A new departure in science : being a second edition of a new chapter in the story of nature.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new departure in science : being a second edition of a new chapter in the story of nature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    magnetic force, the practical unit of one ampere being equal to one-tenth of one of these dyne-units. And this being the case, it is (after what has been said about the action of the sun and moon in terrestrial mag- netism) not unfair to conclude that underlying the solar and lunar rays are electrical currents which are frittered down into heat when a certain degree of resistance is opposed to their passage, but not otherwise, the case being not really dissimilar to that which is exemplified in the familiar experiment in which, on passing an electrical current along a chain composed of links of silver and platinum wire placed alternately, the platinum becomes incandescent, and the silver remains cool, or nearly so, simply because the resistance opposed to the passage of the current is high in the former metal and low in the latter. And without doing violence to common sense it is also possible to imagine that this view may be applied to the explanation of subterranean heat. Indeed to allow of this being done all that is necessary is to suppose that the earth is traversed by powerful electric currents from the sun and moon, and that these currents are frittered down into heat in the way which is exemplified in certain experiments which, with the permission of General Webber, the manager, and with the help of Mr. Mordey, one of the officers, were carried out at the works of the Anglo-American Electric Light Corporation in Lambeth with the powerful currents used for purposes of electric lighting on a large scale. Wishing to see how heat is developed in the track of the current across a very bad conductor of which the