There is every reason to believe that currents do run in the general direction of the circuit described, either one way or the other, according as the passage of the waters is up or down the channel.' This was written before the submarine cable was thought of, and he once informed me that actual observation upon that cable had been found to be in accordance with his theoretic deduction.[1] Three years subsequent to the publication of these researches--that is to say, on January 29, 1835--Faraday read before the Royal Society a paper 'On the influence by induction of an electric current upon itself.' A shock and spark of a peculiar character had been observed by a young man named William Jenkin, who must have been a youth of some scientific promise, but who, as Faraday once informed me, was dissuaded by his own father from having anything to do with science.

The investigation of the fact noticed by Mr.Jenkin led Faraday to the discovery of the extra current, or the current induced in the primary wire itself at the moments of making and breaking contact, the phenomena of which he described and illustrated in the beautiful and exhaustive paper referred to.
Seven-and-thirty years have passed since the discovery of magneto-electricity; but, if we except the extra current, until quite recently nothing of moment was added to the subject.

Faraday entertained the opinion that the discoverer of a great law or principle had a right to the 'spoils'-- this was his term--arising from its illustration; and guided by the principle he had discovered, his wonderful mind, aided by his wonderful ten fingers, overran in a single autumn this vast domain, and hardly left behind him the shred of a fact to be gathered by his successors.
And here the question may arise in some minds, What is the use of it all?
The answer is, that if man's intellectual nature thirsts for knowledge, then knowledge is useful because it satisfies this thirst.

If you demand practical ends, you must, I think, expand your definition of the term practical, and make it include all that elevates and enlightens the intellect, as well as all that ministers to the bodily health and comfort of men.

Still, if needed, an answer of another kind might be given to the question 'What is its use ?' As far as electricity has been applied for medical purposes, it has been almost exclusively Faraday's electricity.