[ 369 ] 



LXT. Extract of a Loiter to Professor Pictet, from a 



Correspondent at Munich, upon some galranico-magnetic 

 Experiments recently made by M. Hitter *. 



31st December, 1S05. 



At the last sitting of the academy on the lGth instant, 

 M. Ritter communicated the first part of a series of experi- 

 ments intended to ascertain the nature of magnetism ; hav- 

 ing been led to the subject bv the questions proposed by our 

 academy in 1776* and 3 777- He begins by establishing the 

 analogy between magnetism and electricity. The principal 

 results of his experiments, of which I have often been an 

 eve witness, are as follow : 



1. That each magnet or needle mav be regarded as equi- 

 valent in point of electrical relation to a pair of heteroge- 

 neous associated metals. The different poles respectively 

 represent the two dissimilar metals. 



2. Consequentlv each magnet, like these metals, pro- 

 duces electricity. One of the poles gives positive electricity, 

 and the other negative eieciricitv. 



3. A circle of magnets also constitutes in analogous cir- 

 cumstances a battery of Volta ; and in this manner the au- 

 thor succeeds in demonstrating, by means of the electrome- 

 ter, the electricities produced by the poles of this circle of 

 magnets. 



4. This baUfery of rhagnets exercises upon living bodies, 

 or such as are recently dead, on account of its strength, the 

 same effects as a Voltaic column of equal strength. 



Si. These experiments demonstrate, that in iron magnet- 

 ized, the south pole vields positive electricity, and the north 

 pole the negative. On the contrary, in the magnetized 

 steal, tiie north pole yields positive electricity, and the south 

 pole vields negative. 



The same inverse distribution is observed in the oxidabi- 

 lities (modified bv magnetization) of the magnetized body. 

 In iron submitted to this operation, the south pole is the 

 most oxidable, and the north pole is the least. In magnetized 



• Ream .'.' '.'. itfuque B\ ih nmique, vol. xxxi. 



steel, 



