upon Faraday, asking him to accept the presidentship of the Royal Society. He declined the honour. Later on he was strongly pressed to accept the presidency of the Royal Institution; but to the great disappointment of one of his most steadfast friends, who was then honorary Secretary, the late Dr. Bence Jones, he firmly refused the office. In fact, he, before others, had noticed the failing strength of his brain, and be declined to impose upon it a weight greater than it could bear.
Faraday's intellectual power cannot be traced to definite antecedents; and it is still more difficult to account by inheritance for the extraordinary delicacy of his character. On a memorable occasion, a friend who knew him well described him thus: 'Nature, not education, made Faraday strong and refined. A favourite experiment of his own was representative of himself. He loved to show that water, in crystallising, excluded all foreign ingredients however intimately they might be mixed with it. Out of acids, alkalis, or saline solutions, the crystal sweet and pure. By some such natural process in the formation of this man, beauty and nobleness coalesced, to the exclusion of everything vulgar and low.' Faraday died on 25 Aug, 1867, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.
[Experimental Researches in Electricity, by Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.R.S., 3 vols., 1839-1855; Researches in Chemistry and Physics, by Michael Faraday, D.C.L. F.R.S., 1 vol., London, 1859; Life and Letters of Faraday, by Dr. Bence Jones, 2 vols., London, 1870; Quarterly Journal of Science; Proceedings of the Royal Institution; Philosophical Magazine; Faraday as a Discoverer, by John Tyndall, 1 vol., with portait, 1868, 1870.]
FAREY, JOHN (1766–1826), geologist, was born at Woburn in Bedfordshire in 1766. At the age of sixteen he was sent to school at Halifax in Yorkshire, where he made the acquaintance of Smeaton, and received a good training in mathematics. In 1792 the Duke of Bedford appointed Farey agent for his extensive estates in Bedfordshire, and he took up his residence at Woburn.
After the death of his patron in 1802 Farey removed to London, and established an extensive practice as a consulting surveyor and geologist. He married early in life, and had a large family, of whom his son John [q. v.], born in 1791, attained eminence as a civil engineer. The elder Farey died at his house in Rowland Street, London, in 1826, Farey's profession necessitated his visiting most parts of England, and required attentive examination of soils, minerals, and rocks. To these matters Farey applied the new principles of geology of William Smith, the 'father of English geology.' Farey collected minerals and rocks from all the places he visited. He drew up, in addition, a large number of geological sections and maps, intended to illustrate the relative position of the strata throughout Britain. These he desired to publish, but the project was frustrated by his death.
Farey's most important work is his 'Survey of the County of Derby,' including a 'General View of its Agriculture and Minerals,' two vols. 8vo, made for the board of agriculture, and published in 1811-13. He also contributed many articles to 'Rees's Encyclopedia,' including the article on the steam-engine, and also frequently wrote for the Monthly Magazine' and the 'Philosophical Magazine.' Altogether Farey wrote sixty scientific papers. The first, 'On the Mensuration of Timber,' appeared in the 'Philosophical Msgazine' for 1804, and the last, 'On the Velocity of Sound and on the Encke Planet,' in the same periodical for 1824 The others ore principally upon geological subjects, as the 'Geology of Derbyshire,' 'heights of the Hills of Derbyshire,' &c., with the addition of a few upon music.
[Monthly Mag. 1825; Royal Society's Cat. of Scientific Papers.]
FAREY, JOHN (1791–1851), civil engineer, son of John Farey, geologist [q. v.], was born at Lambeth, Surrey, on 20 March, 1791 and educated at Woburn. At the age of fourteen he commenced making drawings for the illustrative plates of 'Rees's' and the 'Edinburgh' encyclopiedias, 'Tilloch's Magazine,' Gregory's 'Mechanics' and 'Mechanical Dictionary,' the 'Pantalogia,' and many other scientific works. He edited some of these, and contributed to others. The necessity of accomplishing drawings with accuracy in a limited time led him to invent in 1807 an instrument for making perspective drawings, for which he received a silver medal from the Society of Arts (Transactions, xxxii. 71), and in 1813 he made a machine for drawing ellipses,for which the gold medal of the same society was awarded hun. In 1619 he went to Russia, where be was engaged as a civil engineer in the construction of ironworks. There he first saw a steam-engine indicator; on his return to England he employed McNaught to make indicators for general use, and thenceforth he was continually requested to use the instrument in disputed cases of the power of steam-engines. He relinquished his professional engagements in 1631 in favour of his brother, Joseph Farey, and embarked
