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ERRATUM.

P. 137. Art. 283, line 2, for 1.53 read 1.153.

In the late Dr George Wilson's collection of Cavendish MSS. there is a drawing
of which the opposite page is a reduced copy. The words "buried at Derby" are
written in pencil on the margin.

Henry Cavendish was buried in the Devonshire Vault, All Saints' Church,
Derby, but Mr J. Cooling, Jun., Churchwarden of All Saints, informs me that
there is no slab or monument of any kind erected in memory of him there.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

HENRY CAVENDISH ESQR

Eldest Son of the Right Honorable

LORD CHARLES CAVENDISH,

Third Son of William,

2ND DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.

Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society

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THE

ELECTRICAL RESEARCHES

OF THE

HONOURABLE HENRY CAVENDISH, F.R.S.

INTRODUCTION *.

So little is known of the details of the life of Henry Cavendish, and so fully have the few known facts been given in the Life of Cavendish by Dr George Wilson†, that it is unnecessary here to repeat them except in so far as they bear on the history of his electrical researches.

He was born at Nice on the 10th October, 1731, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1760, and was an active member of that body during the rest of his life. He died at Clapham on the 24th February, 1810.

His father was Lord Charles Cavendish, third son of William, second Duke of Devonshire, who married Lady Anne Grey, fourth daughter of the Duke of Kent. Henry was their eldest son. He had one brother, Frederick, who died 23rd February, 1812.

Of Lord Charles Cavendish we have the following notice by Dr Franklint. After describing an experiment of his on the passage of electricity through glass when heated to 400° F., he

says,

"It were to be wished that this noble philosopher would communi"cate more of his experiments to the world, as he makes many, and "with great accuracy."

* By the Editor.

+ Published in 1851 as the first volume of the Works of the Cavendish Society. Franklin's Works, edited by Jared Sparks, Boston, 1856, Vol. v, p. 383. See

also Note 26 at the end of this book,

Lord Charles Cavendish has also recorded a very accurate series of observations* on the depression of mercury in glass tubes, and these have furnished the basis not only for the correction of the reading of barometers, &c., but for the verification of the theory of capillary action by Young, Laplace, Poisson and Ivory.

I think it right to notice the scientific work of Lord Charles Cavendish, because Henry seems to have been living with him during the whole period of his electrical researches. Some of the jottings of his electrical calculations are on torn backs of letters, one of which is addressed,

[The Ho]nble Mr Cavendish

at the Rt Hon ble

The La Charles

Cavendish's

Marlborough Street.

These calculations relate to the equivalent values of his trial plates when drawn out to different numbers of divisions. There is no date nor any part of the original letter.

The memoranda of some experiments similar to those in Art. 588, on the time of discharge of electricity through different bodies, are on the back of the usual Notice of the election of the Council and Officers of the Royal Society on the Thirtieth of November, 1774 (being St Andrew's Day) at Ten o'Clock in the Forenoon at the House of the Royal Society in Crane Court, Fleet Street. The address on the back of this letter is

Το

The Hon Henry Cavendish

Gr Marlborough Street.

Dr Thomas Thomson, who was acquainted with Cavendish, says in his interesting sketch of him†,

"During his father's life-time he was kept in rather narrow circum"stances, being allowed an annuity of £500 only, while his apartments

*Phil. Trans., 1776, p. 382.

+ History of Chemistry, Vol. 1, p. 336, quoted in Wilson's Life of Cavendish, p. 159.

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