Page:Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Volume 1.djvu/468

Rh ON THE CONDITIONS OF MATTEIL 455

magnetic cturature, as shown in the first part of this paper. It mnst necessarily require an extensive series of experiments to establish the relaticms between the arrangements of bodies nnder magnetic influence and the disposition of particles of matter along or across the lines of electrical currents, lie fact of electricity producing motion in the line of force, is established, and its power of setting up and carrying on chemical changes is well known. Not so the power of magnetism, which has been hitherto considered as a force in equilibrium, and, although in the magneto-electric machine the fixed force appears to pass into current power, and from it we get diemical action, yet we have to determine to what extent, if any, true magnetic influence is capable of disturbing chemical equilibrium. I have been enabled to show that one pole in these latitudes has, for certain bodies, an influ* ence superior to the other, which is, no doubt, to be referred to the power of magnetism to suspend chemical action, in the same manner as we have seen it affecting crystallization.

55. The sources of electricity are numerous; it is manifested in erery change of condition which bodies undergo ; such, indeed, is the state of our knowledge on this subject, that we must, it appears to me, regard electricity as a peculiar property of matter, from which it is developed by any action producing the slightest disturbance in its mechanical or chemical arrangement, or in its calorific condition. The relations between frictional, chemical, thermic, and animal electricities, and their connexion with magnetism, have been shown by a series of experiments by Dr. Faraday, which, as examples of inductive investiga- tion, stand unrivalled in the history of science. We learn from these every chemical change gives rise to an electrical current ; and tins cur- rent has been shown to be capable of inducing magnetism, whilst the converse has also been proved. Magnetism, we now know, is capable of inducing electric currents, under the influence of rotation. When we consider the magnetic ccmdition of the earth, we are naturally led to refer the molecular arrangements of the mass to its polar forces, and the diemical changes continually going on in the crust of the planet appear connected ^n some remarkable manner with the phenomena of magnetism.
 * Researches in Electridty,' and from the labours of M. Becquerel, that

56. Repeating the experiments, instituted in the first place by Mr. Robert Were Fox,* on die electricity of mineral veins, in the mines of East Huel Crofty, East Pool, and Dolcoath, I have invariably obtained some deflection of the galvanometer, often very powerfully, whenever it was made part of a drcuit connecting two lodes, or two parts of the


 * PhikMophical TranMcUoxu of the Royal Society, 18^, Part Ih, p. 399.

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