THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



I 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



AUGUST 1872. 



X. On the Nature of Electricity . By M. E. Edlund*. 



Part I. 



T was formerly the received opinion that heat consisted of a 

 subtile and imponderable substance emitted by the source 

 of heat and received by the body which was heated by it, the 

 greater or less quantity of this substance determining the tem- 

 perature of the body. According to an analogous theory, light 

 also was composed of an imponderable substanceof the same kind. 

 To explain magnetic phenomena recourse was had to a new ma- 

 terial, the "magnetic fluid ;^^ and for electric phenomena a 

 second fluid had to be admitted, which, like the magnetic fluid, 

 must be composed of two distinct kinds. In regard to light and 

 heat, it is now proved that these phenomena are oscillations, 

 either of the minutest particles of matter or of the sether — that 

 subtile and elastic material diff'used through all nature, and even 

 into every part of space unoccupied by any other matter. Since 

 the discovery of diamagnetism, magnetic phenomena can no 

 longer be accounted for by means of the magnetic fluids; while 

 their electric origin can be demonstrated with the aid of Ampere's 

 theory. The two electric fluids are therefore the only ones still 

 considered necessary from a theoretical point of view. We shall, 

 in this memoir, endeavour to show that electric phenomena, static 



* Translated from a copy, communicated by the Author, of the memoir 

 presented to the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, May 10, 1871. 

 Archives des Sciences de la Bibliotheque Universelle, March and April 

 1872. 



Phil, May. S. 4. Vol. 44. No. 291. Any, 1872. G 



