While some of the results obtained with Davy's batteries were practically as satisfactory as could be obtained with modern cell batteries, the batteries themselves were anything but satisfactory. They were expensive, required constant care and attention, and, what was more important from an experimental standpoint at least, were not constant in their action except for a very limited period of time, the current soon "running down." Numerous experimenters, therefore, set about devising a satisfactory battery, and when, in 1836, John Frederick Daniell produced the cell that bears his name, his invention was epoch-making in the history of electrical progress. The Royal Society considered it of sufficient importance to bestow the Copley medal upon the inventor, whose device is the direct parent of all modern galvanic cells. From the time of the advent of the Daniell cell experiments in electricity were rendered comparatively easy. In the mean while, however, another great discovery was made. ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM For many years there had been a growing suspicion, amounting in many instances to belief in the close relationship existing between electricity and magnetism. Before the winter of 1815, however, it was a belief that was surmised but not demonstrated. But in that year it occurred to Jean Christian Oersted, of Denmark, to pass a current of electricity through a wire held parallel with, but not quite touching, a suspended magnetic needle. The needle was instantly deflected and swung out of its position. "The first experiments in connection with the subject which I am undertaking to explain," wrote Oersted, "were made during the course of lectures which I held last winter on electricity and magnetism. From those experiments it appeared that the magnetic needle could be moved from its position by means of a galvanic battery--one with a closed galvanic circuit. Since, however, those experiments were made with an apparatus of small power, I undertook to repeat and increase them with a large galvanic battery. "Let us suppose that the two opposite ends of the galvanic apparatus are joined by a metal wire. This I shall always call the conductor for the sake of brevity. Place a rectilinear piece of this conductor in a horizontal position over an ordinary magnetic needle so that it is parallel to it. The magnetic needle will be set in motion and will deviate towards the west under that part of the conductor which comes from the negative pole of the galvanic battery. If the wire is not more than four-fifths of an inch distant from the middle of this needle, this deviation will be about forty-five degrees. At a greater distance the angle of deviation becomes less. Moreover, the deviation varies according to the strength of the battery. The conductor can be moved towards the east or west, so long as it remains parallel to the needle, without producing any other result than to make the deviation smaller.