58 DR. FARADAY’S EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES IN ELECTRICITY. (SERIES XXI.) 
2438. The effects with air are, however, in these results precisely the same as those 
which were obtained with the solutions of iron of various strength (2365.), where all 
the bodies belonged to the magnetic class, and where the effect was evidently due to 
the greater or smaller degree of magnetic power possessed by the solutions. A weak 
solution in a stronger pointed equatorially and was repelled like a diamagnetic, not 
because it did not tend by attraction to an axial position, but because it tended to that 
position with less force than the matter around it ; so the question will enter the 
mind, whether the diamagnetics, when in air, are repelled and tend to the equatorial 
position for any other reason, than that the air is more magnetic than they are, and 
tends to occupy the axial space. It is easy to perceive that if all bodies were mag- 
netic in different degrees, forming one great series from end to end, with air in the 
middle of the series, the effects would take place as they do actually occur. Any 
body from the middle part of the series would point equatorially in the bodies above 
it and axially in those beneath it ; for the matter which, like bismuth, goes from a 
strong to a weak point of action, may do so only because that substance, which is 
already at the place of weak action, tends to come to the place where the action is 
strong; just as in electrical induction the bodies best fitted to carry on the force 
are drawn into the shortest line of action. And so air in water, or even under mer- 
cury, is, or appears to be, drawn towards the magnetic pole. 
2439. But if this were the true view, and air had such power amongst other bodies 
as to stand in the midst of them, then one would be led to expect that rarefaction of 
the air would affect its place, rendering it, perhaps, more diamagnetic, or at all events 
altering its situation in the list. If such were the case, bodies that set equatorially 
in it in one state of density, would, as it varied, change their position, and at last set 
axiallv : but this they do not do ; and whether the rarefied air be compared with the 
magnetic or the diamagnetic class, or even with dense air, it keeps its place. 
2440. Such a view also would make mere space magnetic, and precisely to the 
same degree as air and gases. Now though it may very well be, that space, air and 
gases, have the same general relation to magnetic force, it seems to me a great addi- 
tional assumption to suppose that they are all absolutely magnetic, and in the midst 
of a series of bodies, rather than to suppose that they are in a normal or zero state. 
For the present, therefore, I incline to the former view, and consequently to the opi- 
nion that diamagnetics have a specific action antithetically distinct from ordinary 
magnetic action, and have thus presented us with a magnetic property new to our 
knowledge. 
2441. The amount of this power in diamagnetic substances seems to be very small, 
when estimated by its dynamic effect, but the motion which it can generate is per- 
haps not the most striking measure of its force ; and it is probable that when its 
nature is more intimately known to us, other effects produced by it and other indica- 
tors and measurers of its powers, than those so imperfectly made known in this paper, 
will come to our knowledge ; and perhaps even new classes of phenomena will serve 
