Cambridge:

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

ELECTRICAL RESEARCHES

OF THE HONOURABLE

HENRY CAVENDISH, F.R.S.

WRITTEN BETWEEN 1771 AND 1781,

EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS

IN THE POSSESSION OF

THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K.G.,

BY

J. CLERK MAXWELL, F.R.S.

EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Cambridge:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

LONDON: CAMBRIDGE WAREHOUSE, 17, PATERNOSTER ROW.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.

LEIPZIG: F. A. BROCKHAUS.

1879

[All Rights reserved.]

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.

>phical data-Lord Charles Cavendish's experiments-Henry
avendish lived with his father during his electrical researches—

His laboratory in Great Marlborough Street-His apparatus-His

attendant-Committee of the Royal Society on lightning con-

ductors-Cavendish's researches on the electric current-Papers

on the Torpedo by Walsh, Hunter, &c.-Experiment on the

formation of nitric acid before the Royal Society-Cavendish's

artificial Torpedo

Account of Cavendish's Writings on Electricity.

The two papers in the Philosophical Transactions.

PAGES

xxvii to xxxviii

xxxix

The manuscripts-Sir W. Snow Harris' account of them

xl

List of the manuscripts

xli

Order of the manuscripts determined

xliii

Why Cavendish did not publish them

xlv

State of electrical science-Lord Mahon's experiments-Estimate of

Cavendish by Dr Thomas Young

xlvi

Coulomb's researches

xlix

"Whether the charge of a coated plate bears the same proportion

to that of a simple conductor whether the electrification is strong

or weak"

Reference to these experiments in the paper on the Torpedo

Experiments on resistance

Determination of the "power of the velocity to which the resistance is

"AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL PHENOMENA OF ELECTRICITY,

BY MEANS OF AN ELASTIC FLUID." From the Philosophical Transactions

for 1771 (p. 1-50).

Charges of similar bodies as the n - 1 power of their corresponding diame-

ters, and independent of the material of which they are made

67-72

Charge of a thin flat plate independent of its thickness

73

Two parallel circular plates

74-83

Equilibrium of electricity in bodies communicating by a canal is in-

dependent of the form of the canal..

84-93

Whether the conditions of equilibrium are the same for two bodies com-

municating by a conducting wire as if they communicated by a canal

of incompressible fluid.

94-96

Molecular constitution of air

97

PART II.

Containing a comparison of the foregoing theory with Experiment.

§ 1. Conductors and non-conductors

Electric properties of air and vacuum

Positive and negative electrification

§ 2. Attraction and repulsion

Electrometer in electrified air

§ 3. On the cases in which bodies receive electricity from, or part with it

to the air.

§ 5. Canton's and Franklin's experiments.

§ 6. On the Leyden vial

§ 7. Wilcke and Epinus's experiment of electrifying a plate of air

(Mém. Berl. 1756, p. 119)

§ 8. Electric spark.