My 
% 
~ accumulated in this sphere, and that existing in, or about, the 
a. 
a be 
4 Scout Letter from Dr. Hare to Prof. Faraday. 
imity. Agreeably to my view, the action is confined to the elec- “ 
trical accumulation in the sphere A. Between the electricity 
intervening ponderable particles, there may be a reaction ; but 7 
evidently these particles are as inactive as are the steps of a lad- 
der in the scaling of a wall. : : 
Suppose a powerful magnet to be so curved as to have the 
terminating polar surfaces parallel, and leaving between them an 
interval of some inches. Place between these surfaces, a number 
of short pieces of soft iron wire. These would of course be mag- 
netized, and would arrange themselves in rows, the north and — 
south poles becoming contiguous. Would this be a sufficient 
reason for saying that the inductive influence of the magnetic 
poles was an action of the contiguous wires? Would not the 
phenomena be the consequence of an affection of the contiguous — 
pieces of wire, hot of their action ? 
~~ As respects the word charge, I am not aware that I have 
been in the habit of attaching any erroneous meaning to it, as 
your efforts to define it in paragraph iii would imply. Ihave | 
been accustomed to restrict the use of it to the case which you ~ 
distinguish as an inductive charge, illustrated by that of the Ley- 
en jar. ‘To designate the states of the conductors of a machine, ~ 
] have almost always employed the words excited or excitement. a 
In my text-book, these words are used to designate the state ¢ 
glass or resin electrified by friction, while that of coated surface 
whether panes or jars, inductively electrified, has been designate 
by the words charge or charged. oe ge 
I understood the word contiguous to imply contact, or con 
tiguity, where, as it seems that it was intended by you to con= 
vey the idea of proximity. In the last mentioned sense it is not 
inconsistent with the idea of an action at the distance of half an ¥g 
inch: but by admitting the word contiguous to be ill chosen, you 
have, with great candor, furnished me with an apology for having — 
mistaken your meaning. bale ~~ 8 
Any inductive action which does not exist at sensible dis- _ / 
tances, (xx,) you attribute to ordinary induction, considering the “a 
eg 
_ case of induction through a vacuum as an extraordinary case of 
induction. 'To me it appears that the induction must be the same 
in both cases, and that the circumstances under which it acts, are 
