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XXXVI. Remarks on Mr. Christie's Bakerian Lecture, pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 1 833, Part I. 

 By the Rev. William Ritchie, LL.D., F.R.S., fyc. 

 Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in the 

 Royal Institution of Great Britain, and in the University of 

 London. 



To Sir David Brewster. 

 Dear Sir, 

 TIT AD this lecture appeared as a simple communication by 

 -*--*■ the author, I should have done nothing more than point 

 out the discrepancies between the results and those which I ob- 

 tained about the same time for voltaic electricity. But as my 

 communication is printed in the same volume of the Transac- 

 tions as that which has been thus selected and rewarded for 

 its scientific excellence, and as both communications cannot 

 be true, I consider myself called upon either to acknowledge 

 the fallacy of the conclusions at which I arrived, or to point out 

 the errors into which the author of the Bakerian Lecture has 

 fallen. As I am still as much convinced of the truth of my 

 communication as when it was read before the Royal Society, 

 I have only one course left to pursue, namely, to point out the 

 fallacy of the conclusions stated in the Bakerian Lecture, 

 which I shall do without the intention or the fear of giving 

 offence either to the author or to the Council of the Royal 

 Society. We are all engaged in the same disinterested warfare, 

 in forcing reluctant Nature to confess the truth : we contend 

 for Truth, not for Victory. 



I shall feel obliged to you and the other Editors if you will 

 give this communication a place in your excellent Journal. 

 I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, yours, &c. 



William Ritchie. 

 In the first part of the Bakerian Lecture for 1833*, the 

 author has satisfactorily shown that copper is a better con- 

 ductor of magneto-electricity than iron; which Mr. Faraday 

 in his first trials had not detected, in consequence of the im- 

 perfection of his apparatus ; but which he afterwards found 

 to be the case, without any knowledge of Mr. Christie's ex- 

 periments. From the entire paper it is also clearly made 

 out that a short copper wire conducts better than a long one, 

 and that a thick wire conducts better than a fine one (facts 

 which were well known to every person who ever performed 

 a single experiment on the subject) ; but it appears to me 

 that the laborious investigations, both experimental and mathe- 



* An abstract of the Bakerian Lecture for 1833 will be found in the 

 Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., vol. iii. p. 141. — Edit. 



