magnet. When this change is made, and the poles become magnetic, the motion of the top is very speedily brought to rest, just as if it had to encounter a species of invisible friction. This curious result can easily be explained. We have seen from Art. 101 that a magnet resembles an assemblage of electric currents, and in the metallic top we have a conductor alternately approaching these currents and receding from them; and hence, according to what has been said, we shall have a series of secondary currents produced in the conducting top which will stop its motion, and which will ultimately take the shape of heat. In other words, the visible energy of the top will be changed into heat just as truly as if it were stopped by ordinary friction.
144. The electricity induced in a metallic conductor, moved in the presence of a powerful magnet, has received the name of Magneto-Electricity; and Dr. Joule has made use of it as a convenient means of enabling him to determine the mechanical equivalent of heat, for it is into heat that the energy of motion of the conductor is ultimately transformed. But, besides all this, these currents form, perhaps, the very best means of obtaining electricity; and recently very powerful machines have been constructed by Wild and others with this view.
145. These machines, when large, are worked by a steam-engine, and their mode of operation is as follows:—The nucleus of the machine is a system of powerful permanent steel magnets, and a conducting coil is made
