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IX. Account of some Experiments in which an Electric Spark was elicited from a Natural Magnet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Extract

Notwithstanding the intimate connexion which has long been known to exist between magnetism and electricity, we may safely say, that, only fifteen years ago, the announcement of the excitation of a luminous spark from a natural magnet would have been received with astonishment and even with incredulity.

After the great discovery of electro-magnetism, in 1819, by Professor Oersted, the extreme improbability of such a discovery was indeed removed; but, even after that period, until the recent researches of our distinguished countryman Mr Faraday, every attempt having failed to procure the feeblest trace of electricity from the obdurate magnetic mass, so striking a result, which comes home to the comprehension of those least accustomed to interest themselves in the less palpable results of scientific enquiry, could scarcely have been looked for with any degree of confidence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1834

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References

page 200 note * See Mr Harris's Paper in this volume.

page 203 note * Annales de Chimie, Dec. 1831, pp. 403, 417.

page 203 note † Phil. Transactions for 1832, p. 162, note.

page 204 note * Article 56.

page 204 note † Annales de Chimie, Dec. 1831, p. 425.