INTRODUCTION
XV
tions; the first attempt has turned out badly, as generally happens,
but I hope in due course to pull things into shape. The apparatus
which I have made at home really works well, so well that I
wouldn't exchange it for one made out of gold and ivory in the
best workshop. (Mother might like to hear this, and if I find that
it pleases her I will try it again.)
Ten days later the experiments with rectilinear wires were
completed.
31st January 1879.
I have now quite finished my research, much more quickly
than I had expected. This is chiefly because the more accurate
set of experiments have led to a very satisfactory, although
negative, result: i.e. I find that, to the greatest degree of accuracy
I can obtain, the theory is confirmed. I should much have
preferred some positive result; but as there is nothing of the kind
here I must be satisfied. My experiments agree as well as I could
wish with the current theory, and I do not think that I can push
matters any further with the means now at my disposal. So I
have finished the experiments, and hope the Commission will be
satisfied; as far as I can see, any further experiments would only
lead to the same result. I shall begin writing my paper in a few
days; just at present I don't feel in the humour for it.
The paper was written during a period of military service
at Freiburg.
In these successive reports on his work we nowhere find signs
of his having encountered difficulties in developing the theory
of it; and this is all the more surprising because at this time
he could scarcely have made any general survey of what was
already known. But it is clear that even at this early stage
he was able to find his own way through regions yet unknown
to him, and to do this without first searching anxiously for
the foot-prints of other explorers. Thus just about this time
he writes as follows:-
9th February 1879.
Kirchhoff has now come to magnetism in his lectures, and a
great part of what he tells us coincides with what I had worked
out for myself at home last autumn. Now it is by no means
pleasant to hear that all this has long since been well known; still
it makes the lecture all the more interesting. I hope my know-
ledge will soon grow more extensive, so that I may know what has