the current is at its utmost; expanding as it were from the wire outwards, and consequently being in the same relation to the fixed wire under induction as if it had moved in the opposite direction across them, or towards the wire carrying the current.  Hence the first current induced in such cases was in the contrary direction to the principal current (17. 235.).  On breaking the battery contact, the magnetic curves (which are mere expressions for arranged magnetic forces) may be conceived as contracting upon and returning towards the failing electrical current, and therefore move in the opposite direction across the wire, and cause an opposite induced current to the first.

239.  When, in experiments with ordinary magnets, the latter, in place of being moved past the wires, were actually made near them (27. 36.), then a similar progressive development of the magnetic curves may be considered as having taken place, producing the effects which would have occurred by motion of the wires in one direction; the destruction of the magnetic power corresponds to the motion of the wire in the opposite direction.

240.  If, instead of intersecting the magnetic curves of a straight wire carrying a current, by approximating or removing a second wire (235.), a revolving plate be used, being placed for that purpose near the wire, and, as it were, amongst the magnetic curves, then it ought to have continuous electric currents induced within it; and if a line joining the wire with the centre of the plate were perpendicular to both, then the induced current ought to be, according to the law (114.), directly across the plate, from one side to the other, and at right angles to the direction of the inducing current.

241.  A single metallic wire one twentieth of an inch in diameter had an electric current passed through it, and a small copper disc one inch and a half in diameter revolved near to and under, but not in actual contact with it (fig. 39).  Collectors were then applied at the opposite edges of the disc, and wires from them connected with the galvanometer.  As the disc revolved in one direction, the needle was deflected on one side:  and when the direction of revolution was reversed, the needle was inclined on the other side, in accordance with the results anticipated.

242.  Thus the reasons which induce me to suppose a particular state in the wire (60.) have disappeared; and though it still seems to me unlikely that a wire at rest in the neighbourhood of another carrying a powerful electric current is entirely indifferent to it, yet I am not aware of any distinct facts which authorize the conclusion that it is in a particular state.

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243.  In considering the nature of the cause assigned in these papers to account for the mutual influence of magnets and moving metals (120.), and comparing it with that heretofore admitted, namely, the induction of a feeble magnetism like that produced in iron, it occurred to me that a most decisive experimental test of the two views could be applied (215.).