but that the two forces are, to a certain
degree, convertible by a process or change of condition at present unknown
to us. How else can a current of a given intensity and quantity be able, by
its direct action, to sustain a state which, when allowed to react, (at the
cessation of the original current,) shall produce a second current, having
an intensity and quantity far greater than the generating one? This cannot
result from a direct reaction of the electric force; and if it result from
a change of electrical into magnetic force, and a reconversion back again,
it will show that they differ in something more than mere direction, as
regards _that agent_ in the conducting wire which constitutes their
immediate cause.

1115. With reference to the appearance, at different times, of the contrary
effects produced by the making and breaking contact, and their separation
by an intermediate and indifferent state, this separation is probably more
apparent than real. If the conduction of electricity be effected by
vibrations (283.), or by any other mode in which opposite forces are
successively and rapidly excited and neutralized, then we might expect a
peculiar and contrary development of force at the commencement and
termination of the periods during which the conducting action should last
(somewhat in analogy with the colours produced at the outside of an
imperfectly developed solar spectrum): and the intermediate actions,
although not sensible in the same way, may be very important and, for
instance, perhaps constitute the very essence of conductibility. It is by
views and reasons such as these, which seem to me connected with the
fundamental laws and facts of electrical science, that I have been induced
to enter, more minutely than I otherwise should have done, into the
experimental examination of the phenomena described in this paper.

1116. Before concluding, I may briefly remark, that on using a voltaic
battery of fifty pairs of plates instead of a single pair (1052.), the
effects were exactly of the same kind. The spark on making contact, for the
reasons before given, was very small (1101. 1107.); that on breaking
contact, very excellent and brilliant. The _continuous_ discharge did not
seem altered in character, whether a short wire or the powerful
electro-magnet were used as a connecting discharger.

1117. The effects produced at the commencement and end of a current, (which
are separated by an interval of time when t