Scientific Papers: Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Volume 30

Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith, and was born at Newington Butts, near London, September 22, 1791. He began life as an errand-boy to a bookbinder and stationer, to whom he was later bound apprentice. After eight years in this business, he was engaged byS ir Humphry Davy as his laboratory assistant at the Royal I nstitution, and in 1813-15 he traveled extensively on the Continent with his master, and saw some of the most famous scientists of Europe. Shortly after his return to the Royal I nstitution, he began to make contributions of his own to science, his first paper appearing in 1816. He became director of the laboratory in 1825, and professor of chemistry in 1833; rising rapidly, through the number and importance of his discoveries, to a most distinguished position. But he was working at too great pressure, and in 1841 his health gave way, so that for some three years he could not work at all. He recovered, however, and made some of his most important discoveries after this interruption; and was offered, but declined, the presidency of both the Royal Society and the Royal I nstitution. He died August 25, 1867. It was characteristic ofF araday sdevotion to the enlargement of the bounds of human knowledge that on his discovery of magneto-electricity he abandoned the commercial work by which he had added to his small salary, in order to reserve all his energies for research. This financial loss was in part made up later by a pension of ,300 a year from theB ritish Government. Faraday sparents were members of the obscure religious denomination of theS andemanians, andF araday himself, shortly after his marriage, at the age of thirty, joined the same sect, to which he adhered till his death. Religion and science he kept strictly apart, believing that the data of science were of an entirely different nature from the direct communications between Gpd
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