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tinguished it as a magnetic gas in my paper on the diamagnetism of flame 

 and gases, founded on Bancalari's experiment. Now I find in it the cause 

 of all the annual and diurnal and many of the irregular variations of the 

 terrestrial magnetism. The observations made at Hobarton, Toronto, 

 Greenwich, St. Petersburg, Washington, St. Helena, the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and Singapore, all appear to me to accord with and support my 

 hypothesis. I will not pretend to give you an account of it here, for it 

 would require some detail, and I really am weary of the subject." Later 

 he writes : — " I think I told you in my last how that oxygen in the atmo- 

 sphere, which I pointed out three years ago in my paper on flame and 

 gases as so very magnetic compared with other gases, is now to me the 

 source of all the periodical variations of terrestrial magnetism, and so I 

 rejoice to think and talk at the same time of your results, which deal also 

 with that same atmospheric oxygen. What a wonderful body it is !" 



Miss Martineau had said, on the authority of the Annual Register, that 

 he countenanced the Acarus Crossii. Faraday corrects her : — " I hope 

 you will forgive me for writing to you about this matter. I feel it a great 

 honour to be borne on your remembrance, bat I would not willingly be 

 there in an erroneous point of view." 



In the summer he was asked by a friend to stay in the country. He 

 writes, August 24, from Upper Norwood : — " I have kept your picture to 

 look at for a day or two before I acknowledge your kindness in sending it. 

 It gives the idea of a tempting place ; but what can you say to such per- 

 sons as we are who eschew all the ordinary temptations of society? There 

 is one thing, however, society has which we do not eschew ; perhaps it is 

 not very ordinary, though I have found a great deal of it, and that is 

 kindness, and we both join most heartily in thanking you for it, even when 

 we do not accept that which it offers. I must tell you how we are situated. 

 We have taken a little house here on the hill-top, where I have a small 

 room to myself, and have, ever since we came here, been deeply immersed 

 in magnetic cogitations. I write and write and write until nearly three 

 papers for the Royal Society are nearly completed, and I hope that two of 

 them will be good if they justify my hopes, for I have to criticize them 

 again and again before I let them loose. You shall hear of them at some 

 of the Friday evenings ; at present I must not say more. After writing I 

 walk out in the evening, hand-in-hand, with my dear wife to enjoy the 

 sunset ; for to me, who love scenery, of all that I have seen or can see, 

 there is none surpasses that of Heaven : a glorious sunset brings with it a 

 thousand thoughts that delight me." 



Earlier the same friend asked him, for the first time, to dinner. He 

 writes from Brighton : — " Your note is a very kind one, and very grate- 

 fully received ; I wish on some accounts that nature had given me habits 

 more fitted to thank you properly for it by acceptance than those which 

 really belong to me. In the present case, however, you will perceive that 

 our being here supplies an answer (something like a lawyer's objection) 



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