| RefNo | AP/32/20 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Unpublished paper, 'The electric and magnetic fluids' by William Ford Stevenson |
| Date | 1 May 1850 |
| Description | Stevenson suggests that electricity is a single undecomposable fluid, and that the distinction usually made into vitreous and resinous, or positive and negative electricities, is derived altogether from the direction of its motion and the circumstances under which it is presented; and, according as it is found on a conducting or non-conducting body, it is positive in the former case and negative in the latter. The quality of the electricity is, according to Stevenson, modified by the form of the conducting body, which, when globular, opposes its escape; but, when pointed, facilitates its passage in a current. He considers the magnetic fluid as obeying the same laws as the electric fluid, that is, moving in a current, which when aided, and not interrupted, will always be found positive, or having a north pole, at that end of the conductor or magnet where the fluid is escaping; and negative, or with a southern polarity, at the opposite extremity.
Subject: Electricity / Magnetism
Written by Stevenson at the Royal York Hotel, Sidmouth [Devon, England].
Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 5 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the supposed properties of the electric and magnetic fluids'. |
| Extent | 13p |
| Format | Manuscript |
| PhysicalDescription | Ink on paper |
| Digital images | View item on Science in the Making |
| AccessStatus | Open |
| RelatedMaterial | DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1843.0022 |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA3728 | Stevenson; William Ford (- 1852) | - 1852 |