Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

450 APPENDIX.in one circuit, the energy of the effort to discharge, and the velocity ofthe consequent undulations must be, caeteria paribus, as the number of memberswhich co-operate to produce the discharge. Of course the more activethe ethcrco-pondcrable waves, the greater must be their efficacy in producingethereal waves of polarization, as a secondary effect, agreeably to thesuggestions above made, (49, 30.)51. Hence, in a battery consisting of one galvanic pair excited by reagentsof great chemical energy and conducting power, the electro-magneticeffects are pre-eminent; while Do Luc's electric columns, consisting ofseveral thousands of minute pairs, feeble as to their chemical and conductingefficacy, are pre-eminent for statical spark-giving power, (48.) Thisseems to be quite consistent; since, on the one hand, the waves of polarizationmust be larger and slower as the pairs arc bigger and fewer ; and, onthe other hand, smaller and more active as the pairs are more minute andmore numerous.On the perfect similitude between the Polaritj/ communicated to IronFilings by a Magnetized Steel Bar and a Galvanized Wire.52. If by a sieve, or any other means, iron filings be duly strewed overa paper, resting on a bar magnet, they will all become magnets, so as toarrange themselves in rows like the links of a chain. Each of the littlemagnets thus created will, at its outermost end, have a polarity similar tothat of the pole (of the magnet) with which it may be affiliated. Of coursethe resulting ferruginous rows formed severally by the two diff"erentof the bar will have polarities as opposite as those of the said poles.poles53. In an analogous mode, if two wires be made the media of a galvanicdischarge, iron filings, under their influence, will receive a magneticpolarity, arranging themselves about each wire like so many tangents to asmany radii proceeding from its axis : those magnetized by one wirereacting with such as are magnetized by the other.54. The affections of the ferruginous particles during the continuanceof the current so called are precisely like those of the same particles whenunder the influence of the bar magnet. The great discordancy is in thefactthat the influence of the magnet is permanent, while that of the wireis indebted for existence to a series of oppositely polarizing but transientimpulses which proceed toward the middle of the circuit from each side,so as to produce reciprocal neutralization by meeting midway.55. The effect upon the filings, as originally pointed out by Oersted, isprecisely such as would arise were the ponderable matter of the wire, resolvedby each impulse into innumerable little magnets, situated so as toform tangents to as many radii proceeding from the axis of the wire.5G. Independently of the filings, the wires react with each other as iftheir constitution, during subjection to the discharge, were such as abovesupposed. AVhen the discharges through them concur in direction, theyattract, because the left side of one is next the right side of the other,bringing the opposite poles of their little magnets into proximity ; butwhen the discharge is made in opposite directions, the two right orthe two left sides will be in proximity, and will, by the consequent approximationof the similar poles of the little magnets, be productive ofrepulsion.57. From these last-mentioned facts and considerations, it must be evi