48 On the magnetic Phenomena 
positive side of a battery, and its lower part with the negative. 
After the shock all the wires were found magnetic, and each had 
two poles; the south pole being opposite to the north pole of the 
wire next to it, and vice versd; and when the north pole of a 
needle was touched with a wire, and that wire moved round the 
circle to the south pole of the same needle, its motion was op- 
posite to that of the apparent motion of the sun. 
A similar experiment was tried with six needles arranged in 
the same manner; with only this difference, that the wire posi- 
tively electrified was below. In this case the results were pre- 
cisely the same, except that the poles were reversed; and any 
body, moved in the circle from the north to the south pole of the 
same needle, had its direction from east to west. 
' A number of needles were arranged as polygons in different 
circles round the same piece of paste-board, and made magnetie 
by electricity; and it was found that in all of them, whatever was 
the direction of the paste-board, whether horizontal or perpen- 
dicular, or inclined to the horizon, and whatever was the direc- 
tion of the wire with respect to the magnetic meridian, the same 
law prevailed: for instance, when the positive wire was east, and 
a body was moved round the circle from the north to the south 
poles of the same wire, its motion (beginning with the lower 
part of the circle) was from north to south, or with the upper 
part from south to north; and when the needles were arranged 
round a cylinder of paste-board so as to cross the wire, and a 
pencil mark drawn in the direction of the poles, it formed a 
spiral. 
It was perfectly evident from these experiments, that as many 
polar arrangements may be formed as chords can be drawn in 
circles surrounding the wire; and so far these phenomena agree 
with your idea of revolving magnetism: but I shall quit this sub- 
ject, which I hope you will yourself elucidate for the information 
of the Society, to mention some other circumstances and facts 
belonging to the inquiry. : 
Supposing powerful electricity to be passed through two, three, 
four, or more wires, forming part of the same circuit parallel to - 
each other in the same plane, or in different planes, it could 
hardly be doubted that each wire, and the space around it, would 
become magnetic in the same manner as a single wire, though 
in a less degree; and this I found was actually the case. When 
four wires of fine platinum were made to complete a powerful 
Voltaic circuit, each wire exhibited its magnetism in the same 
manner, and steel filings on the sides of the wires opposite at- 
tracted each other. 
As the filings on the opposite sides of the wire attracted each 
other in consequence of their being in opposite magnetic states, 
it 
