229.  Hence it is evident that there is no discharge of the current at the centre of the magnet, for the current, now freely evolved, is up through the magnet; but in the first experiment (226.) it was down.  In fact, at that time, it was only the part of the moving metal equal to a little disc extending from the end of the wire B in the mercury to the wire A that was efficient, i.e. moving with a different angular velocity to the rest of the circuit (258.); and for that portion the direction of the current is consistent with the other results.

230.  In the two after experiments, the lateral parts of the magnet or of the copper rod are those which move relative to the other parts of the circuit, i.e. the galvanometer wires; and being more extensive, intersecting more curves, or moving with more velocity, produce the greater effect.  For the discal part, the direction of the induced electric current is the same in all, namely, from the circumference towards the centre.

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231.  The law under which the induced electric current excited in bodies moving relatively to magnets, is made dependent on the intersection of the magnetic curves by the metal (114.) being thus rendered more precise and definite (217. 220. 224.), seem now even to apply to the cause in the first section of the former paper (26.); and by rendering a perfect reason for the effects produced, take away any for supposing that peculiar condition, which I ventured to call the electro-tonic state (60.).

232.  When an electrical current is passed through a wire, that wire is surrounded at every part by magnetic curves, diminishing in intensity according to their distance from the wire, and which in idea may be likened to rings situated in planes perpendicular to the wire or rather to the electric current within it.  These curves, although different in form, are perfectly analogous to those existing between two contrary magnetic poles opposed to each other; and when a second wire, parallel to that which carries the current, is made to approach the latter (18.), it passes through magnetic curves exactly of the same kind as those it would intersect when carried between opposite magnetic poles (109.) in one direction; and as it recedes from the inducing wire, it cuts the curves around it in the same manner that it would do those between the same poles if moved in the other direction.

233.  If the wire NP (fig. 40.) have an electric current passed through it in the direction from P to N, then the dotted ring may represent a magnetic curve round it, and it is in such a direction that if small magnetic needles lie placed as tangents to it, they will become arranged as in the figure, n and s indicating north and south ends (14. note.).