Miscellanies. 385 
it at the very outset, neither did he when I sent the manuscripts for his 
revision,—it passed as a portion of the joint stock when the whole was 
laid before the Society, and he allowed it to pass through the press and 
be published without asserting any claim. Nor am I aware that he 
attempted to appropriate it, until M. De la Rive drew attention to its 
importance, by endeavoring to repeat it. The want of success which 
attended M. De la Rive’s endeavors, Mr. Sturgeon attributes to my 
faulty description, and this affords him a plausible pretext to lay his 
_ own version before the American public, lest they also should fail from 
alike cause. I would gladly know what there is in my description 
which prevented M. De la Rive from producing the same results. Surely 
that philosopher is not to be charged with deficiency of intellect and 
want of skill in manipulatién; it requires very little of the former to 
comprehend the description I have given, and no large share of the 
latter to follow it. If you will refer to the Proceedings of the London 
Electrical Society, (a copy of which is forwarded to you by the order 
of the committee,) you will find on page 167, an abstract of a transla- 
tion of M. De la Rive’s experiments, and will see from that, that he 
perfectly comprehends me, but fails on account of the battery he used. 
From this you will see that the motives assigned by Mr. Sturgeon 
are merely imaginary, but if real, they little became him—they 
should never have fallen from his pen, because, after the experiments 
were finished, the notes were offered him to prepare, but he declined 
them; and when I, at the request of the others, undertook the task, I 
sent the prepared manuscripts to Mr. Sturgeon, as well as to the rest, 
for his corrections or ‘observations, if he had any to make; and 
they were returned from him with some emendations, but with no re- 
mark in connection with this experiment. Surely when he tells you 
that on account of the lateness of the hour many of his experiments 
were not entered into, he might have said that the battery was changed 
three different times, at each of which he was present, and on each of 
which there must have been opportunity. I am surprised that ina 
Joint undertaking like this, he should talk of Ais experiments, as distinct 
from those of the rest, but still more so, when these were kept secret 
from. us. 
With regard to the experiment in question; | it poe to have seamen 
like many others in all the sciences, from merel 
He and Mr. Mason were amusing themselves with the wires, and observ- 
ing the length of the are of flame, and the phenomenon of the heated 
€ctrode presented itself; but neither knew which electrode it was 
until they had examined. And this, I think, you may gather from Mr. 
Sturgeon’ s own words in his first letter, dated October 9, 1838, where 
he says—* the wires were made to ng poles, still the same thing 
Vol. xtir, No, 2.—Jan.-March, 1842. 
