Experimental Researches in Electricity. Twenty-third Series.

inscribed presentation offprint

The rare offprint, with presentation inscription at the head of the title page, 'Rev. Dr. Robinson, from the author'.

Diamagnetism is the property that describes matter which is repelled by a magnetic field. It was first discovered by Anton Brugmans in 1778 but it was Faraday who recognised that it and paramagnetism (attraction to a magnetic field) were fundamental properties of all matter.

'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 represent Faraday's most important 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' (Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether & Electricity, p. 197).

The recipient of this copy, astronomer the Rev. Thomas Romney Robinson (1793-1882) was a child prodigy who enrolled in Trinity College, Dublin at age twelve, becoming a fellow in 1814. In 1823 he was appointed astronomy at Armagh Observatory, where he established a rigourous routine of positional observations' with 'a determination unusual in observatories of the time, and quite exceptional in one so small, isolated, and poorly situated for observing'. He 'published a great many papers on a wide range of topics across physics and astronomy. He was in great demand as an erudite and entertaining public speaker on scientific subjects, having made his name at the early meetings of the BAAS' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Robinson was president of the Royal Irish Academy, a fellow of the Royal Society, and received honorary degrees from Dublin, Oxford, and Cambridge.

41-page offprint; engraving at the front of the text, author's presentation inscription to the title, ownership inscription to the upper wrapper, contents unopened, horizontal crease from folding throughout, contents faintly toned in the margins; original buff wrappers which are a little rubbed and dulled, spine split with old repair, very good condition.

Norman Library of Science and Medicine 760.