288 Mr Christie avi the devehpement 



an anonymous report of some philosophical discoveries, the re- 

 porter had endeavoured to assign the chief merit of these dis- 

 coveries to Mr Barlow, to the exclusion, in a great measure, 

 of other claims. Mr Barlow does not admit that he is the 

 " author of the entire paper in the form in which it appears in 

 your Journal ;"" but as he wishes, " with the exception point- 

 ed out in his former letter,'' * to be considered " responsible 

 for the accuracy of the several points," we must conclude that 

 he furnished the materials, and that he considered an anony- 

 mous communication no unfit vehicle for advancing most pro- 

 minently his own claims. My feeling is so decidedly different 

 on this point, that, had I been enabled to draw this conclusion 

 in the first instance, I should only have considered it neces- 

 sary to point out, without comment, that Mr Barlow was, in 

 fact, the author of the communication complained of, without 

 having given it 'the sanction of his name. 



After what had been stated, no one could doubt but Mr 

 Barlow was " willing to believe" that the results he " obtain- 

 ed by the rapid rotation of the shell form an important link 

 in the chain of phenomena." But though it has generally been 

 admitted that the first is the most important step in discovery, 

 the question agitated was not which was the most important, 

 but which was xhejirst link in that chain. 



As in his last letter Mr Barlow again refers to experiments 

 " begun in 1819, and continued in the construction of his 

 correcting plate to the present time," still, I suppose, pertina- 

 ciously wishing them to be considered as " the first experi- 

 ments in which iron was put in rotation for magnetical obser- 

 vation," and we are not in possession of these experiments, I 

 can only ask what must have been- their accuracy, when the 

 effects of rotation, supposing the plate to have been turned on 

 an axis, were not observed ? 



Mr Barlow says that I consider my " idea of referring the 

 positions of a ball, by means of an imaginary sphere circum- 

 scribing the needle, is quite original ;" whereas, in my letter 

 in your Number for January, I have expressly stated, that 

 neithe?' of us can claim any originality by so referring them. 



* The exception I suppose to be this, " These experiments were not 

 a repetition of mine ; and it ivas cerUiinlij not my wish they should have 

 been so fepresented." 



