Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 2.djvu/213

 Rh when the principal aperture is closed, it will be projected with a velocity much greater than that due to the head of water, and if it can escape through a valve into a chamber, it will do so, even when the pressure in the chamber is greater than that due to the head of water.

It is on this principle that the hydraulic ram is constructed, by which a small quantity of water may be raised to a great height by means of a large quantity flowing down from a much lower level.

548.] These effects of the inertia of the fluid in the tube depend solely on the quantity of fluid running through the tube, on its length, and on its section in different parts of its length. They do not depend on anything outside the tube, nor on the form into which the tube may be bent, provided its length remains the same.

In the case of the wire conveying a current this is not the case, for if a long wire is doubled on itself the effect is very small, if the two parts are separated from each other it is greater, if it is coiled up into a helix it is still greater, and greatest of all if, when so coiled, a piece of soft iron is placed inside the coil.

Again, if a second wire is coiled up with the first, but insulated from it, then, if the second wire does not form a closed circuit, the phenomena are as before, but if the second wire forms a closed circuit, an induction current is formed in the second wire, and the effects of self-induction in the first wire are retarded.

549.] These results shew clearly that, if the phenomena are due to momentum, the momentum is certainly not that of the electricity in the wire, because the same wire, conveying the same current, exhibits effects which differ according to its form; and even when its form remains the same, the presence of other bodies, such as a piece of iron or a closed metallic circuit, affects the result.

550.] It is difficult, however, for the mind which has once recognised the analogy between the phenomena of self-induction and those of the motion of material bodies, to abandon altogether the help of this analogy, or to admit that it is entirely superficial and misleading. The fundamental dynamical idea of matter, as capable by its motion of becoming the recipient of momentum and of energy, is so interwoven with our forms of thought that, when ever we catch a glimpse of it in any part of nature, we feel that a path is before us leading, sooner or later, to the complete understanding of the subject.