648 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE 
dated 1691, is the most eminently magnetic. The 
next, in point of magnetic action, are the half- 
crowns of 1844 and 1845; then one of George 
IVth, the date of which I have not noted. The 
half-crowns of George III., of 1819 and 1820, 
are more slightly magnetic than those last named, 
and the half-crowns of both coinages in 1817 are 
still less magnetic than those of 1819 and 1820. 
Shillings, also, of certain coinages, are magnetic 
in an eminent degree, and there are but few, if 
any, that I have examined, that are entirely neu- 
tral to the high magnetic powers with which they 
have been assailed. 
30. Silver articles for domestic purposes, such 
as spoons, prongs, fruit knives, &c., were, in 
many specimens, found to be much more mag- 
netic than any of thesilver coins that I have 
examined. Ihave borrowed several sets of silver 
tea-spoons from neighlhouring families, and, with 
the exception of one half-dozen of Scotch spoons, 
of a very old date, all have displayed high mag- 
netic powers, though of very different degrees in 
different sets. But what is very remarkable, if 
one individual spoon was found to be highly 
magnetic, the whole of that particular set, whether 
it consisted of half a dozen or a dozen spoons, 
