In the present year Mr. Gassiot, Vice-President of the Royal Society, has shown that the stratified character of the electric discharge is remarkably developed in the Torricellian vacuum. Among the various experiments made by that gentleman two may be selected as strongly illustrative of this new and singular property of electrical light. In a closed glass tube about an inch internal diameter and 38 inches long, in which a vacuum had been made, two platinum wires were hermetically sealed, 32 inches apart, and connected with the poles of an inductive battery. The luminous appearance at the two poles was very different when electricity passed through the wires. A glow surrounded the negative pole, and in close approximation to the glow a well-defined dark space appeared, while from the positive pole or wire the light proceeded in a stream; but unless the charge be great or the tube short, the stream will not extend to the black band, which is totally different from the intervening space. When discharges of electricity were sent through this vacuum tube a series of bands or stratifications were formed which were concave towards the positive pole; and as in the changes in making and breaking the circuit the electricity emanates from the different terminals or wires, their concavities were in opposite directions. When instead of platinum wires narrow tinfoil coatings were placed round the exterior of the glass tube and connected with the wires of the battery, brilliant stratifications filled the interior of the tube between the foil coatings, but no dark band appeared. At present Mr. Gassiot is inclined to believe that the dark band is due to interference; but that the stratifications arise from pulsations or impulses of a force acting in a highly attenuated but resisting medium, for even with the best air-pumps it is impossible to make a perfect void; he is still occupied with experiments on this new subject, and no doubt will obtain very remarkable results, of which none can be more extraordinary than his discovery of the powerful influence of the magnet on this electric light. The stratifications are formed in rapid succession in the tube with platinum wires and are turned different ways, but they can be separated at any part of the tube by the pole of a magnet round which the whole stratifications have a tendency to revolve. In the second experiment, where the tinfoil was used, the discharge was divided in two by the pole of a magnet, and the two parts had a tendency to rotate round the magnet in opposite directions.