Henry Cavendish

Memoirs of the Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain, living in the years 1807-8, by William Walker, Jr.

Chapter 11 The Honourable Henry Cavendish, Fellow of the Royal Society Born October 10, 1731 Died February 24, 1810 Henry Cavendish, the third in order of time among the four great English pneumatic chemists of the 18th century, was the younger son of Lord Charles Cavendish, whose father was the second Duke of Devonshire.

His family traced back their descent in unbroken and unquestionable links to Sir John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice during the reign of Edward III.

The great majority of the distinguished chemists of Great Britain have sprung from the middle and lower ranks of the people, but in this respect Henry Cavendish presents a remarkable exception.

exception.He was moreover immensely wealthy, so much so that it has been epigrammatically remarked of him that he was the richest of all wise men, and probably too the wisest of all rich men.

Yet no one could well be more indifferent than he to the external advantages which are conferred by birth and fortune.

His servant returning sooner than he had wished was ordered again to leave the chamber of death, and when he came back a second time, he found his master had expired.

Although in many respects of a highly liberal character, so great was the frugality of his ordinary mode of living in comparison to his income that at his death Cavendish left the enormous sum of 1,200,000 pounds to be divided among his relations.

Water, we may call it the universal solvent, but that does not mean that it dissolves everything.

There have been a lot of eccentric scientists throughout history, but all this talk about water got me thinking about perhaps the most eccentric of the eccentrics, a man named Henry Cavendish.

He communicated with his female servants only via notes, and added a staircase to the back of his house to avoid contact with his housekeeper.

Some believe he may have suffered from a form of autism, but just about everyone will admit that he was a scientific genius.

One realizes how crude was the science of that time when one considers the case of the composition of air.

This was determined by that strange genius and recluse that man of mystery that disembowelled intelligence Henry Cavendish towards the end of the eighteenth century So far as he was concerned, the work was admirably done.

He separated all the known ingredients of the air with precision altogether remarkable.

He even put it upon record that he had some doubt about the purity of the nitrogen.

One realizes how crude was the science of that time when one considers the case of the composition of air.

This was determined by that strange genius and recluse, that man of mystery, that disemboweled intelligence, Henry Cavendish, towards the end of the eighteenth century.

So far as he was concerned, the work was admirably done.

He separated all the known ingredients of the air with precision altogether remarkable.