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Joseph Henry
   
 
DOCUMENTS
   
Henry gave the title "Record of Experiments" to his laboratory notebooks, which are  preserved in three large manuscript volumes among his papers at the Smithsonian Archives. The entries begin in 1834, when Henry was professor of natural philosophy at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), and continue through 1863. They  are an invaluable resource for understanding how a physical scientist of the nineteenth century actually worked. The entries recorded failures, as in the example below, as well as successes.
   
HENRY'S "RECORD OF EXPERIMENTS" 4

May 11 [1835]
 
Exp 1 Two batteries arranged as one. The coil with 60 feet copper ribbon inch &
½ wide gave greatest snap.5 When hands were placed to connect the extremities
of coil no shock. When iron vice was brough[t] to the side of the copper of the
battery & connected with the end of the coil brilliant scintilations 6

Exp 2 The current passed through a galvanic magnet no increased effect perceived
in the spark--current passed in the opposite direction no increased effect.

Exp 3 Passed the current through the large magnet and afterwards around it so as to
magnetize the iron at the <same> instant of making the contact or demagnetize it at the instant  of breaking the circuit. Small spark. Experiment not satisfactory must be tried again7

Henry Papers, Smithsonian Archives. Published in Nathan Reingold et al., eds. The Papers of Joseph Henry, vol. 2, November 1832-December 1835: The Princeton Years (Washington, 1975), p. 392.