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Ordinary Meeting, December 29th, 1868. 
E. W. Binney, F.B.S., F.G.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
Augustus S. Wilkins, M.A., and William Makshall 
Watts, D.Sc., were elected Ordinary Members of the Society. 
Mr. Wilde said it had occurred to him since the last 
meeting of the Society that a comparison might be at- 
tempted to be drawn between the controlling power of the 
magneto-electric current over the rotation of a number of 
armatures, and that of the voltaic current over the oscilla- 
tions of a number of pendulums. Beyond the fact that 
synchronism is produced in both cases through the agency 
of an electric current, there is no resemblance between the 
two actions. In the case of the armatures, the synchronism 
is produced by the mutual action of several rotating bodies 
upon one another, or by the dominant influence of several 
bodies upon one; whereas, in the case of the pendulums, 
the synchronism of the system is produced by the influence 
of one body alone upon several. Again, the synchronism of 
a number of pendulums is only accomplished by the skilful 
adaptation of means to an end, while the synchronous 
rotation of a number of armatures is a phenomenon which 
exhibits itself without the exercise of any ingenuity what- 
ever; and so far as he had studied this peculiar electro- 
mechanical action, no amount of ingenuity can produce the 
synchronous rotation of the armatures by means of the 
voltaic current, as magneto-electric currents, and circuits, 
seem absolutely essential to the manifestation of this result. 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Society. — Vol. Till. No. 7 — Session 1868-9. 
