Te, 
Electro-Magnetic Machine. 7 
ment, of a degree of energy inferior indeed to that exerted in actual 
contact, but still nearly approximating to it. 
6. As the power can be generated cheaply and certainly—as it 
can be continued indefinitely—as it has been very greatly increased 
by very simple means—as we have no knowledge of its limit, and 
may therefore presume on an indefinite augmentation of its energy, 
it is much to be desired, that the investigation should be prosecuted 
with zeal, aided by correct scientific knowledge, by mechanical skill, 
and by ample funds. It may therefore be reasonably hoped, that 
science and art, the handmaids of discovery, will both receive from 
this interesting research, a liberal reward. 
Science has thus, most unexpectedly, placed in our hands a new 
power of great but unknown energy. 
It does not evoke the winds from their caverns; nor give wings to 
water by the urgency of heat; nor drive to exhaustion the muscu- 
lar power of animals; nor operate by complicated mechanism ; nor 
accumulate hydraulic force by damming the vexed torrents; nor sum- 
mon any other form of gravitating force; but, by the simplest means— 
the mere contact of metallic surfaces of small extent, with feeble 
chemical agents, a power every where diffused through nature, but 
generally concealed from our senses, is mysteriously evolved, and by 
circulation in insulated wires, it is still more mysteriously augmented, 
a thousand and a thousand fold, until it breaks forth with incredible 
energy ; there is no appreciable interval between its first evolution 
and its full maturity, and the infant starts up a giant. eo 
Nothing since the discovery of gravitation and of the structure of 
the celestial systems, is so wonderful as the power evolved by gal- 
vanism; whether we contemplate it in the muscular convulsions of 
animals, the chemical decompositions, the solar brightness of the gal- 
vanic light, the dissipating consuming heat, and, more than all, in the 
magnetic energy, which leaves far behind all previous artificial accu- 
mulations of this power, and reveals, as there is full reason to be- 
lieve, the grand secret of terrestrial magnetism itself. 
B.S. 
New Haven, March 31, 1837. 
