II. Experimental researches in electricity.—Twentieth series

Abstract

2243. The contents of the last series of these researches were, I think, sufficient to justify the statement, that a new magnetic condition (i. e. one new to our knowledge) had been impressed on matter by subjecting it to the action of magnetic and electric forces (2227.); which new condition was made manifest by the powers of action which the matter had acquired over light. The phenomena now to be described are altogether different in their nature; and they prove, not only a magnetic condition of the substances referred to unknown to us before, but also of many others, including a vast number of opake and metallic bodies, and perhaps all except the magnetic metals and their compounds: and they also, through that condition, present us with the means of undertaking the correlation of magnetic phenomena, and perhaps the construction of a theory of general magnetic action founded on simple fundamental principles. 2244. The whole matter is so new, and the phenomena so varied and general, that I must, with every desire to be brief, describe much which at last will be found to concentrate under simple principles of action. Still, in the present state of our knowledge, such is the only method by which I can make these principles and their results sufficiently manifest.