Joseph Henry's Record of Experiments, Book 1

Already well known by the 1830's for his scientific vision and his dedication to acquiring and disseminating knowledge, Joseph Henry (1797-1878) was to become the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. A physicist, Henry kept this handwritten record of his research conducted during the last half of the 1830's. It describes his work with electromagnetism and other varied experiments dating from his time as a professor of natural philosophy at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. If you want to start at the beginning of this first volume, you will need to start in the middle. Henry started his record with a partially used ledger. The ledger begins with a set of accounts in an unknown neat clerical hand. Henry's entries begin in the middle of the volume, continue to the end, and then pick up again at the beginning of the book, ending in the middle. Immortalized in sculpture in front of the Smithsonian castle, Joseph Henry served as Secretary of the Smithsonian from its earliest days in 1846 until his death in 1878. A scientific pioneer in his own right, Henry used his position to shape and guide the Institution, furthering its intellectual reach and diffusion of knowledge.