94 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



action was really of this transverse kind. And a 

 curious result was obtained, which a little while 

 before would have been considered as altogether in- 

 credible ; that this force would cause a constant 

 and rapid revolution of either of the bodies about 

 the other ; of the conducting wire about the mag- 

 net, or of the magnet about the conducting wire- 

 This was effected by Mr. Faraday, in 1821. 



The laws which regulated the intensity of this 

 force, with reference to the distance and position 

 of the bodies, now naturally came to be examined. 

 MM. Biot and Savart in France, and Mr. Barlow 

 in England, instituted such measures ; and satisfied 

 themselves that the elementary force followed the 

 law of magnitude of all known elementary forces, 

 in being inversely as the square of the distance ; 

 although, in its direction, it was so entirely differ- 

 ent from other forces. But the investigation of the 

 laws of phenomena of the subject was too closely 

 connected with the choice of a mechanical theory, 

 to be established previously and independently, as 

 had been done in astronomy. The experiments 

 gave complex results, and the analysis of these into 

 their elementary actions was almost an indispen- 

 sable step in order to disentangle their laws. We 

 must, therefore, state the progress of this analysis. 



