Page:Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Volume 1.djvu/454

Rh AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF MATTER.

441

formed under the influence of the south polar force. The directions of the uncovered spaces which occurred in every experiment were at right

Fig. 6.

angles to each other. It was, however, found that this peculiar and inexplicable arrangement, was determined by a bar of iron near which the apparatus was placed by accident, and on removing it, these spaced were formed always in the same direction or along the axial line of magnetic force, as in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7.

15. We must, I think, conclude from these experiments, either that the tendency of the magnetic influence or force is to repel nil such bodies firom it as are not of themselves magnetic, and that every par- ticle, as it places itself across the line of magnetic power, acquires a similar force, and exerts it upon all contiguous particles ; or that we have arrived at the knowledge of two forces mutually repellent of each other. I cannot avoid entertaining the idea, that these resxdts seem to point to an influence exerted along the magnetic axis, in magnets of the horse^shoe shape, although probably inferior to that " current," which, according to Ampere's theory, circulates around the polesw We have

2 Q

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