When the pole of an ordinary magnet is brought to act upon the swimming needle, the latter is attracted,--the reason being that the attracted end of the needle being nearer to the pole of the magnet than the repelled end, the force of attraction is the more powerful of the two. In the case of the earth, its pole is so distant that the length of the needle is practically zero. In like manner, when a piece of iron is presented to a magnet, the nearer parts are attracted, while the more distant parts are repelled; and because the attracted portions are nearer to the magnet than the repelled ones, we have a balance in favour of attraction. Here then is the special characteristic of the magnetic force, which distinguishes it from that of gravitation. The latter is a simple unpolar force, while the former is duplex or polar. Were gravitation like magnetism, a stone would no more fall to the ground than a piece of iron towards the north magnetic pole: and thus, however rich in consequences the supposition of Kepler and others may have been, it is clear that a force like that of magnetism would not be able to transact the business of the universe. The object of this discourse is to enquire whether the force of diamagnetism, which manifests itself as a repulsion of certain bodies by the poles of a magnet, is to be ranged as a polar force, beside that of magnetism; or as an unpolar force, beside that of gravitation. When a cylinder of soft iron is placed within a wire helix, and surrounded by an electric current, the antithesis of its two ends, or, in other words, its polar excitation, is at once manifested by its action upon a magnetic needle; and it may be asked why a cylinder of bismuth may not be substituted for the cylinder of iron, and its state similarly examined. The reason is, that the excitement of the bismuth is so feeble, that it would be quite masked by that of the helix in which it is enclosed; and the problem that now meets us is, so to excite a diamagnetic body that the pure action of the body upon a magnetic needle may be observed, unmixed with the action of the body used to excite the diamagnetic. How this has been effected may be illustrated in the following manner: