are then produced in the substance by the action of a magnet or of an electric current, the plane of polarization of the transmitted light is found to be changed, and to be turned through an angle depending on the intensity of the magnetizing force within we substance.
The direction of this rotation in diamagnetic substances is the same as that in which positive electricity must circulate round the substance in order to produce the actual magnetizing force within it; or if we suppose the horizontal part of terrestrial magnetism to be the magnetizing force acting on the substance, the plane of polarization would be turned in the direction of the earth's true rotation, that is, from west upwards to east.
In paramagnetic substances, M. Verdet[1] has found that the plane of polarization is turned in the opposite direction, that is, in the direction in which negative electricity would flow if the magnetization were effected by a helix surrounding the substance.
In both cases the absolute direction of the rotation is the same, whether the light passes from north to south or from south to north,— a fact which distinguishes this phenomenon from the rotation produced by quartz, turpentine, &c., in which the absolute direction of rotation is reversed when that of the light is reversed. The rotation in the latter case, whether related to an axis, as in quartz, or not so related, as in fluids, indicates a relation between the direction of the ray and the direction of rotation, which is similar in its formal expression to that between the longitudinal and rotatory motions of a right-handed or a left-handed screw; and it indicates some property of the substance the mathematical form of which exhibits right-handed or left-handed relations, such as are known to appear in the external forms of crystals having these properties. In the magnetic rotation no such relation appears, but the direction of rotation is directly connected with that of the magnetic lines, in a way which seems to indicate that magnetism is really a phenomenon of rotation.
The transference of electrolytes in fixed directions by the electric current, and the rotation of polarized light in fixed directions by magnetic force, are the facts the consideration of which has induced me to regard magnetism as a phenomenon of rotation, and electric currents as phenomena of translation, instead of following out the analogy pointed out by Helmholtz, or adopting the theory propounded by Professor Challis.
The theory that electric currents are linear, and magnetic forces rotatory phenomena, agrees so far with that of Ampère and Weber; and the hypothesis that the magnetic rotations exist wherever magnetic force extends, that the centrifugal force of these rotations accounts for magnetic attractions, and that the inertia of
- ↑ Comptes Rendus, vol. xliii. p. 529; vol. xliv. p. 1209.
