Cavendish, who had isolated the nitrogen of the atmosphere, had failed to decide conclusively what had really happened to the air which disappeared during combustion.
Henry Cavendish, from which it appeared that Cavendish, already famous by many other researches (such as the mean density of the earth, the composition of water, &c.), must be looked on as, in his day, a man of Maxwell's own stamp as a theorist and an experimenter of the very first rank.
Cavendish's brief Life, which is almost contemporary, has been often edited.
In 1784 Henry Cavendish thoroughly examined hydrogen, establishing its elementary nature; and he made the far-reaching discovery that water was composed of two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen.
Cavendish (1896-1897) followed somewhat in Donaldson Smith's steps, and the last named traveller again crossed Somaliland in his journey from Berbera via Lake Rudolf to the Upper Nile (1899-Igoo).