210 



Contrihutio7is to Electricity and Magnetism. 



those found in galvanism. For this purpose a series of experi- 

 ments was commenced in the spring of 1836, but I was at that 

 time diverted, in part, from the immediate object of my research, 

 by a new investigation of the phenomenon known in common 

 electricity by the name of the lateral discharge. Circumstances 

 prevented my doing any thing further, in the way of experiment, 

 until April last, when most of the results which I now offer to 

 the Society were obtained. The investigations are not as com- 

 plete, in several points, as I could wish, but as my duties will not 

 permit me to resume the subject for some months to come, I 

 therefore present them as they are ; knowing, from the interest 

 excited by this branch of science in every part of the world, that 

 the errors which may exist will soon be detected, and the truths 

 be further developed. 



4. The experiments are given nearly in the order in which 

 they were made ; and in general they are accompanied by the 

 reflections which led to the several steps of the investigation. 

 The whole series is divided, for convenience of arrangement, 

 into six sections, although the subject may be considered as con- 

 sisting, principally, of two parts. The first, relating to a new 

 examination of the induction of galvanic currents ; and the sec- 

 ond, to the discovery of analogous results in the discharge of ordi- 

 nary electricity.* 



Fig. 1. 



a coil No. 1, 1 coil No. 2, and c coil No. 3 ; e the battery, d the rasp. 



5. The principal articles of apparatus used in the experiments, 

 consist of a number of flat coils of copper riband, which will be 



" The several paragraphs are, for convenience of reference, numbered in succes- 

 sion, from the first to the last, after the mode adopted by Dr. Faraday. 



