Michael Faraday

25

De la Rive points this out in his brief notice of Faraday immediately on receiving the news of his death: – "Je n'ai parlé que du savant, je tiens aussi à dire un mot de l'homme. Alliant à une modestie vraie, parcequ'elle provenait de l'élévation de son âme, une droiture à toute épreuve et une candeur admirable, Faraday n'aimait la science que pour elle-même. Aussi jouissait-il des succès des autres au moins autant que des siens propres; et quant à lui, s'il a accepté, avec une sincère satisfaction, les honneurs scientifiques qui lui out été prodigués à si juste titre, il a constamment refusé toutes les autres distinctions et les récompenses qu'on eût voulu lui décerner. Il s'est contenté toute sa vie de la position relativement modeste qu'il occupait à l'Institution Royale de Londres; avoir son laboratoire et strictement de quoi vivre, c'est tout ce qu'il lui fallait. – Presinge, le 29 août, 1867. – A. de la Rive."

26

Preface to "Faraday und seine Entdeckungen."

27

I am indebted to Sir Charles Wheatstone for the following impromptu by Herbert Mayo: —

"Around the magnet Faraday

Was sure that Volta's lightnings play:

But how to draw them from the wire?

He drew a lesson from the heart:

'Tis when we meet, 'tis when we part,

Breaks forth the electric fire."

28

The room with glass sides, from which the light is exhibited at the top of a lighthouse, is called by this name.

29

One night there was a beautiful aurora. Mr. Holmes remarked that his poor electric light could not compare with that for beauty; but Faraday rejoined, "Don't abuse your light. The aurora is very beautiful, and so is a wild horse, but you have tamed it and made it valuable."

30

The illuminating apparatus at Dungeness is one of what is termed the sixth order, 300 millimetres (about 12 inches) in diameter. Mr. Chance constructed one for Souter Point of the third order, one metre (nearly 40 inches) in diameter, with special arrangements for giving artificial divergence to the beam in a vertical direction, in order to obviate the danger arising from the luminous point not being always precisely in the same spot. It has also additional contrivances for utilizing the back light. Similar arrangements were made for the South Foreland lights, which are also of the third order; and every portion of the machinery and apparatus is in duplicate in case of accident, and the double force can be employed in times of fog.