ABSTRACT
The manuscript records of the researches of Michael Faraday cover the years from 1820 to 1862, during which he worked in the laboratories of the Royal Institution. (These records are still in the possession of
the Institution and were published1 in 1932.) The main interest in Faraday's Diary lies not in the vast range of propositions and experimental proofs that it contains — for those have, after refinement and mature consideration by Faraday himself, been published already in various journals and elegantly embroidered in his series of Experimental Researches — but rather in the methods of his attack, both in thought and deed, and in the bewildering variety of problems that he tackled. His literary expression too, has a hynoptic quality: it is extraordinary that a man who did such excellent work should also have excelled in his description of it. The voluminous correspondence of Faraday — some two thousand letters of his are extant — as well as his thoughts and advice on the art of lecturing (see later) also reflect his remarkable character and shed further light on his scientific achievement.
