THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



AUGUST 1868. 



XIV. Experimental Researches in Magnetism and Electricity. — 

 Second Series. By H. Wilde, Esq.* 

 [With a Plate.] 

 § 3. On the Electric Condition of the Terrestrial Globe, and on 

 the Absolute Character of the Law of Definite Electrolysis. 

 86. TN a former paper, which I had the honour of communi- 

 J- eating to the Royal Society f, reference was made to a 

 certain class of phenomena in which, when presented to the mind 

 for the first time with the view of predicting the magnitude of 

 any effect which would be produced in a body by the addition of 

 proportionate increments of a given force, the results exhibited 

 by experiment are altogether different in magnitude from those 

 which ordinary analogical reasoning would have led to, and con- 

 sequently produce in the mind the idea of paradox. 



87. In that paper several prominent instances of this relation 

 between the quantitative properties of things and the mind of the 

 observer, in new and untried conditions, are also given ; and 

 among them perhaps the most interesting are those shown in 

 Tables I. II. III. IV., wherein equal increments of magnetism 

 induce quantities of this same force much greater than those ma- 

 nifested in the original magnet. And, further, a quantity of 

 magnetism or of electricity indefinitely small is demonstrated to 

 be capable of inducing, or making manifest, quantities of these 

 same forces indefinitely great. 



88. Another class of phenomena, no less interesting than the 

 one above mentioned, is that in which, by the continued addition of 



* Communicated by the Author. 



t Philosophical Transactions, 1867, p. 89. Philosophical Magazine, 

 August 1867. 



Phil. Mag. S. 4 Vol. 36. No. 241. Aug. 1868. G 



