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CONTRIBUTIONS TO ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM. 



possible, inductive actions in common electricity analogous to those 

 found in galvanism. For this purpose a series of experiments 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 investiga- 

 tion 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 investi- 

 gations are not as complete, 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 in- 

 terest 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 consisting, principally, of two parts. 

 The first relating to a new examination of the induction of galvanic 

 currents ; and the second to the discovery of analogous results in the 

 discharge of ordinary electricity.* 



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

 sist of a number of flat coils of copper riband, which will be desig- 



Fig. 1. 



a represents coil No- 1, h coil No. 2, and c coil No. 3 ; e the battery, i the rasp. 



* The several paragraphs are numbered in succession, from the first to the last, after the 

 mode adopted by Mr Faraday, for convenience of reference. 



