Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 2.djvu/107

 Rh metal was laid bare by making a fine longitudinal scratch on the varnish. The wire was then immersed in a solution of a salt of iron, and placed in a magnetic field with the scratch in the direction of a line of magnetic force. By making the wire the cathode of an electric current through the solution, iron was deposited on the narrow exposed surface of the wire, molecule by molecule. The filament of iron thus formed was then examined magnetically. Its magnetic moment was found to be very great for so small a mass of iron, and when a powerful magnetizing force was made to act in the same direction the increase of temporary magnetization was found to be very small, and the permanent magnetization was not altered. A magnetizing force in the reverse direction at once reduced the filament to the condition of iron magnetized in the ordinary way.

Weber's theory, which supposes that in this case the magnetizing force placed the axis of each molecule in the same direction during the instant of its deposition, agrees very well with what is observed.

Beetz found that when the electrolysis is continued under the action of the magnetizing force the intensity of magnetization of the subsequently deposited iron diminishes. The axes of the molecules are probably deflected from the line of magnetizing force when they are being laid down side by side with the molecules already deposited, so that an approximation to parallelism can be obtained only in the case of a very thin filament of iron.

If, as Weber supposes, the molecules of iron are already magnets, any magnetic force sufficient to render their axes parallel as they are electrolytically deposited will be sufficient to produce the highest intensity of magnetization in the deposited filament.

If, on the other hand, the molecules of iron are not magnets, but are only capable of magnetization, the magnetization of the deposited filament will depend on the magnetizing force in the same way in which that of soft iron in general depends on it. The experiments of Beetz leave no room for the latter hypothesis.

443.] We shall now assume, with Weber, that in every unit of volume of the iron there are n magnetic molecules, and that the magnetic moment of each is m. If the axes of all the molecules were placed parallel to one another, the magnetic moment of the unit of volume would be