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721.] In the ordinary galvanometer a suspended magnet is acted on by a fixed coil. But if the coil can be suspended with sufficient delicacy, we may determine the action of the magnet, or of another coil on the suspended coil, by its deflexion from the position of equilibrium.

We cannot, however, introduce the electric current into the coil unless there is metallic connexion between the electrodes of the battery and those of the wire of the coil. This connexion may be made in two different ways, by the Bifilar Suspension, and by wires in opposite directions.

The bifilar suspension has already been described in Art. 459 as applied to magnets. The arrangement of the upper part of the suspension is shewn in Fig. 55. When applied to coils, the two fibres are no longer of silk but of metal, and since the torsion of a metal wire capable of supporting the coil and transmitting the current is much greater than that of a silk fibre, it must be taken specially into account. This suspension has been brought to great perfection in the instruments constructed by M. Weber.

The other method of suspension is by means of a single wire which is connected to one extremity of the coil. The other extremity of the coil is connected to another wire which is made to hang down, in the same vertical straight line with the first wire, into a cup of mercury, as is shewn in Fig. 57, Art. 729. In certain cases it is convenient to fasten the extremities of the two wires to pieces by which they may be tightly stretched, care being taken that the line of these wires passes through the centre of gravity of the coil. The apparatus in this form may be used when the axis is not vertical; see Fig. 53.

722.] The suspended coil may be used as an exceedingly sensitive galvanometer, for, by increasing the intensity of the magnetic force in the field in which it hangs, the force due to a feeble current in the coil may be greatly increased without adding to the mass of the coil. The magnetic force for this purpose may be produced by means of permanent magnets, or by electromagnets