119 



elusions which he draws from them are so important, that we feel we 

 should not have done justice to the communication, had we not given 

 an abstract of the whole, at the same time that we stated our opi- 

 nion of its value. Had the author's discovery consisted alone of the 

 simple fact, that steel may be magnetised by a distant magnet, in a 

 manner similar to that employed with the voltaic battery, we should 

 have considered it of the highest importance in the inquiry concerning 

 the connexion between magnetism and electricity ; but when we see 

 permanent effects which, hitherto, have only been derived from 

 electricity, now derived from the common magnet, by calling in the 

 aid of motion, showing clearly that electricity can thus be excited; 

 and find that the laws which govern the phaenomena are established, 

 we cannot but entertain hopes that a door has been opened through 

 which may at length be discovered the precise distinction between 

 two agents which in many respects so greatly resemble each other 

 in their effects and in their laws of acting. Such being our opinion 

 of the results obtained by Mr. Faraday, we can have no hesitation 

 in recommending most strongly the publication of his paper in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society. 



(Signed) S. H. Christie. 



J. Bostock. 



Dr. Davy's Paper on the Torpedo, was then read in continuation. 



April 12, 1832. 



HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SUSSEX, K.G. 

 President, in the Chair. 



The reading of Dr. Davy's Paper, entitled, " An Account of some 

 experiments and observations on the Torpedo," was resumed and 

 concluded. 



The late Sir Humphry Davy gave an account, in a paper pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 1829, of some experi- 

 ments which he made on the Torpedo, with the view of ascertaining 

 how far its electricity is analogous to that of the voltaic, or other 

 galvanic batteries ; but the results he obtained were altogether of a 

 negative kind. He was prevented by the declining state of his health 

 from prosecuting this inquiry, which he was still ardently bent upon 

 completing, and which he requested his brother would carry on after 

 his death. The author, accordingly, when at Malta, being in a fa- 

 vourable situation for obtaining living torpedos, made the series of 

 experiments which are related in the present paper. They entirely 

 confirm those of Mr. Walsh made in 1772, and which established 

 the resemblance of the agency exerted by this fish to common elec- 

 tricity; and they also prove that, like voltaic electricity, it has the 

 power of giving magnetic polarity to steel, of deflecting the magnetic 

 needle, and also of effecting certain chemical changes in fluids sub- 

 jected to its action. Needles perfectly free from magnetism were 

 introduced within a spiral coil of copper wire, containing about ISO 

 convolutions ; the whole coil being an inch and a half long and one 



