59. The only difference which powerfully strikes the attention as existing between volta-electric and magneto-electric induction, is the suddenness of the former, and the sensible time required by the latter: but even in this early state of investigation there are circumstances which seem to indicate, that upon further inquiry this difference will, as a philosophical distinction, disappear (68). FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 29: This excerpt and the one following are from the _Transactions of the Royal Society of London_.] XXVII JOSEPH HENRY 1797-1878 _Born at Albany, New York, December 17, 1797, Joseph Henry prepared for the profession of medicine, but an appointment as an assistant engineer on the state road diverted his interests toward mechanics. In 1826 he was appointed instructor of physics at Albany Institute, now the Albany Boys Academy, where he conducted his first experiments in electricity. In 1828 he first produced a strong electro-magnet by winding fine insulated wire around a piece of soft iron, and soon succeeded in exciting his electro-magnet at a distance by the use of high intensity batteries made up of many cells. Demonstrating that the number of coils of fine wire about a magnet had as much influence as the intensity of the current and that after winding many coils around the soft iron magnet it could still be made magnetic, he suggested the principle which Morse later used in the telegraph. In 1832 he discovered that in a long conductor the primary current, by an induction upon itself, produced a number of secondary currents that greatly increased the intensity of the discharge._ _He was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Princeton University in 1832 and became secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He died in Washington, May 13, 1878._ ON THE PRODUCTION OF CURRENTS AND SPARKS OF ELECTRICITY FROM MAGNETISM[30] Although the discoveries of Oersted, Arago, Faraday, and others, have placed the intimate connection of electricity and magnetism in a most striking point of view, and although the theory of Ampère has referred all the phenomena of both these departments of science to the same general laws, yet until lately one thing remained to be proved by experiment, in order more fully to establish their identity; namely, the possibility of producing electrical effects from magnetism. It is well known that surprising magnetic results can readily be obtained from electricity, and at first sight it might be supposed that electrical effects could with equal facility be produced from magnetism; but such has not been found to be the case, for although the experiment has often been attempted, it has nearly as often failed.