Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/9

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PREFACE.
v

attended. It is partially derived from his extreme dexterity as an operator,—with him we have no chance of apologies for an unsuccessful experiment, no hanging fire in the midst of a series of brilliant demonstrations, producing that depressing tendency akin to the pain felt by an audience at a false note from a vocalist. All is a sparkling stream of eloquence and experimental illustration. We defy a chemist who loves his science, no matter how often he may himself have repeated an experiment, to feel uninterested when seeing it done by Faraday.

The present publication presents one or two points of interest. In the first place, the Lectures were especially intended for young persons, and are therefore as free as possible from technicalities; and in the second place they are printed as they were spoken, verbatim et literatim. A careful and skilful reporter took them down, and the manuscript, as deciphered from his notes, was subsequently most carelully corrected by the Editor as regards