond 
~vanige Of him it might almost be said that “on awaking indefinite anticipations of the real identity of electri- 
‘amous by 4 p : ° * 4 eon 
asingle ne morning he found himself famous.” The single city and magnetism. In this, indeed, there was no- 
discovery. discovery of the mutual action of magnets and elec- thing new. Compass-needles had been seen to be 
tric conductors gave him a celebrity which a life-long reversed by lightning ; electric shocks had been 
devotion to science has oftener than the contrary passed through steel without any certain effect ; and 
failed to secure. Van Swinden had published a work in three volumes 
(787.) Yet in this, and perhaps every similar case, it will expressly on the subject, containing the results of a 
be found that brilliant, and, as the world, or jealous mass of ingenious failures. Nor, perhaps, can we 
rivals esteem it, fortunate success, was not the result give Oersted credit, at that early period, for a more 
of an isolated effort, but was connected with a long distinct apprehension of the relation so anxiously 
career of patient though comparatively obscure la- sought for, than was possessed by several of his con- 
bour. temporaries. His belief is said to have been grounded 
(788.) At the age of 20, Oersted, whilst yet a student at on the notion, that “if galvanism be only a hidden 
His early the University of Copenhagen, became an author. form of electricity, then magnetism can only be elec- 
studies. 
His first publication was a prize essay on an esthe- 
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, 
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. 
was of a strongly metaphysical cast, and of course 
tinetured 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 
Professor Forchhammer, the friend and pupil (790.) 
of Oersted, states that, in 1818 and 1819, it was ae “— 
well known in Copenhagen that he was engaged ciectro- 
in a special study of the connection of magnetism magnetism. 
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. 
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, 
_ (789.) In 1812 O6ersted visited Berlin, and published 
Mis first there a work on Chemical and Electrical forces, tend- 
cae ing to prove their identity, which was translated into 
b “Y* Fyench 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. 
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, *Pecting *t 
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- 
