FARADAY, MICHAEL..

Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Eighteenth Series. § 25. On the electricity evolved by the friction of water and steam against other bodies. (Sections 2075-2145). Recieved January 26,- Read Februsry 2, 1843.

(London, Richard and John E. Taylor, 1843). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1843 - Part I. Pp. 17-31 and 1 engraved plate. Margin of pp. 21/22 with a faint dampstain.

First appearance of this paper in which Faraday traces "the source of the electricity which accompanies the issue of steam of high pressure from the vessels in which it is contained. By means of a suitable apparatus, which the author describes and delineates, he found that electricity is never excited by the passage of pure steam, and it is manifested only when water is at the same time present; and hence he concludes that it is altogether the effect of the friction of globules of water against the sides of the opening, or against the substances opposed to its passage, as the water is rapidly moved onwards by the current of the steam."(Abstract).

From 1831 to 1852 Michael Faraday published his "Experimental Researches in Electricity" in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These papers contain not only an impressive series of experimental discoveries, but also a collection of heterodox theoretical concepts on the nature of these phenomena expressed in terms of lines of forces and fields. He published 30 papers in all under this general title.They represents Faraday's most importent work, are classics in both chemistry and physics and are the experimental foundations for Maxwell's electro-magnetic theory of light, using Faraday's concepts of lines of force or tubes of magnetic and electrical forces. His many experiments on the effects of electricity and magnetism presented in these papers lead to the fundamental discoveries of 'induced electricity' (the Farday current), the electronic state of matter, the identity of electricity from different sources, equivalents in electro-chemical decomposition, electrostatic induction, hydro-electricity, diamagnetism, relation of gravity to electricity, atmospheric magnetism and many other.

"Among experimental philosophers Faraday holds by universal consent the foremost place. The memoirs in which his discoveries are enshrined will never cease to be read with admiration and delight; and future generations will preserve with an affection not less enduring the personal records and familiar letters, which recall the memory of his humble and unselfish spirit."(Edmund Whittaker in A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity).

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