Curiosities of Science. 193 



an* (Elertricita* 



ill 



MAGNETIC HYPOTHESES. 



As an instance of the obstacles which erroneous hypotheses 

 throw in the way of scientific discovery, Professor Faraday ad- 

 duces the unsuccessful attempts that had been made in Eng- 

 land to educe Magnetism from Electricity until Oersted showed 

 the simple way. Faraday relates, that when he came to the 

 Royal Institution as an assistant in the laboratory, he saw 

 Davy, Wollaston, and Young trying, by every way that sug- 

 gested itself to them, to produce magnetic effects from an elec- 

 tric current ; but having their minds diverted from the true 

 course by their existing hypotheses, it did not occur to them 

 to try the effect of holding a wire through which an electric 

 current was passing over a suspended magnetic needle. Had 

 they done so, as Oersted afterwards did, the immediate de- 

 flection of the needle would have proved the magnetic property 

 of an electric current. Faraday has shown that the magnetism 

 of a steel bar is caused by the accumulated action of all the 

 particles of which it is composed : this he proves by first mag- 

 netising a small steel bar, and then breaking it successively 

 into smaller and smaller pieces, each one of which possesses a 

 separate pole ; and the same operation may be continued until 

 the particles become so small as not to be distinguishable with- 

 out a microscope. 



We quote the above from a late Number of the Philosophical 

 Magazine, wherein also we find the following noble tribute to 

 the genius and public and private worth of Faraday : 



The public never can know and appreciate the national value of such 

 a man as Faraday. He does not work to please the public, nor to win 

 its guineas ; and the said public, if asked its opinion as to the practical 

 value of his researches, can see no possible practical issue there. The 

 public does not know that we need prophets more than mechanics in 

 science, inspired men, who, by patient self-denial and the exercise of 

 the high intellectual gifts of the Creator, bring us intelligence of His 

 doings in Nature. To them their pursuits are good in themselves. Their 

 chief reward is the delight of being admitted into communion with Na- 

 ture, the pleasure of tracing out and proclaiming her laws, wholly for- 

 getful whether those laws will ever augment our banker's account or 

 improve our knowledge of cookery. Such men, though not honoured by 

 the title of '" practical," are they which make practical men possible. They 

 bring us the tamed forces of Nature, and leave it to others to contrive 

 the machinery to which they may be yoked. If we are rightly informed, 

 it was Faradaic electricity which shot the glad tidings of the fall of Se- 

 bastopol from Balaklava to Varna. Had this man converted his talent 







