“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. [I am under the impression
that the power of the spirit to construe our thoughts, varies with the
spirit and medium, and with the same medium under different conditions
as to health and tranquillity of mind. No invariable rule can, in my
opinion, be said to exist as to the powers of spirits to learn our
thoughts, whether we speak one language or another.—DR. HARE.]]
[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.”