8 
Sir Humphry Davy on 
obscure, or their experiments inaccurate, they were neglected : 
the chemical and electrical phenomena exhibited by the won- 
derful combination of Volta, at that time almost entirely 
absorbed the attention of scientific men ; and the discovery - 
of the fact of the true connection between electricity and 
magnetism, seems to have been reserved for M. Oersted, 
and for the present year. 
This discovery, from its importance and unexpected nature, 
cannot fail to awaken a strong interest in the scientific world ; 
and it opens a new field of enquiry, into which many experi- 
menters will undoubtedly enter : and where there are so 
many objects of research obvious, it is scarcely possible that 
similar facts should not be observed by different persons. 
The progress of science is, however, always promoted by a 
speedy publication of experiments ; hence, though it is pro- 
bable that the phenomena which I have observed may have 
been discovered before, or at the same time in other parts 
of Europe, yet I shall not hesitate to communicate them to 
you, and through you to the Royal Society. 
I found, in repeating the experiments of M. Oersted 
with a voltaic apparatus of one hundred pair of plates of 
four inches, that the south pole of a common magnetic 
needle (suspended in the usual way) placed under the 
communicating wire of platinum, (the positive end of the 
apparatus being on the right hand) was strongly attracted 
by the wire, and remained in contact with it, so as entirely 
to alter the direction of the needle, and to overcome the mag- 
netism of the earth. This I could only explain by supposing 
that the wire itself became magnetic during the passage of 
the electricity through it, and direct experiments, which I 
immediately made, proved that this was the case. I threw 
