110 Notice of the late Aurora Borealis. 



intensity seems to be considerably weakened during the develop- 

 ment of the polar light. But we have not known hitherto any such 

 elastic fluids in the magnet, by the union of which, phenomena of 

 light appear, as in the two opposite electricities. It is therefore 

 still to be discovered what kind of substance it is which seems at 

 once to partake of the properties of electricity and magnetism. 

 In the Magazine for Naturvidenskaberne, vol. ii. pp. 98, 99, I 

 have advanced the following hypothesis, as an attempt towards 

 an explanation of the electro-magnetic phenomena. In the com- 

 pleted galvanic circuit, the conductor is traversed in an oppo- 

 site direction by the opposite electricities. Every positive ele- 

 mentary particle strives to combine with a negative one ; thus 

 united in pairs they neutralize each other, and their electric 

 power disappears. But in this neutral state they perhaps ap- 

 pear as elastic fluid elementary magnets, which so surround the 

 surface of the polar wire that all north poles are turned on one 

 side, and all south poles on another ; and the axis of every ele- 

 mentary magnet is the tangent of the circular section of the con- 

 ducting wire. Owing to the constantly aggregating quantity of 

 electricity from both ends of the wire, and the expansive nature 

 of electricity, these elementary magnets are forced out of the 

 surface of the wire with a velocity equal perhaps to that of light 

 itself. As long, therefore, as the circuit is uninterrupted, the 

 wire is surrounded by a cylindrical atmosphere of neutralized 

 molecules combined in pairs, each pair of which has a magnetic 

 north pole and south pole, and a neutral point. 



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