The absence of evidence as to chemical action seemed still to disquiet him. He wanted to be sure that his induced currents would do everything that ordinary voltaic currents would do. Failing the final proof from chemical action, he rested the case on the other identical properties. “But an agent,” he says, “which is conducted along metallic wires in the manner described; which, whilst so passing, possesses the peculiar magnetic actions and force of a current of electricity; which can agitate and convulse the limbs of a frog; and which, finally, can produce a spark by its discharge through charcoal, can only be electricity. As all the effects can be produced by ferruginous electro-magnets, there is no doubt that arrangements like the magnets of Professors Moll, Henry, Ten Eyke, and others, in which as many as two thousand pounds have been lifted, may be used for these experiments; in which case not only a brighter spark may be obtained, but wires also ignited, and as the currents can pass liquids, chemical action be produced. These effects are still more likely to be obtained when the magneto-electric arrangements, to be explained in the fourth section, are excited by the powers of such apparatus.” The apparatus described in the fourth section comprised several forms of magneto-electric machines, that is to say, primitive kinds of dynamos. Having in his mind the phenomenon discovered by Arago, and the experiments of Babbage and Herschel on the so-called magnetism of rotation, he followed up the idea that these effects might be due to induced currents eddying round in the copper disc. No sooner had he obtained electricity from magnets than he attempted to make Arago’s experiment a new source of electricity, and, as he himself says, “did not despair” “of being able to construct a new electrical machine.” [Illustration: FIG. 6. (FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL SKETCH.)] [Sidenote: A NEW ELECTRICAL MACHINE.]