532 PROF. BOTTO ON THE APPLICATION OF 
Note onthe Application of Electro- Magnetism asa Mechanical 
Power; by 1. D. Borro, Professor of Natural Philosophy 
in the Royal University of Turin. 
From the Bibliothéque Universelle, &c., vol. vi. Geneva, (1834, vol. 11. p. 312. 
July.) 
Tue remarkable energy with which the magnetic action is developed 
in soft iron by induction from electricity in motion is well known. 
The possibility of the application of this new power to machines pos- 
sessing some interest, I have decided on publishing the results which I 
have obtained relating to this subject*. 
The mechanism which I have employed consists first of a lever put 
in motion (in the manner of a metronome) by the alternating action of 
two fixed electro-magnetic cylinders exerted on a third moveable cy- 
linder connected with the lower arm of the lever, the upper arm of 
which maintains a metallic wheel, serving in the ordinary way as a re- 
gulator, in a continuous gyratory motion. 
The apparatus was so disposed, that, the axes of the three cylinders 
being perfectly equal and situated in the same vertical plane perpen- 
dicular to the axis of motion, the oscillating cylinder placed itself 
by one of its extremities alternately in contact with and in the di- 
rection of, each of the two other cylinders, stationed at the limits of its 
excursions; and each time, at that very instant, the direction of the mag- 
néetizing current in its spiral was changed, the remainder of the circuit 
preserving the same direction, so as to produce poles of the same name 
in the fixed cylinders, at the two extremities facing the moveable cy- 
linder. The change of direction which has just been mentioned is 
obtained by means of the known mechanism of the bascule, the com- 
munications of which are interchanged by the motion of the machine 
itself. 
It is evident that from this arrangement the middle cylinder must 
undergo corresponding alternations of attraction and repulsion, by 
the effect of which the apparatus is set in motion, as it were by itself, 
and maintains itself in action by the ceconomy of the magnetic 
forces which animate it, and which are produced by the electric 
currents. 
I endeavoured to operate without the spiral of the middle cylinder, 
and by causing the two fixed cylinders magnetized alternately to act 
* I ought to state, that the hope of giving a greater extension to my obser- 
vations, and also the necessity of absenting myself from Turin, haye caused me 
to defer the publication of the facts which I announce, although I should have 
done so at the end of June. But I have been obliged to decide respecting it, 
having seen in the last number of the Piedmontese Gazette, that M. Jacobi of 
Kénigsberg has succeeded in obtaining a phenomenon of continuous motion 
by the intervention only of the electro-magnetic power. 
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