a rapid succession of Electrical Discharges. 325 



rating the layers with paper, is so defective that it would preclude 

 the possibility of any great increase of power by extension of size. 

 It is a source of no small satisfaction to me, that I was unable to 

 get any definite information of the construction of lluhmkorff's 

 coil when I sought it in 1855, since, had I obtained it, it might 

 have prevented me from acting upon my own experience, and 

 adopting a mode of construction which turns out to be totally 

 different from that of M, Ruhmkorff, and which has been attended 

 with such unprecedented results. As 1 feel that there is some 

 amount of honour connected with the origination of this new 

 form of the coil in England, I may be pardoned for asserting my 

 priority in this matter. I should not have been induced to do 

 so, but from the fact that the mode in which my name has been 

 coupled with that of a gentlemen who has recently constructed 

 an instrument precisely upon the same principle as my own, 

 has produced an impression that we had both constructed our 

 instruments about the same time, which is not the case. My first 

 instrument was made about the middle of the year 1855, and in 

 November of that year I communicated the minute details of 

 the construction of one or two of my instruments to Mr. Grove, 

 describing the use which I had made of gutta-percha and oiled 

 silk as a medium of insulation. The results which I had ob- 

 tained with these instruments, particularly with one of them, 

 were of a very exalted character, although an insignificant bat- 

 tery was employed. I am quite sure that the contents of that 

 letter had escaped Mr. Grove's recollection during his very gra- 

 tifying remarks on my lecture at the Society of Arts, since the 

 general impression produced by an observation which accidentally 

 fell from him was, that my labours had been coincident with those 

 of Mr. Bentley, the gentleman to whom I have alluded. As early 

 as December 1855, 1 had worked out the major part of the results 

 which I have lately had the honour of detailing to the London 

 Institution and Society of Arts, and in ]\Iarch 1856, gave a 

 lecture on the subject befoi'e the members of the Plymouth In- 

 stitution, an account of which appeared in the Journal of the 

 Society of Arts, May 16, 1856, p. 444. 



In my first paper in the Philosophical Magazine, November 

 1856, 1 had occasion to animadvert on the conduct of Dr. Noad, 

 for having anticipated me by introducing at a public lecture, in 

 October last, a machine almost identical with my own, constructed 

 but a few weeks before by his friend Mr. Bentley, whilst at the 

 same time he refused to allude to the previous existence of mine, 

 the particulars of which he had obtained from me for publication 

 in his new work nearly nine months before, and had bound me 

 in the meantime not to publish myself, but which information, 

 although actually printed, had been kept from the scientific world 



