All this splendid work had occupied but a brief ten days. Then he rearranged the facts which he had thus harvested, and wrote them out in corrected form as the first series of his “Experimental Researches in Electricity.” The memoir was read to the Royal Society on November 24, 1831, though it did not appear in printed form until January, 1832—a delay which gave rise to serious misunderstandings. The paper having been read, he went away to Brighton to take a holiday, and in the exuberance of his heart penned the following letter[23] to Phillips:—
[M. Faraday to R. Phillips.]
Brighton: November 29, 1831.
Dear Phillips,—For once in my life I am able to sit down and write to you without feeling that my time is so little that my letter must of necessity be a short one and accordingly I have taken an extra large sheet of paper intending to fill it with news and yet as to news I have none for I withdraw more and more from Society, and all I have to say is about myself.
But how are you getting on? are you comfortable? and how does Mrs. Phillips do; and the girls? Bad correspondant as I am, I think you owe me a letter and as in the course of half an hour you will be doubly in my debt pray write us, and let us know all about you. Mrs. Faraday wishes me not to forget to put her kind remembrances to you and Mrs. Phillips in my letter.
To-morrow is St. Andrew’s day,[24] but we shall be here until Thursday. I have made arrangements to be out of the Council and care little for the rest although I should as a matter of curiosity have liked to see the Duke in the chair on such an occasion.
We are here to refresh. I have been working and writing a paper and that always knocks me up in health, but now I feel well again and able to pursue my subject and now I will tell you what it is about. The title will be, I think, Experimental Researches in Electricity: §I. On the induction of electric currents. § II. On the evolution of Electricity from magnetism. § III. On a New electrical condition of matter. § IV. On Arago’s magnetic phenomena. There is a bill of fare for you; and what is more I hope it will not disappoint you. Now the pith of all this I must give you very briefly; the demonstrations you shall have in the paper when printed—
THE PITH OF THE DISCOVERY.
§ I. When an electric current is passed through one of two parallel wires it causes at first a current in the same direction[25] through the other, but this induced current does not last a moment, notwithstanding the inducing current (from the Voltaic battery) is continued all seems unchanged except that the principal current continues its course, but when the current is stopped then a return current occurs in the wire under induction of about the same intensity and momentary duration but in the opposite direction to that first found. Electricity in currents therefore exerts an inductive action like ordinary electricity but subject to peculiar laws: the effects are a current in the same direction when the induction is established: a reverse current when the induction ceases and a peculiar state in the interim. Common electricity probably does the same thing but as it is at present impossible to separate the beginning and the end of a spark or discharge from each other, all the effects are simultaneous and neutralise each other—
§ II. Then I found that magnets would induce just like voltaic currents and by bringing helices and wires and jackets up to the poles of magnets, electrical currents were produced in them these currents being able to deflect the galvanometer, or to make, by means of the helix, magnetic needles, or in one case even to give a spark. Hence the evolution of electricity from magnetism. The currents were not permanent, they ceased the moment the wires ceased to approach the magnet because the new and apparently quiescent state was assumed just as in the case of the induction of currents. But when the magnet was removed, and its induction therefore ceased, the return currents appeared as before. These two kinds of induction I have distinguished by the terms Volta-electric and Magneto-electric induction. Their identity of action and results is, I think, a very powerful proof of the truth of M. Ampère’s theory of magnetism.