ON PHYSICAL LINES OF FOKCE. 489 



[From the Philosophical Magazine for January and February, 1862.] 



PART III. 



THE THEORY OF MOLECULAR VORTICES APPLIED TO STATICAL ELECTRICITY. 



In the first part of this paper* I have shewn how the forces acting between 

 magnets, electric currents, and matter capable of magnetic induction may be 

 accounted for on the hypothesis of the magnetic field being occupied with 

 innumerable vortices of revolving matter, their axes coinciding with the direction 

 of the magnetic force at every point of the field. 



The centrifugal force of these vortices produces pressures distributed in such 

 a way that the final effect is a force identical in direction and magnitude 

 with that which we observe. 



In. the second partf I described the mechanism by which these rotations 

 may be made to coexist, and to be distributed according to the known laws 

 of magnetic lines of force. 



I conceived the rotating matter to be the substance of certain cells, divided 

 from each other by cell- walls composed of particles which are very small com- 

 pared with the cells, and that it is by the motions of these particles, and their 

 tangential action on the substance in the cells, that the rotation is communi- 

 cated from one cell to another. 



I have not attempted to explain this tangential action, but it is necessary 

 to suppose, in order to account for the transmission of rotation from the exterior 

 to the interior parts of each cell, that the substance in the cells possesses 

 elasticity of figure, similar in kind, though different in degree, to that observed 

 in solid bodies. The uudulatory theory of light requires us to admit this kind 

 of elasticity in the luminiferous medium, in order to account for transverse 

 vibrations. We need not then be surprised if the magneto-electric medium 

 possesses the same property. 



* Phil. Mag. March, 1861 [pp. 451466 of this vol.]. 



t Phil. Mag. April and May, 1861 [pp. 467488 of this vol.]. 



VOL. I. 62 



