201 
to Electricity and Magnethm^ 
searches of Dr. Faraday, yet I am happy to state that the 
results obtained by this distinguished philosopher are not at 
variance with those given in my paper. 
2. I now offer to the Society a new series of investigations 
in the same line, which I hope may also be considered of 
sufficient importance to merit a place in the Transactions. 
3. The primary object of these investigations was to dis- 
cover, if possible, inductive actions in common electricity 
analogous to those found in galvanism. For this purpose 
a series of experiments was commenced in the spring of 
1836, but I was at that time diverted, in part, from the im- 
mediate object of my research, by a new investigation of 
the phaenomenon known in common electricity by the name 
of the lateral discharge. Circumstances prevented my doing 
anything further, in the way of experiment, until April last, 
when most of the results which I now offer to the Society were 
obtained. The investigations are not as complete, in several 
points, as I could wish, but as my duties will not permit me 
to resume the subject for some months to come, I therefore 
present them as they are ; knowing, from the interest excited 
by this branch of science in every part of the world, that the 
errors which may exist will soon be detected, and the truths 
be further developed. 
4. The experiments are given nearly in the order in which 
they were made; and in general they are accompanied by the 
reflections which led to the several steps of the investigation. 
The whole series is divided, for convenience of arrangement, 
into six sections, although the subject may be considered as 
consisting, principally, of two parts; the first relating to a 
new examination of the induction of galvanic currents ; and 
the second to the discovery of analogous results in the dis- 
charge of ordinary electricity^. 
5. The principal articles of apparatus used in the experi- 
ments, consist of a number of flat coils of copper riband, Vv^hich 
will be designated by the names of coil No. 1, coil No. 2, 
See.; also of several coils of long wire; and these, to distin- 
guish them from the ribands, will be called helix No. 1, he- 
lix No. 2, &c. 
6. Coil No. 1 is formed of thirteen pounds of copper plate, 
one inch and a half wide and ninety-three feet long. It is 
well covered with two coatings of silk, and was generally used 
in the form represented in fig. 1, which is that of a flat spiral 
sixteen inches in diameter. It was however sometimes formed 
* The several paragraphs are numbered in siiccessionj from the first to 
the last, after the mode adopted by Mr. Faraday, for convenience of re- 
ference. 
