Faraday’s investigations covered vast fields in the domain of chemistry, electricity, and magnetism.  It is to the last two only that reference will here be made.  Faraday’s life-work in electricity and magnetism began practically in 1831, when he made his immortal discovery of the direct production of electricity from magnetism.  His best work in electricity and magnetism was accomplished between 1831 and 1856, extending, therefore, over a period of some twenty-five years, although it is not denied that good work was done since 1856.  Consequently, it was at so comparatively recent a date that most of Faraday’s work was done that some of the world’s distinguished electricians yet live who began their studies during the latter years of Faraday’s life.  The difficulties of tracing, at least to some extent, the influence that Faraday’s masterly investigations have had on the present condition of the electrical arts and sciences will, therefore, be considerably lessened.

The extent of Faraday’s researches and discoveries in magnetism and electricity was so great that it will be impossible, in the necessarily limited space of a brief biographical sketch, to notice any but the more prominent.  Nor will any attempt be made, except where the nature of the research or discovery appears to render it advisable, to follow any strict chronological order; for, our inquiry here is not so much directed to a mere matter of history as to the influence which the investigation or discovery exerted on the life and civilization of the age in which we live.

There is a single discovery of Faraday that stands out sharply amidst all his other discoveries, great as they were, and is so important in its far-reaching results that it alone would have stamped him as a philosophical investigator of the highest merits, had he never done anything else.  This was his discovery of the means for developing electricity directly from magnetism.  It was made on the 29th of August, 1831, and should be regarded as inspired by the great discovery made by Oersted in 1820, of the relations existing between the voltaic pile and electro-magnetism.  It was in the same year that Ampere had conducted that memorable investigation as to the mutual attractions and repulsions between circuits through which electric currents are flowing, which resulted in a theory of electro-magnetism, and finally led to the production of the electro-magnet itself.  Ampere had shown that a coil of wire, or helix, through which an electric current is passing, acted practically as a magnet, and Arago had magnetized an iron bar by placing it within such a helix.