directions, and in
different degrees, according to the relative situation of the wire and
needle. By subsequent experiment Oersted proved that the wire became,
during the time the battery was in action, magnetic, and that it
affected a magnetic needle through glass, and every other non-conducting
body, but that it had no action on a needle similarly suspended, that
was not magnetic. To Professor Oersted is also due the important
discovery, that electro-magnetic effects do not depend upon the
intensity of the electricity, but solely on its quantity. By these
discoveries an entirely new branch of science was established, and all
the great advances which have been made in our knowledge of the laws
which regulate the magnetic forces in their action upon matter, are to
be referred to the discovery by Oersted, that by an electric current
magnetism could be induced. He promulgated a theory of light, in which
he referred luminous phenomena to electricity in motion; it has not,
however, been favorably received.

One of the most important observations first made by him, and since then
confirmed by others, was, that a body falling from a height not only
fell a little to the east of the true perpendicular--which is, no doubt,
due to the earth's motion--but that it fell to the _south_ of that line;
the cause of this is at present unexplained. It is, no doubt, connected
with some great phenomena of gravitation which yet remain to be
discovered. At the meeting of the British Association at Southampton,
Professor Oersted communicated to the Chemical Section some curious
examples of the influence of time in determining chemical change, as
shown in the action of mercury upon glass in hermetically sealed
vessels. The character of Professor Oersted's mind was essentially
searching and minute; thus he observed results which escaped detection
in the hands of those who took more general and enlarged views of
natural phenomena. To this was due the discovery of electro-magnetism,
which will for ever connect his name with the history of inductive
science. As Director of the Polytechnic Institution of Copenhagen, of
which he was the founder, and of the Society for the Diffusion of
Natural Sciences, and as Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Academy of
Sciences since 1815, his labors were unceasing and of great benefit to
his country. He was for many years attached to the Military College of
Cadets of Copenhagen, and only resigned when he could be s