DISCOURSE OF W. B. TAYLOR. 245 



of detailing to him his own similar combination of two electro- 

 magnetic circuits, experimentally tried more than a year previously. 



Nearly a year was employed in foreign travel, most pleasantly 

 and beneficially 1 Kith for mind and body: the greater portion of the 

 time however being spent in London, in Paris, (where Henry 

 formed the acquaintance of Arago, Becquerel, De la Rive, Hint, 

 < Jay-Lussac, and other celebrities, I ami in Edinburgh, where he a!.-.. 

 found a galaxy of eminent and congenial minds. 



In September of the same year (1837) he attended the mei ting 

 of the British Association at Liverpool; where being invited to 

 speak, he made a brief communication on some electrical researches 

 in regard to the phenomenon known as the " lateral discharge :" — a 

 study to which he had been led by some remarks of Dr. Roget on 

 the subject. "The result of the analysis was in accordance with an 

 opinion of Biot — that the lateral discharge is due only to the escape 

 of the small quantity of redundant electricity which always exists 

 on one side or the other of a jar, and not to the whole discharge." 

 Hence we could increase or diminish the lateral action by any means 

 which affect the quantity of free electricity : — as by " an increase 

 of the thickness of the glass, or by substituting for the small knob 

 of the jar, a large hall. But the arrangement which produces the 

 greatest effect is that of a long tine copper wire insulated, — parallel 

 to the horizon, and terminated at each end by a small hall. When 

 sparks are thrown on this from a globe of about a toot in diameti r, 

 the wire at each discharge becomes beautifully luminous from one 

 end to the other, even if it he a hundred feet long: rays are given 

 off on all sides perpendicular to the axis of the wire:" — forming a 

 continuous electrical brush. It was also stated "that the same 

 quantity of electricity could he made to remain on the wire, if grad- 

 ually communicated [bya point] ; but when thrown on in the' form 

 of a spark, it is dissipated as before described :" — as though possess- 

 ing a kind of momentum. When two or more wires are arranged 

 in parallel lines (in electrical connection), only the outer sides of the 



*"I informed him that I had devised another method of ] Lueing effects some- 

 what similar: this consisted in opi ning the circuit of my large quantity magm i at 

 Princeton, when loaded with many hundred pounds weight, by attracting upward 

 a small piece of movable wire with a small intensity magnet connected with a long 

 wire circuit." (Hesky's Opposition in the case of O'Rielly and Morse, September 

 -. 1S49.J 



