106 PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 



state, however, that the arrangement that I have described was merely 

 a temporary one, and that I had no idea at the time of abandoning 

 my researches for the practical application of the telegraph. Indeed, 

 my experiments on the transmission of power to a distance were super- 

 seded by the investigation of the remarkable phenomena, which I had 

 discovered in the course of these experiments, of the induction of a 

 current in a long wire on itself, and of which I made the first mention 

 in a paper in Silliman's Journal in 1832, vol. 22. 



I also devised a method of breaking a circuit, and thereby causing a 

 large weight to fall. It was intended to illustrate the practicabihty of 

 calling into action a great power at a distance capable of producing 

 mechanical effects ; but as a description of this was not printed, I do 

 not place it in the same category with the experiments of which I 

 published an account, or the facts which could be immediately de- 

 duced from my papers in Silliman's Journal. 



From a careful investigation of the history of electro-magnetism 

 in its connexion with the telegraph, the following facts may be es- 

 tablished : 



1. Previous to my investigations the means of developing magnetism 

 in soft iron were imperfectly understood, and the electro-magnet 

 which then existed was inapplicable to the transmission of power to a 

 distance. 



2. I was the first to prove by actual experiment that, in order to 

 develop magnetic power at a distance, a galvanic battery of intensity 

 must be employed to project the current through the long conductor, 

 and that a magnet surrounded by many turns of one long wire must be 

 used to receive this current. 



3 I was the first actually to magnetize a piece of iron at a distance, 

 and to call attention to the fact of the applicability of my experiments 

 to the telegraph. 



4. I was the first to actually sound a bell at a distance by means of 

 the electro- magnet. 



5. The principles I had developed were applied by Dr. Gale to 

 render Morse's machine effective at a distance. 



The results here given were among my earliest experiments ; in a 

 Bcientific point of view I considered them of much less importance 

 than what I subsequently accomplished ; and had I not been called 

 upon to give my testimony in regard to them, I would have suffered 

 them to remain without calling public attention to them, a part of the 

 history of science to be judged of by scientific men who are the best 

 qualified to pronounce upon their merits. 



