o which I unwittingly fell. I am proud to correct it
and do full justice to the acuteness and accuracy which, as far as I can
understand the subjects, M. Ampere carries into all the branches of
philosophy which he investigates.

Finally, my note to (79.) says that the Lycee, No. 36. "mistakes the
erroneous results of MM. Fresnel and Ampere for true ones," &c. &c. In
calling M. Ampere's results erroneous, I spoke of the results described in,
and referred to by the Lycee itself; but _now_ that the expression of the
direction of the induced current is to be separated, the term _erroneous_
ought no longer to be attached to them.

April 29, 1833.
M.F.]

FOURTH SERIES.

S 9. _On a new Law of Electric Conduction._ S 10. _On Conducting Power
generally._

Received April 24,--Read May 23, 1833.

S 9. _On a new Law of Electric Conduction._[A]

[A] In reference to this law see further considerations at 910. 1358.
1705.--_Dec. 1838._

380. It was during the progress of investigations relating to
electro-chemical decomposition, which I still have to submit to the Royal
Society, that I encountered effects due to a very _general law_ of electric
conduction not hitherto recognised; and though they prevented me from
obtaining the condition I sought for, they afforded abundant compensation
for the momentary disappointment, by the new and important interest which
they gave to an extensive part of electrical science.

381. I was working with ice, and the solids resulting from the freezing of
solutions, arranged either as barriers across a substance to be decomposed,
or as the actual poles of a voltaic battery, that I might trace and catch
certain elements in their transit, when I was suddenly stopped in my
progress by finding that ice was in such circumstances a non-conductor of
electricity; and that as soon as a thin film of it was interposed, in the
circuit of a very powerful voltaic battery, the transmission of electricity
was prevented, and all decomposition ceased.

382. At first the experiments were made with common ice, during the cold
freezing weather of the latter end of January 1833; but the results were
fallacious, from the imperfection of the arrangements, and the following
more unexceptionable form of experiment was adopted.

383. Tin vessels were formed, five inches deep, one inch and a quarter wide
in one direction, of different widths from three eighths to five eighths of
an inch in the other, a