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 both 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 Eive, Biot, 

 Gay-Lussac, and other celebrities,) and in Edinburgh, where he also 

 found a galaxy of eminent and congenial minds. 



In September of the same year (1837) he attended the meeting 

 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 ball. But the arrangement which produces the 

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

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

 sparks are thrown on this from a globe of about a foot in diameter, 

 the wire at each discharge becomes beautifully luminous from one 

 end to the other, even if it be 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 be made to remain on the wire, if grad- 

 ually communicated [by a 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 producing effects some- 

 what similar: this consisted in opening the circuit of my large quantity magnet 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." (HENRY'S Deposition in the case of O'Rielly and Morse, September 

 7, 1849.) 



