CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR 



CAVENDISH AND HIS RESEARCHES 



PAGE 



Biographical data 1 



Lord Charles Cavendish's experiments 1 



Henry Cavendish lived with his father during his electrical researches ... 2 



His laboratory in Great Maryborough Street ........ 2 



His apparatus .............. 3 



His attendant 5 



Committee of the Royal Society on lightning conductors 5 



Cavendish's researches on the electric current ........ 6 



Papers on the Torpedo by Walsh, Hunter, &c. ........ 7 



Experiment on the formation of nitric acid before the Royal Society .... 9 



Cavendish's artificial Torpedo 9 



CAVENDISH'S WRITINGS ON ELECTRICITY 



The two papers in the Philosophical Transactions . . . . . . .10 



The manuscripts Sir W. Snow Harris' account of them . . . . . .10 



List of the manuscripts ............ 1 2 



Order of the manuscripts determined 13 



Why Cavendish did not publish them 15 



State of electrical science. Lord Mahon's experiments. Estimate of Cavendish by 



Dr Thomas Young ............15 



Coulomb's researches 18 



Cavendish's method 18 



Comparison of charges ............ 18 



Proof of the law of force ............ 19 



Experiments on coated plates spreading of electricity 20 



Specific inductive capacity ........... 21 



Plates of air 21 



" Whether the charge of a coated plate bears the same proportion to that of a simple 



conductor, whether the electrification is strong or weak" 21 



Effect of temperature 22 



Effect of floor, walls, and ceiling of room ......... 23 



Experiments on resistance 23 



Reference to these experiments in the paper on the Torpedo ..... 23 



Method of the experiments 24 



Determination of the ''power of the velocity to which the resistance is -proportional " 25 



Resistance of salt solution at different temperatures 26 



Resistance of pure water 26 



Resistance of solutions of different salts ......... 27 



Chemical equivalents of different substances as given by Cavendish .... 28 



Postscript relating to papers on magnetism ........ 29 



