1845-46 PERPETUAL MOTION 



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The scientific paper, too, which he mentions, was some- 

 what remarkable under the circumstances. It is not given 

 to every medical student to make an anatomical discovery, 

 even a small one. In this case the boy of nineteen, in- 

 vestigating things for himself, found a hitherto undiscovered 

 membrane in the root of the human hair, which received the 

 name of Huxley's layer. 



Speculations, too, such as had filled his mind in early 

 boyhood, still haunted his thoughts. In one of his letters 

 from the Rattlesnake, he gives an account of how he was 

 possessed in his student days by that problem which has 

 beset so many a strong imagination, the problem of per- 

 petual motion, and even sought an interview with Faraday, 

 whom he left with the resolution to meet the great man 

 some day on a more equal footing. 



March 1848. 



To-day, ruminating over the manifold ins and outs of life in 

 general, and my own in particular, it came into my head sud- 

 denly that I would write down my interview with Faraday — 

 how many years ago? Aye, there's the rub, for I have com- 

 pletely forgotten. However, it must have been in either my 

 first or second winter session at Charing Cross, and it was be- 

 fore Christmas I feel sure. 



I remember how my long brooding perpetual motion scheme 

 (which I had made more than one attempt to realise, but failed 

 owing to insufficient mechanical dexterity) had been working 

 upon me, depriving me of rest even, and heating my brain with 

 chateaux d'Espagne of endless variety. I remember, too, it 

 was Sunday morning when I determined to put the questions, 

 which neither my wits nor my hands would set at rest, into some 

 hands for decision, and I determined to go before some tribunal 

 from whence appeal should be absurd. 



But to whom to go? I knew no one among the high priests 

 of science, and going about with a scheme for perpetual motion 

 was, I knew, for most people the same thing as courting ridicule 

 among high and low. After all I fixed upon Faraday, possibly 

 perhaps because I knew where he was to be found, but in part 

 also because the cool logic of his works made me hope that my 

 poor scheme would be treated on some other principle than that 

 of mere previous opinion one way or other. Besides, the known 

 courtesy and affability of the man encouraged me. So I wrote 

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