[1] See subsequent investigation on Media; also Plate IV. and description.

[2] These disks cost at the foundry about 37½ cents a piece. One may be used as a pattern by which to cast others.

[3] There is also this difference, that in Fig. 2 the board is supported by only three wheels, so as to have one in front under the hands of the medium, by which sufficient pressure is secured to make its rotation certain. But as the position thus given does not fall into the plane of the pulley at the back of the disk, the wheel in question is supported upon an axle which is secured in staples or holes, and carries a pulley just at the position where it is coincident with the plane aforesaid. The wheel is visible in front.

[4] Vis inertiÆ, or force of inertness, is the force by which a body, when at rest, resists being put into motion, or, when in motion, resists arrestation. The force, in this latter case, is called momentum, being directly as the weight multiplied by the velocity. Thus, two pounds, moving at the rate of one foot per second, exercise exactly the same momentum as one pound moving at the rate of two feet per second.

The force of a spring, or of explosive compounds, cannot be called momentum; neither velocity nor weight enter into its constitution; though, when transferred to a projectile, it produces momentum proportional to the force with which it acts, the weight moved, and velocity imparted.

Muscular force does not come within the definition of momentum, although it produces this property in a hammer, proportionably to its weight and the resulting velocity. Nor is the force of gravity momentum, though momentum be generated by it in falling bodies.

[5] It is suggested that these words may be misapprehended. I use them in the sense given by Johnson: “Sight of any thing, commonly mental view.”

I understand that evidence to be intuitive which is obtained by the simultaneous action of the mind and the sight, and, of course, of any other of the senses. Intuitive is derived from the Latin word intuo, to look upon. “Intuere coelum,” according to Cicero, means to look at the sky.

[6] I have since been assured by my spirit friends, that there was no deception on the part of the medium here alluded to. It has since been alleged by them that it was my own father who made the raps on the small table above mentioned, when I sat at it between the two media. It was my spirit friend, William Blodget, who rapped when the flute, tubes, and rod were held against the door, or when the rapping appeared to be made against the partition between the parlours.

[7] Excepting the difference of the table represented in length, the apparatus here described does not differ from that represented in Plate 2, which is accompanied by a description.

[8] It may be expedient to state that the disk was counterpoised by a weight at the smaller end of the board. This weight was suspended from a hook at one end of a rod, which was so fastened by staples, as to have the distance of the hook from the fulcrum adjusted so as to make the weight counterpoise the disk exactly.

This experiment may be understood by looking at Plate 3. The board employed is there represented, associated with a wire-gauze cage and spring balance. Let all these be removed in the mind’s eye. Suppose the large disk represented in the Plate I to be affixed with its axle to the board, near where the hook is represented as attached to the balance. Suppose a counter-weight at the other end of the board to balance the disk, so as to keep the board level when left to itself. Now, the cord and weights being applied, as in the experiment with table, (154,) on the medium placing her hands on the small end, the results above described ensued.

[9] Though gifted with vision, they are, nevertheless, blind.

[10] My father was a member of the convention by which the original constitution of the State of Pennsylvania was made. Subsequently, he served in the legislature, and held the office of Speaker of the Senate. His name must be associated with many of the laws of his time. During leisure he used to amuse himself with the Latin poets and historians, as well as with those of Great Britain and of France. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania have lately published a journal which he wrote of a tour, made in 1775, through New York to Canada and Niagara Falls.

[11] Is understood in the spheres as synonymous with gradual.

[12] I had remarked to the company during the evening that I felt a spirit touching my forehead. I had often before that time felt a gentle touch upon my forehead or brow, as if touched by a feather, but I did not know its cause, and this was the first intimation.

[13] Apotheosis from apo, among, and theos, god, having been used to signify translation to a place among gods, might not apo-angelosis be used to signify translation to a place among angels, from apo, among, and angelos, an angel?

[14]

“Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.”

This being manifestly true, it follows that whatever applause may be bestowed upon an author by his spiritual advisers, as he may consider them, will be so inverted in the mind’s eye of an unbeliever as to have all the efficacy of satire. Under these circumstances I should be terribly satirized were I here to give the whole of a communication made by this benevolent philanthropic spirit, of which the following is a part. Were I to give his sentiments in full, it would be rather from the motive of showing how vivacious is the interest taken in the progress of Spiritualism by certain worthies of the spirit world, and to give another exemplification of the ardour of the spirit mind after emerging from its mundane tenement. But the main motive for publishing so much of the communication in question as subjoined, is the confirmation thus afforded of the account previously given by my angel sister, of the attendance of high spirits upon my lectures at Boston.

This account was also confirmed by independent communications from two other sources. Opecancanough, the Indian chief, was present, as he gave me to understand, and without knowing the names, described some of the parties who were present.

Part of a Letter from Mrs. Gourlay to the Author.

Philadelphia, November 14, 1854.

“My Dear Sir: Having finished reading your letter, I felt a very powerful influence indicating the presence of spirits. Accordingly, seating myself at the instrument, [Plate I. Fig. 2,] the following communication was rapidly given:

“‘My dear sister, say to our beloved friend and brother that I was present at his lectures in Boston, and was much pleased to hear him speak so nobly and fearlessly in the holy cause of Spiritualism. * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“‘There was a great assemblage of elevated spirits convened at our friend’s lectures in Boston. Among those whom I particularly recognised were B. Franklin, W. E. Channing, J. Q. Adams, H. Kirk White, Byron, Burns, Moore, Dr. Physick, Dr. Rush, Dr. Chalmers, and a host of others. His chief supporters were his father and mother, his loving sister Martha and brother Charles, and his friend Blodgett, Walter Gourlay, and myself.

W. W.’

“My dear friend: The above is the communication which I received, verbatim, and which you will please accept for what it is worth. I believe it came from the source whence it purports to have emanated. I questioned W. W. regarding the nature of the marks of approbation. His reply was, ‘We rapped several times.’

[15] First spiritual sphere.

[16] This spirit, I have ascertained, was the late Mr. McIlhenny, treasurer to the AthenÆum, who died in August, 1854. I took the more interest in this as he was my classmate, and was present at some of the investigations which led to my conversion. I took leave of him one evening in July, 1854, after a walk in Walnut street. He then appeared to be nearly a convert to Spiritualism, though he did not deem it prudent to acknowledge his opinions publicly. His remarks coincided with those ascribed to him by the truly angelic Maria. Within the last month Maria brought him to communicate with me.

[17] To meet the curiosity of the reader, it may be well to say that communications by the pen are either impressional—that is, resulting from the volition of the writer, aided in the matter by the influence of a spirit—or they are automatic; that is, produced by the mechanical action of the spirits on the hand of the medium, entirely independent of the medium’s volition.

[18] I would state, on the authority of this lady and her relatives, many of whom were opposed to Spiritualism, that this was the first time that she had ever produced a poetical effusion; though it has not been an uncommon circumstance for her, since then, when under spiritual influence, to write page after page of extremely beautiful and excellent composition, both in prose and verse, far surpassing in elegance of language her natural powers of thought and fancy.

[19] This article should have been inserted earlier, but was mislaid.

[20] The fact that my father, my brother, my nephew, and my friend General Cadwalader, are each residing with their mundane wives, proves that in this world a hymeneal torch may be lighted, which may not be extinguished by death.

[21] I quote here the language of Samuel, the wicked pope of Judea, to Saul, respecting the destruction of the tribe of Amalek: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.”

One would think here was butchery enough to satisfy a devil, but it does not satisfy the God of the Bible. Saul is deposed for giving quarter to Agag, and not carrying his revenge so far as to destroy the flocks and herds as well as the captive king, of whom the blood-thirsty, blasphemous pontiff becomes himself the cold-blooded executioner, hewing Agag to death before the Lord. Dr. Berg alleges that men are assimilated to the god whom they worship. What ought then to be the effect of worshipping the God thus described in the Bible?

How does this comport with the extravagant precepts of Christ, agreeably to which we are to return good for evil?

There cannot in the history of any pagan country be found an instance more glaring, of the unjustifiable perpetuation of revenge, than this putting a whole people to the sword for a wrong done by their ancestors some hundred years before.

If examples draw us, while precepts do no more than lead, according to the proverb, what influence are such examples of the morality of the Bible likely to produce in those who are taught to view it as the word of God?

From the pernicious influence of such religious errors may the noble spirits of our progenitors relieve us and our offspring!

[22] Shakspeare’s king, in the tragedy of Hamlet, is made to express this correct sentiment in the midst of his villainy: “Pray I cannot, be my inclination sharp as ‘twill.” Why? because he still retained the objects for which he sinned. But though David had exposed Uriah to be killed to obtain his wife, he retained her in despite of his professed penitence.

Yet of this man Jehovah is represented as saying, “I took thee from the sheepcote, from following sheep, that thou shouldst be ruler over my people Israel, and I have been with thee wheresoever thou hast walked, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name of the great men that are in earth.”

Thus God is represented as the constant companion, and, of course, accomplice of his butchering, robbery, and treachery: just the part which would belong to Satan, were such an evil being to exist. He is called to account for the murder of Uriah, but the pagans whom he robbed and massacred were only vermin in the estimation of the Jewish Jehovah.

[23] In Great Britain, nearly forty millions of dollars per annum.

[24] Perhaps, however, the high-church Episcopalians occupy middle ground.

[25] God is made out to be a strange bungler. Though omnipotent, he does not make his creatures as he wishes them to be; and although omniscient, has to subject them to trial to discover what they are. He does not inform them of that which he wishes them to believe, but punishes them and their children to the third and fourth generation for his own omission. For no other reason than his having afforded to a particular nation more knowledge of his will than he had afforded to others, he gives them a right to extirpate their neighbours and take possession of their lands.

[26] “I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.”

[27] “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.“

[28] The fact that so many of the Israelites, assisted and of course countenanced by Aaron, the brother of Moses, afterward made high-priest, were thus induced to worship an idol, shows that they were pious but ignorant. It has elsewhere been urged that any one that worships, means to worship right as much as a person who pays a debt means to pay the right creditor. It argues against the sufficiency of the facts and reasoning by which Moses supported his pretensions to inspiration, that he had to resort to his sword in order to prevent his people from worshipping idols. That they were sincere, must be evident from their relinquishing their golden trinkets for the purpose of furnishing materials for the calf.

[29] It must be admitted that Moses does not seem to have cared whether his soul perished or not, provided he could get enough territory on this side of the grave, by pleading God’s sanction, and the skilful use of the sword. He seems to have valued the favour of Jehovah only for worldly objects. Had it been otherwise, in lieu of so much stress being laid upon the “promised land,” it had been more wisely rested on the hope of heaven. Had Moses obtained a knowledge of the spirit world, the Sadducees had not been materialists, nor the Pharisees worldly-minded, corrupt hypocrites, as alleged by Christ.

[30] “Two or three years since Professor Bronn described twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-eight species; and, upon an average, one thousand species are discovered every year. M. Alcide D’Orbigny, in 1850, stated the number of mollusks and radiated animals alone at seventeen thousand nine hundred and forty-seven species.”

[31] [The use of the word “demons” in the text would seem to make it very uncertain that the Catholic school entertains the doctrine of an individual, personal devil. When used in the plural, as it often is, it cannot mean the devil, yet both singular and plural, the word “demon” seems to convey the same idea. Scripture commentators make the word demon to signify a spirit, whether good or bad. But our author does not seem to have yet become very thoroughly grounded in the doctrine of the communion of angels with man; which will certainly be found to be the only tangible doctrine.—Translator.]

[32] [Having reached this stage of our author’s remarks, his translator begs leave to submit them to a transient review. It is evident that his investigations in the physical demonstrations, relating to spiritual philosophy, fall very short of the intelligence of the present time. He seems to be a total stranger to that flood of truth and love that has for years been pouring its blessings on the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of delighted and grateful recipients in the Western hemisphere, and by the very means that appear to have been fully in his power of reaching that heavenly boon, but which were all exhausted to convince the world that the devil has nothing to do with it.

This is certainly a point gained on Catholic ground, and had our friend supplied some argument equally conclusive for theologians of the opposing school, he would probably save them the sin of making out of the devil, by imputation, a veritable saint.

The question will naturally arise with his readers, If the power and intelligence do not emanate from the devil, from whom or what do they emanate? But on this subject, from some reason that can only be guessed at, our author, the abbot, is so far silent. The confirmed theory of spirit intercourse, when the vehicle is mechanical or automatic, makes the character and intelligence of the communication depend on the communicating spirit, subject to apparent irregularities. But our author, in his hurry perhaps to prove his favourite postulate of excluding the devil, makes them depend on the one, as he says, who “consults the table.” If he speaks Greek, then the table talks Greek, and ditto for all other languages, &c. But certainly the marquis would corner him here. He says, also, that the motive power is intercepted by a non-conductor, as silk round the hands. Although this may be true to some extent with feeble mediums, still the fact that tables often move without contact with any one, must nullify the abbot’s theory, whatever it may be.]

[33] [This is probably correct, when the medium writes impressionally; but exactly the reverse is true when the writing is automatic, or mechanically controlled by the spirit.—Translator.]

[34] Our author seems to confound his dramatis personÆ: he first says it is the language of the communicant, and afterward the language of the medium which the spirit understands. But the simple theory is, according to the experience of the Western hemisphere, that what is communicated depends on the intelligence of the communicating agent, which is the spirit. That spirits, it is true, possess the clairvoyant faculty, and can read our thoughts, but those thoughts must be clothed in a language they understand.—Translator.

[35] This communication, as well as those immediately preceding and following it, would have been inserted under the head of Corroborative Evidence, page 55, &c., had they been received in time.

[36] [According to my spirit friends, this earth forms one of them, the first; so that there are six spirit spheres.]

[37] Andrew Jackson Davis.

[38] Wood-cuts of the characters alluded to in this and the succeeding paragraphs, may be seen in Mr. Capron’s book.

[39] “Mr. Sunderland, in his ‘Book of Human Nature,’ p. 280, says this was the first of the spirit writing, but Mr. Capron alleges that he was acquainted with cases of this kind long before the disturbances at Stratford.”

[40] Latterly, Sir David Brewster has conceived that only three elementary species of light are requisite, according to the theory of emission, to perform all the offices which Newton ascribed to seven.

[41] It should be understood, that when two magnetic needles are associated by the contact of dissimilar poles, the extreme poles do not lose their magnetism, although it will be more feeble than when the needles are independently situated.

[42] Explanation of the Galvanic Pile, Battery, or Series.—When pieces of zinc and silver are so placed in the mouth as to have their surfaces separated by the tongue, their extremities extending beyond it externally, on allowing the latter to touch each other, a metallic taste is perceived by the person whose tongue is subjected to the process thus described. It has been ascertained that at the same time a minute portion of the zinc is oxydized at the expense of the water which exists in the saliva.

Suppose a pile of plates of zinc and silver, or copper, alternating, to be separated into couples by the interposition of moistened cloth; each plate will on one side touch its partner, on the other side the moistened cloth. Every couple of zinc and copper separated by the cloth are situated as the pair above described, when separated by the tongue, and are equally capable of giving a discharge which would be sensible to the taste, under those circumstances. The plates which are in metallic contact have no such disposition to discharge, because there is no moisture to act upon them, and no diversity of electrical state can be excited on account of their great conducting power, which would neutralize any such excitement as soon as it could be created. The surfaces separated by the cloth cannot discharge to each other, because there is no conductor extending from one to the other. But as the whole pile is a conductor of electricity, to discharge every pair entering into its constituency it is only necessary to touch each end simultaneously with a good conductor—a wire, for instance. The whole series will then be discharged at once, and the energy of the discharge is proportional to the number to be thus discharged. There is an uncertainty and obscurity as to the precise rationale of the effect thus obtained. There is as much difference about this as there is about the nature of matter. It will not be expedient, therefore, in presenting a popular view, to enter upon that intricate question, and will be enough to state the laws and facts which are admitted generally by men of science. It is universally admitted that, if each of the terminal plates, in such a pile or series, have a platina wire soldered or otherwise well connected with it, the other ends of the wires extending into some water, this liquid will be decomposed, and a similar decomposition may, directly or indirectly, be effected of various substances held in solution by water, as well as substances liquified by heat. Moreover, when the same wire is made to form the means of discharge by extending from one terminal plate to the other, it acquires the property of attracting iron filings, and, so long as the discharge through it is sustained, will cause the compass needle to arrange itself always at right angles to the wire. Under these circumstances, according to the Franklinian theory, a current of electricity passes from the positive to the negative pole; according to the theory of Dufay, a fluid proceeding from each pole, they combine in the wire. According to the view above given, two opposite waves of polarization pass, by which the metallic atoms or particles are shifted from their natural position, so as to act externally, as already stated.

It is not, I believe, known to whom the world is indebted for the fundamental observation in galvanism, made, as has been mentioned, by the assistance of the tongue and plates of silver and zinc. Subsequently, Galvani, probably without any reference to this phenomenon, ascertained some other consequences of the reaction of the elementary pair; but to Volta we owe the pile or series above described. In whatever form voltaic series may have been subsequently constructed, the main principles are the same, the reaction of chemical agents so arranged in succession as to be productive of that intensity of discharge, and powers of decomposition, to which allusion has been made.

These have latterly been called electrolytic; and decomposition, by the voltaic series, has been called electrolysis, by Farraday—a beautiful, well-conceived, and expressive word. (See Essay on Electrical Theory, in the Appendix.)

[43] It were absurd to draw any conclusion from this, that incomprehensibility is a reason for believing the miracles ascribed to Mohammed or any other religious impostor. That we cannot understand how a result is accomplished is no reason for disbelieving it in opposition to the evidence of our senses; but, at the same time, it forms no reason for believing, of itself, but is rather a clog upon belief, when intuitively awakened.

[44] In this last sense it is used as synonymous with essence. By chemists, latterly, spirit of turpentine is called oil of turpentine. All the volatile oils obtained by delicate distillation, usually with water, like oil of turpentine, are called essential oils or essences.

As respects the employment of language to express ideas when a new view is originated, there is a choice of evils; we are placed between Scylla and Charybdis. There is no alternative but to use an old word in a sense more or less new, or to coin a new one. In either case there is a manifest disadvantage; and the question arises, shall we teach a new meaning for an old word, or present to those to whom we would convey our ideas a new idea with a new word to designate it? The word matter, it will be found, has, in Webster’s dictionary, ten meanings assigned to it. Though in some of its acceptations it may be considered as applicable to every thing that exists, so as to qualify space so far as to distinguish it from nihility. Nevertheless, it has been used as distinguishing those substances which are neither spiritual nor mental. The antagonism of spirit and matter in the words, “There is a spiritual body and a material body,” is not warranted in chemistry, since the distillate or spirit evolved by distillation is a material body, however it may be more volatile or of less density than the caput mortuum left in the alembic or retort.

[45] It is a remarkable fact that, although in later times the Jews have been so frequently named after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not appear to have been customary during the time which intervened between the supposed era of Moses and that of the finding of the Pentateuch in the temple.

This serves to show that the Pentateuch is a fabrication of the priesthood and King Josiah.

[46] The following trash is thus made to be specified by the God of the universe:—gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, goats’ hair, red rams’-skins, badger skins, shittim-wood, oil for light, oil for anointing, spices, sweet incense, onyx-stones, shew-bread, candlesticks with six branches, almond-shaped bowls with a knop and a flower, knop and branches of beaten gold, seven lamps, large dishes, curtains of fine linen, spoons, cherubims of gold. Eight columns, nearly one hundred verses, are taken up with this mummery, expressly directed by Jehovah himself.

Now, let the use Moses made of his opportunities be compared with that which I have made of those afforded me by the spirits, and then judge between Spiritualism and self-called orthodoxy.

[47] “Nec ab ipso scriptum constat, nec ab ejus apostolis sed longo post tempore a quibusdam incerti nominis viris, qui ne sibi non haberetur fides scribentibus quÆ nescirent, partim apostolorum, partim eorum que apostolos secuti viderentur nomina scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, asseverantes SECUNDUM cos, se scripsisse quÆ scripserunt.—Quoted by Lardner, vol. 2, p. 221.

[48] “By all persons, understanding strictly all parsons, for the common people were nobody, and never at any time had any voice, judgment, or option in the business of religion, but always believed that which their godfathers and godmothers did promise and vow that they should believe. God or devil, and any Scriptures their masters pleased, were always all one to them.

[49] “‘Almost from the apostolic age!’ Why, the text itself, if it prove any thing, proves that such forged writings were in existence absolutely IN the apostolic age, and among the apostles themselves.

[50] “Omnia quÆ Christianismo conducere putabant bibliis suis interseruerunt.—Tindalio citante.

[51] “Si forte accidisset, ut Johannis Evangelium per octodecim secula priora prosus ignotum jacuisset, et nostris demum temporibus, in modium productum esset omnes haud dubie uno ore confiterentur Jesum a Johanne descriptum longe alium esse ac illium MatthÆi, Marci, et LucÆ, nec utramque descriptionem simul veram esse posse.—Carol. Theoph. Bretschneider Probab, LipsiÆ, 1820.

[52] “Here it is. ‘Messala V. C. consule, Constantinopoli, jubente Anastasia Imperatore, sancta evangelia, tanquam ab idiotis evangelistis composita, reprehenduntur et emendantur.’—Victor Tununensis, Cave’s Historia Literaria, vol. i. p. 415—i. e., ‘The illustrious Messala being Consul, by the command of the Emperor Anastasias, the holy Gospels, as having been written by idiot evangelists, are censured and corrected.’—Victor, Bishop of Tunis in Africa.

[53] “See Beausobre, quoted in the Manifesto of the Christian Society; and this and the preceding extract vindicated, in the author’s Syntagma, against the vituperations of the evangelical Dr. John Pye Smith, in locis.”

[54] Josephus, book iv. chap. ii. page 49.

[55] Ibid. book iv. chap. vi. page 53.

[56] Josephus, book iv. chap. viii. page 55.

[57] See vol. ii. page 42, Huc’s Travels.

[58] According to Farraday’s researches and general experience, we have reason to believe that all particles of matter are endowed with one or the other of two species of polarity. This word polarity conveys the idea that two terminations in each particle are respectively endowed with forces which are analogous, but contrary in their nature; so that of any two homogeneous particles, the similar poles repel each other, while the dissimilar attract; likewise, when freely suspended, they take a certain position relatively to each other, and on due proximity, the opposite polar forces, counteracting each other, appear to be extinct. When deranged from this natural state of reciprocal neutralization, their liberated poles react with the particles of adjacent bodies, or those in the surrounding medium. Under these circumstances, any body which may be constituted of the particles thus reacting is said to be polarized, or in a state of polarization.

Statical implies stationary; undulatory, wave-like.

[59] Communicated to the American Philosophical Society.

[60] The words gyration, vortex, and whirl are considered as synonymous, and used indifferently to avoid monotony.

[61] I consider a wire as galvanized, when it is made the medium of the discharge from a galvanic battery.

[62] In some electro-magnetic apparatus, the polarity of an electro-magnet is reversed more than 100 times in a second.

[63] See Silliman’s Journal, vol. xxxviii. p. 215, 1840.

[64] This seems to have been entirely overlooked in his suggestions respecting the nature of material atoms. It appears to me that the characteristics thus insisted upon are incompatible with the idea that each property is of itself a diffusible matter, and that in such atoms two polarities can exist inseparable from each other.

[65] Pouillet suggests that when the passage of a ray of light through glass, is influenced by a powerful magnet, agreeably to the experiments of Farraday, “consistently with the undulatory theory of light, it is the ether of the body submitted to the experiment, which would be modified by the magnetism, and that it would be very difficult to recognise whether it is modified without any participation of the ponderable matter with which it is so intimately connected.” Thus the existence of matter, composed of ethereal as well as ponderable particles, is sustained by all the evidence which has been brought to uphold the undulatory theory of light.—L. & E. Phil. Mag. &c., for 1846, vol. xxviii., page 335.

[66] The word statical has been used to designate phenomena which are the effects of electricity when at rest, as when accumulated upon conductors or the surfaces of panes or jars. Phenomena which are supposed to arise from electricity in motion (forming a current) are designated as dynamic. Thus, when charging one side of a pane produces the opposite state in the other, the effect upon the latter is ascribed to statical induction; but when a discharge of electricity through one wire, causes a current in another, forming an adjacent circuit, the result is ascribed to dynamic induction. This method of designation is employed whether the alleged current be owing to electricity generated by friction, as in the case of a machine, or generated by chemical reaction, as in the case of a galvanic battery. A good word is wanting to distinguish electricity, when produced by friction, from electricity produced by galvano-chemical reaction: for want of a better, I will resort to that employed by Noad, (frictional,) which has the advantage of being self-explanatory.

[67] As the word ether is used in various senses, the syllables “electro” being prefixed, serve to designate that which is intended.

[68] See my communication on “Free Electricity,” in Silliman’s American Journal of Science, vol. iii., New Series, number for May, 1847.

[69] The sectional area of a conductor is the area of the superficies which would be exposed by cutting it through at right angles to its axis.

[70] According to Colomb’s experiments, electrical attraction and repulsion are inversely as the squares of the distances: ought not the inductive power of statical charges which is produced by those forces, and which precedes and determines the length of the resulting spark, to obey the same law?

If this calculation be correct, the intensity must be as the squares of the striking distances, as indicated by sparks.

It may be urged that the striking distances, as measured by the length of the sparks, is in the compound ratio of the quantity and intensity. As to the quantity, however, galvanic sources have always been treated as pre-eminent in efficacy, so that on that side there could be no disparity. Moreover, I have found, that in galvanic apparatus of only one, or even of two pairs, as in the calorimotors, the intensity lessened as the surfaces were enlarged. By a pair of fifty square feet of zinc surface, a white heat could not be produced in a wire of any size, however small. The calorific power of such apparatus can only be made evident by the production of a comparatively very low temperature, in a comparatively very large mass.

[71] Suppose a number of boys and girls, associated as partners for a dance, to stand up in a row, severally united, and distinguished into couples by those joining hands; the sexes being regularly alternating, so that no two of the same sex should be hand in hand. Under these conditions no effort to take a boy from one end of the row, or a girl from the other end, could be effected with the consent of the couples concerned, both partners in which would thus be deprived of the power of joining in the dance. But should it be understood that only an exchange of partners was all that should be intended, and, consistently, a boy from one end and a girl from the other end of the row, taken simultaneously and allowed to form a couple, forthwith, the rest merely shifting their hands from one neighbour to another, there would no longer be the same motive for resistance and the required exchange might be cheerfully accomplished.

[72] By a void I mean a Torrecellian vacuum. The omnipresence of the electro-ether must render the existence of a perfect void impossible.

[73] It is well known that Wollaston effected the decomposition of water by the aid of a powerful electrical machine. Having enclosed platina wires within glass tubes, these were fused so as to cover the ends. The glass was afterward so far removed, by grinding, as to expose minute metallic points to the liquid. Under these circumstances, the electricity conveyed by the wires, being prevented from proceeding over them superficially, was obliged to make its way through the ethereo-ponderable matter of which metals consist. Instead of proving the identity of galvanism with frictional electricity, this experiment shows that in one characteristic, at least, there is a discordancy. At the same time it may indicate that ethereal may give rise to ethereo-ponderable undulations.

[74] Agreeably to experiments of Farraday, the particles of a glass prism may be as influenced by an electro-magnet as to affect the passage of polarized light.

[75] L. and E. Phil. Mag. and Jour., vol. xlv. p. 383, 1844.

[76] These phenomena excite more interest in consequence of the employment, for medical purposes, of an apparatus originally contrived by Callan, but since ingeniously modified by our countryman, Dr. Page, into a form which has been designated as the electrotome. A coil of coarse copper wire, covered with cotton, like bonnet wire, is wound about a wooden cylinder. Around the coil thus formed, a coil of fine copper wire similarly covered is wound, leaving the extremities accessible. One end of the coarse coil communicating constantly with one pole of a galvanic battery, the other end is left free; so that by scraping with it the teeth of a rasp attached to the other pole, a rapid closing and opening of the circuit may be effected. Under these circumstances, an observer, holding the ends of the fine coil, receives shocks more or less severe, according to the construction of the battery, the energy of the agents employed to excite it, or the total weight and relative dimensions of the coils as to length and sectional area. Agreeably to the received doctrine, the shocks thus produced are owing to secondary currents caused by dynamic induction. Agreeably to the hypothesis which I have advanced, the atoms of the coarse wire, polarized by waves proceeding from the poles of the battery, induce a corresponding polarization of the atoms of the fine wire; the aggregate polarity imparted being as the number of atoms in the former to the number of atoms in the latter: or (to use an equivalent ratio) as the weight of the coarse, to the weight of the fine wire. But as on breaking the circuit through the coarse wire, the ethereo-ponderable atoms in both wires resume their neutral positions, while this requires each circuit to be run through within the same minute interval, the velocities of their respective waves will be inversely as their sectional areas and directly as their lengths: in other words, the velocity in the fine wire will be as much greater as the channel which it affords is narrower and longer. The cylinder included within the coils as above stated being removed, a cylindrical space is vacated. If into the cavity thus made iron rods, like knitting needles, be introduced, one after the other, while the apparatus is in operation, the shocks increase in severity as the number augments; so that from being supportable they may be rendered intolerable. The shock takes place without the presence of iron, but is much increased by its assistance.[77]

These facts appear to me to justify a surmise that the ethereo-ponderable atoms of iron, in becoming magnetized and demagnetized, co-operate with the ethereo-ponderable atoms of the copper coils in the induction of secondary undulations. It is conceived that these may be owing to the intestinal change attended by sound, as above stated, (73;) this being caused by a sudden approximation of the poles of the atoms, previously moved apart by the influence of the galvanized coil. But if this sudden coming together of the previously separated poles of atoms within a magnetized cylinder of iron, can contribute to the energy of secondary waves, it is consistent to infer that these waves owe their origin to an analogous approximation of the separated poles of the cupreous atoms, forming the finer coil, in which the secondary undulations may be created without the presence of iron. Of course, this reasoning will apply to all cases in which the phenomena hitherto attributed to Farradian currents are the result of dynamic induction.

Thus it appears that the polarization of magnets, and that created and sustained when a galvanized coil or helix acts upon another in proximity, have the same relation to galvanic discharges that the charges upon insulated surfaces have to their appropriate discharges. The permanent magnetism of steel seems to have some analogy with the charge upon a coated pane, while we may consider as analogous with the charges upon insulated conductors, already adverted to, (61, 62,) that state of the ethereo-ponderable particles, (38,) of a wire helix, which state, resulting from the influence of an included magnet, or neighbouring galvanized coil, and being discharged on a change of relative position, or breach of the galvanizing circuit, is productive of spark, shock, ignition, or electrolysis, as exemplified by Callan’s coil, Page’s electrotome, or the magneto-electric machine.

[77] Agreeably to the usual construction, the cylinder about which the inner coarse wire coil is wound is originally of iron, so that there is as much of this metal contained as it can hold. Various contrivances are resorted to for the closing and opening of the circuit, which are more ingenious and convenient than scraping a rasp, as above described.

[78] American Journal of Science, vol. x. p. 121, 1826.

[79] It is well known that if a rod of iron be included in a coil of coated copper wire, on making the coil the medium of a voltaic discharge, the wire is magnetized. Agreeably to a communication from Joule, in the L. & E. Phil. Mag. & Jour. for Feb,, 1847, the bar is at the same time lengthened, without any augmentation of bulk, so that its other dimensions must be lessened in proportion to the elongation.

All these facts tend to prove that a change in the relative position of the constituent ethereo-ponderable atoms of iron accompanies its magnetization, either as an immediate cause or as a collateral effect.

[80] To the tune of Moore’s “Canadian Boat Song.”

[81] See paragraph 410.

[82] See paragraph 449.

[83] See paragraph 415.

[84] Tune “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon.”