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A NEW REFLECTING GALVANOMETER.

Fig. 1 shows an elevation of the instrument and a horizontal section of the bobbins.  Two pairs of bobbins, cc, cc, are so arranged that the axes of each pair are parallel and in the same vertical plane.  Each pair is supported by a vertical brass plate, and the two plates make an angle of about 106 deg. with each other, so that the planes containing the axes of the bobbins make an angle of about 74 deg..  Two horseshoe magnets, m m, made of 1/25 inch steel wire, are connected by a very light piece of aluminum and placed at such a distance from each other that, on being suspended, the two branches of each of the magnets shall freely enter the respective bores of the two bobbins fixed upon the same plate, and, when the whole system is in equilibrium and the bobbins free from current, the two branches of each of the magnets shall nearly coincide with the axes of such bores.  The magnets are not plane, but are curved so as to form portions of a vertical cylinder whose axis coincides with the direction of the suspension wire, and to which the axes of the bobbins are tangent at their center, approximately to the points where the poles of the magnets are situated.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.  GRAY’S GALVANOMETER.]

The needles have been given this form so that their extremities shall not touch the sides of the bore during considerable deflections.

In the instrument which the inventors, Messrs. T. & A. Gray, used in their experiments upon the resistance of glass, the needles were arranged so that their poles of contrary name were opposite.

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.]

The system of needles is suspended from the extremity of a screw, p, which passes into a nut, n, movable between two stationary pieces.  On revolving the nut, we cause the screw to rise or lower, along with the entire suspended part, without twisting the thread.

The four bobbins are grouped for tension, and have a total resistance of 30,220 ohms.  They contain 16,000 feet of No. 50 copper wire, forming 62,939 revolutions, nearly equally divided between the four bobbins.  When a current is passing through the bobbins, the poles of one of the horseshoe magnets are attracted toward the interior of the corresponding bobbins, while those of the other are repelled toward the exterior by the two other bobbins.  We thus have a couple which tends to cause the system to revolve around the suspension axis.  A mirror, which is fixed upon a vertical piece of aluminum, a, gives, in the usual manner, a reflected image upon a scale, thus allowing the deflections to be read.  A compensating magnet, M, is supported by a vertical column fixed to the case, above the needles.  This magnet may be placed in the different azimuths by means of a tangential screw, t.  The extremities of the bobbin wires are connected with three terminals, T, T’, T squared, and the instrument may, by a proper arrangement, became differential.  These terminals, as well as the communicating wires, are insulated with ebonite.