THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 



JULY 1879. 



I. On the Passage of the Galvanic Current through Iron. 

 By Felix Auerbach, Ph.D., ofBreslau*. 

 [Plate I.] 



THE characteristic enormous value of the specific magne- 

 tism of iron is, as investigations accomplished in the last 

 decades have shown, not without influence upon the galvanic 

 peculiarities of that metal; for if a current be conducted 

 through an iron wire, phenomena make their appearance which 

 do not occur with other metals. Some of these phenomena 

 shall in the following be submitted to a consideration based on 

 new experiments, and judged from a unitary point of view 

 which, I am of opinion, has hitherto been missing in the lite- 

 rature of this subject. 



I commence with a brief comparison of the known facts, so 

 far as I shall have to refer to them. 



§ 2. (1) The statements respecting galvanic conductivity vary- 

 within comparatively wide limits, even when those which can 

 be impugned are excluded. Taking, namely, that of silver as 

 equal to 100, the corresponding number for iron was found by 

 E. Becquerel (1846), X= 12*35 



Benoitt (1873), 12-7 



Lenz (1838), 13-1 



Pouillet (1846), 14-1 



Matthiessen (1858), 14-44 



Buff (1857), 14-77 



Arndtsen (1858), 14*83 



Frick and Muller (1848), 15'9 



* Translated from the original Essay (Leipzig, 1878), communicated 

 by the Author. 



t Cumptes JRendus, t. lxxyi. p. 342 ; Phil. Mag. [IV.] vol. xlv. p. 314 

 (1873), and xlix. p. 78 (1875). 



Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 8. No. 46. July 1879. B 



