ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



NOVEMBER, 1821. 



Article I. 



On Electro-magnetism. By Professor Oersted. 

 (Communicated by the Author.) 



(A.) The History of my previous Researches on this Subject. 



When I began to examine into the nature of electricity, I 

 conceived the idea that the propagation of electricity consisted 

 in a continual destruction and renewal of equilibrium, and 

 thus possessed great activity which could only be explained 

 by considering it as a uniform current.* I then regarded the 

 transmission of electricity as an electrical conflict, and my 

 researches into the nature of the heat produced by the electrical 

 discharge, particularly led to the conclusion, that the two oppo- 

 site electrical forces, which pervade a body heated by their 

 effect, are so blended as to escape all observation, without 

 however, having acquired perfect equilibrium/!- so that they 

 might still exhibit great activity, although under a form of action, 

 differing entirely from that which may be properly termed elec- 

 trical. Notwithstanding my efforts to justify my idea, this com- 

 plete annihilation of power indicated by the electrometer, accom- 

 panied with very considerable action of another kind, appeared 

 to the greater number of philosophers to possess but little proba- 

 bility. This feeling may, perhaps, be partly attributed to the 

 obscurity of the subject, and partly also to the imperfect manner 

 in which I explained my theory ; for it must be confessed that 



* My treatise on this subject will be found in Gehlen's Journal 1806, and the 

 Journal de Physique of the same year. 

 + See my Considerations on Natural Chemical Laws. Berlin, 181V, p. 132 — 234.. 



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