442 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
described, Vol. XII., page 420 of this Journal, consisted in di- 
viding a dish into two parts by a division across the middle, 
and filling each division with mercury, a piece of wire was 
then bent into the form of the letter U, but the curved part 
was bent to one side, so that the two limbs of the wire might 
lie on the mercury one on each cell, and the bent part pass over 
the division without touching it. The wire was covered with 
silk, except a small portion at each extremity, by which the 
communication was established with the mercury. The poles 
of a voltaic apparatus were then connected with the cells of 
mercury near to the division, so as to be in the lines of the 
limbs, in which case the wire moved parallel to the division, so 
as to elongate the current through which the electricity was 
passing. 
The second experiment consisted in placing a circle of copper 
plate in the middle of strong electrical currents, which came 
very near without touching it. When a strong horse-shoe 
magnet was brought to one side of the plate, it was sometimes 
drawn in between the two limbs of the magnet, and sometimes 
repelled according to the direction of the current and the posi- 
tion of the magnet. This experiment is very important, since it 
demonstrates that those bodies which do not acquire perma- 
nent magnetism by their vicinity to electrical current, as iron 
and steel do, may nevertheless receive a transient state of mag- 
netism in the same circumstances.—Bzb. Univ. xxi. 47.: 
17. New Electro-Magnetic Experiments. Sebeck.—The fol- 
lowing is a very curious and simple electro-magnetic experi- 
ment made by Dr. Sebeck of Berlin. Take a bar of antimony, 
about eight inches long, and half an inch thick; connect its 
extremities by twisting a piece of brass wire round them so as 
to form a loop, each end of the bar having several coils of the 
wire. If one of the extremities be heated for a short time with a 
spirit lamp, electro-magnetic phenomena may be exhibited in 
every part of it-—Ann. Phil. iv. 318. 
We have repeated this experiment with every success. The 
brass wire is in that state which would be produced by con- 
necting its heated end with the negative pole of a voltaic bat- 
tery, and its cold end with the positive pole—Ep. 
18. Electro-Magnetic Effect of Lightning.—A violent thun- 
-der-storm occurred on the 22d of June last, at Toulouse, when 
the lightning passed by various metallic pipes through a house, 
and gave occasion to observe its strong powers of magnetiza~- 
tion. Just under the roof, a part of the floor was completely 
destroyed by the lightning, and a piece of iron that had be- 
longed to it had become so strongly magnetic, that it was able 
to lift a table-knife. Small iron tools were magnetized by the iron, 
